BEULAVILLE — Tim Jenkins is back at East Duplin High School, where he started his teaching and coaching career in 1996.
And the 40-year-old Jenkins was content with just being at the school following his move to Beulaville last week after a one-year stint at South Lenoir. He was happy returning to East Duplin as a teacher and an assistant football coach after being at the school for five years before later working at other schools.
“I’m just glad to be here,” Jenkins said. “I started out here in ’96 and my first job here was doing in-school suspension. I’m just glad to be here in whatever capacity. I was here for five years and I met a lot of people in the community. I just enjoyed it here.”
It didn’t take long, however, for Jenkins to take over a head coaching job for the Panthers.
He was named East Duplin’s head baseball coach Thursday, just two days after his first official day as an East Duplin teacher. Jenkins replaces Scott Lewis, who resigned last Tuesday to accept a teaching job at Sampson Middle School.
“I’m excited about it,” said Jenkins, who will also teach physical education. “When (a teaching position at East Duplin) opened up, I had no idea we would be talking about coaching baseball. I found out about the baseball situation after coach Lewis had resigned.
“There’s excitement, but also a little bit of nervous energy because we are a little behind. We are getting ready to start in two or three weeks and I don’t know any of the kids. So there’s a lot of things going on in a short amount of time.”
East Duplin athletic director Robert Ross is glad to have Jenkins on board.
“He’s a good fit for not just as a baseball coach, but a good fit for the community,” Ross said. “Baseball-wise, he did a great job with the program at South Lenoir. He’s a good fit all the way around for the athletic department, from football to baseball, to teaching to being someone positive in the community.”
Jenkins, married and a father of three children, previously worked at East Duplin for five years, serving an assistant football coach, head JV baseball coach and head varsity baseball coach during different time spans.
He went on to teach and coach at James Kenan High for two years before being at Wallace-Rose Hill High for nine years and South Lenoir for one year.
He was South Lenoir’s head football and baseball coach. The Blue Devils’ baseball team last year went 18-7 overall and shared the East Central 2-A Conference title with Topsail at 11-3 before losing to Whiteville in the second round of the NCHSAA playoffs.
Last football season, South Lenoir was 1-10 overall and 0-7 in the ECC.
Now, Jenkins hopes to develop a relationship with his new baseball players as they prepare for the season. The Panthers, who went 10-13 overall and 6-8 in the ECC before losing to North Pitt in the first round of the playoffs, open official practice Feb. 13 and the season March 1 at Wallace-Rose Hill.
“I’ve had two meetings with the kids,” Jenkins said. “We can’t do anything the last five days of the semester because of exams, but we will come back after we start second semester. We will have some workouts with eight at a time so I can get to know them as best I can over a short amount of time. We will go from there.”