Photo by Jeffery Hall
When Jay Sharrett took his first job as an educator teaching driver’s ed in Whitehall, he could never have imagined he would end up leading one of the most successful high school football programs in Ohio over the last two decades.
He is now headed into retirement after a legendary career and he and his wife, Lynda – though they will certainly miss Tiger football – are looking forward to the opportunity to relax.
“It’s time,” both Jay and Lynda say.
Getting Started
Jay attributes his success to relationships and loyalty, and it is no wonder why, as personal connections helped guide him through his early years in education.
Jay played on both sides of the ball at Capital University, where he – the youngest of seven kids – became the first member of his family to earn a college degree. It was also where he met his wife, Lynda.
Thirty-five years ago, while teaching at Whitehall, Jay ran into an old coach from Circleville Middle School and found out that Pickerington needed a driver’s ed teacher, and he worked his way into the position.
“I didn’t even know what Pickerington was back then. I didn’t even know where it was,” he says.
Jay became defensive coordinator at Pickerington High School, and when the schools split into North and Central, he was chosen to be Central’s first head coach in the 2003 season.
He became a history and government teacher at the school, which he jokes is stereotypical of football-coaching teachers.
As Jay settled in to the community, he discovered he already had connections here. One of his longtime friends grew up in Pickerington and some of his teammates from Capital had moved here as well.
“Some of the guys called me and they’re like, ‘Jay, can we help out on Friday nights on the sidelines?’ And they’ve been with me 20 years since,” Jay says.
The Sharretts poured everything they had into Pickerington Central in the hopes that they would have no regrets when the time to step away finally came. And they succeeded.
Jay and Lynda share an unparalleled commitment to getting everything right and giving Pickerington the best possible gridiron experience.
“We spent almost every weekend over at the field cutting it, measuring it, spraying it. He’d spray his own lines,” Lynda says. “We poured everything into it. … We’d pick up trash every weekend, always made it clean, clean the locker room on the weekends. All kinds of stuff.”
Lynda has been making the football programs for almost 20 years and served as program director of the Tigers’ booster club.
For a few years, the Sharretts’ lives were a whirlwind. In 2017, the Tigers won the OHSAA Division I State Championship. Then, Lynda was diagnosed with cancer in 2018 and battled it throughout the year. As she battled, Lynda had to miss every game – and the game missed her. After a playoff win late in the season, the entire team diverted their route to stop at the Sharrett household to give the game ball to Lynda. The Tigers fell just short of the championship in 2018, but made it up the very next year and won their second state title in 2019, with Lynda healthy in the bleachers to see the Tigers’ successful run.
“She is no doubt the first lady of Tiger football,” Jay says.
Their faces are among the most recognizable in town, to the point that Lynda must do the grocery shopping while Jay waits in the car.
“I’ve gone in with her a few times, and don’t get me wrong, we love running into people, but you’ll be in the grocery store three hours,” Jay says.
Central football is practically in the Sharretts’ blood now, and every minute has been a family affair for Jay, Lynda and their two daughters, Megan and Emily, who are both Central graduates.
Jay and Lynda agree it was a very special time when their daughters were at Central. Both of their daughters were very involved at the school. Emily was a cheerleader on the sidelines for Tiger football games and both she and Megan were cross-country runners.
Meets were always scheduled during Jay’s weekly scouting reports. When he had the opportunity, however, he didn’t miss the chance to see his girls run.
“I would go to all the away meets and we had one at Central,” Lynda says, “and there would be Jay on the Gator at a certain spot to cheer them on.”
An Impressive Resume
If you ask Jay how he has been so successful, he can put it into one word: “loyalty.”
“I mean, it’s two words,” Jay says. “Loyalty and loyalty.”
That takes sacrifice, he says, but it’s a sacrifice he’s made for Pickerington for 20 years.
“Loyalty is something that’s uncomfortable in our society today. Loyalty and integrity. But loyalty means you have to surrender yourself and that’s very difficult in our society, but fortunately, our coaching staff has done that,” he says.
He was the first coach to reach 200 wins in less than 20 seasons as a head coach in Ohio and never lost to a team with a losing record.
He says that while he takes the job very seriously, he has not lost the joy that athletics brings. He and Lynda also very much enjoy the pageantry and appreciate how much the community rallies behind the football teams.
“We get tremendous home crowds,” Jay says, “We get bigger home crowds now than we did when we were one school. And then our kids. Every week is like a pep rally.”
It may be impossible to quantify the home crowd’s impact, but the stats are illuminating. Dave Bristle, a longtime member of Central staff who “knows all things Central” according to Jay, found that the school has won 106 home games in the last 20 years, and lost just six.
Maintaining success puts a lot of pressure on young athletes, but Jay says that he tells his players not to shy away from pressure, but to absorb it and use it as motivation.
Photo by Jeffery Hall
That advice is most important during the week that Central athletes’ and fans’ attention is, like a compass, pointed north.
The Sharretts’ final home game was a playoff win against the rival Panthers, making for a poetic conclusion to a storied career. They’ve maintained an appreciation of relationships with players, coaches, families and the school.
When Jay went to see the field before his final home game, he said that Lynda was sitting alone in the stands well before kickoff, emotionally soaking in her last bout with pregame butterflies. She took pictures of everything that final game and shared them with their daughters.
“That’s what really made that game special, and we were fortunate enough to win that game, and getting Pickerington North made it an even bigger game,” Jay says. “But, walking up that hill, I just remember thinking this was what it was supposed to feel like.”
Jay says he is looking forward to getting off the grid and being able to relax for a weekend, finally getting to watch football games that he hasn’t had to prepare for all week for.
“This is what I like: I like when moms that come up to me after the end of the season, and they’ve got tears in their eyes because they know that Tiger football is over for them,” Jay says. “And I like it because once they know their son’s played their last game, it hurts and it’s supposed to. But they’ve had a great experience. They’ve played a lot of football. They’ve enjoyed really high moments, you know, they’ve picked themselves up when things haven’t gone right.”
Lynda was ill in ’18 with cancer. And we were both sideways, like how the hell do you handle that, right?” Jay says. “And if it wasn’t for our Tiger football family, our coaches, parents of players that had already graduated, getting through the radiation, the chemo, I was probably one pickup truck drive away from resigning because it was just too much. Jeff Lomonico, he’s our new head coach, but he was our defensive coordinator for over 25 years. Ryan Daugherty and Dave Bristle, these guys rallied and their wives rallied and former players’ families got us through. And now, she just had a screening and she’s four and a half years cancer-free.
Tyler Kirkendall is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback Welcome at tkirkendall@cityscenemediagroup.com
