LEGACY COMPLETE: Perry known as a winner and fighter in long coaching career

Perry led St. James to its lone state championship in 2022 but enjoyed success at nearly every other school he coached in his long career. (File Photo)

By TIM GAYLE

Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Perry, who brought St. James its only football state championship, passed away on Saturday night after a battle with cancer.

He was 68.

Perry’s legacy and Hall of Fame career as a coach was built on success at several different schools but the biggest came when he led the Trojans to the state title in 2022.

He battled health issues for several years but his latest bout with cancer surfaced just before the start of the 2025 football season, forcing him to miss football games for the first time in his life. He retired from a 43-year career in coaching after the 2022 season, but continued to see the Trojans at home football games in 2023 and 2024 and never wavered in his love for the sport.

“Coach Jimmy Perry has left an incredible legacy, not only in his achievements on the field, but as a man of character,” stated Dr Larry McLemore, the head of St. James Head of School.

“His leadership has shaped so many lives through his focus on what matters most and giving countless hours to mentoring and building up others. Jimmy will be deeply missed and his mark on our school community is lasting.”

Perry, a native of Montgomery, had no plans to get into coaching before he landed his first job as an assistant coach at Trinity Presbyterian in 1979 just months after earning a bachelor’s degree from Auburn University.

“I did my student teaching with Charlie Williamson, when he was an assistant at Jeff Davis,” Perry said. “Then Charlie took the Trinity job and hired me straight out of college. I had a ball. I always figured I would coach awhile, make a lot of contacts and get into the business world, but it never happened. It’s fun working with these kids every day.

“You’ve got to love it if you stay in it because you don’t make enough money. You make a lot more money in the private sector, but if you enjoy what you do every day, you never work a day in your life.”

A 1975 graduate of Robert E. Lee, he returned to his alma mater after a three-year stint at Trinity, hired by Bo Boswell in 1982 to coach offensive linemen for the Generals. He was elevated to offensive coordinator soon after Spence McCracken arrived in 1984 and the pair transformed the program into the state’s most dominant high school team for nearly a decade before McCracken left for Opelika in 1995.

Perry took over for McCracken in 1995, leading the Generals to five playoff appearances in five years, including two trips to the state quarterfinals and a berth in the 6A finals in 1999. His best coaching job came in 1997 when he coached the Generals to a 9-3 record and the second round of the playoffs as he fought off failing kidneys. The loss to Central-Phenix City in the second round turned out to be a blessing as he entered the hospital three days later for a kidney transplant, missing just nine days of work in the process.

He lost in overtime to Clay-Chalkville in the 1999 finals, then left Lee the following summer to join Tommy Tuberville’s staff at Auburn, first as director of NFL relations, then director of football operations from 2000-2008.

He returned to the high school ranks at St. Paul’s Episcopal in 2009-11, then took a job at St. James in 2012. In 19 years as a head coach, he compiled a 157-69 record. Most remarkably, 17 of his 19 teams earned playoff berths, including the last nine at St. James.

“He’s an outstanding man, first of all,” former Lee running back and current St. James athletic director Larry Ware said in a 2022 interview. “He’s an outstanding husband and father and he’s an outstanding leader. I don’t want to call him a coach because he’s been doing it so long, he is more than just a coach. He’s a leader of young men. A lot of what’s going on in the industry, he has it figured out. He has trusted his gut instinct and all the knowledge he has acquired over the years to lead and guide him through his spirituality and his coaching career. It has led to success everywhere he has been. The coaching world will be different in Alabama without him in it.”

Perry is the fourth winningest coach in Robert E. Lee history with 38 wins, behind McCracken (117), Tom Jones (104) and Jim Chafin (51). All four are in the Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame.

He won more games than any other coach coach in St. James history finishing with a 92-37 record in 11 years the state title in ‘22, the first state for a Capital City Conference football program since 2003.

The school announced in December it will hold a dedication ceremony this fall naming the stadium in Perry’s honor.

While health issues had continued to plague him from time to time since his 1997 kidney transplant, he kept the focus on the players and only those closest to him knew the challenges he endured.

In 2016, an open date in the 10th week of the season allowed him to recover from a heart attack he suffered as he tried to prepare his team for the playoffs. In 2020, he had a tumorous kidney removed just two weeks before the start of the season and returned in time to coach the Trojans against Montgomery Academy.

He had planned to retire after the 2021 season, but elected to return in 2022 and led the Trojans to a 13-2 record and a win over Piedmont in the 3A state finals. Still, he needed 15 days of radiation on his lymph nodes through the month of September, quietly getting treatments in Alexander City before he was driven to school as he kept his condition a secret from his players.

“Through all of the medical issues he has gone through, I got to know him even better, him and his wife (Judy), and they’re super, super people,” former Alabama coach Mike DuBose said in a 2022 interview. “He’s gone through an awful lot and in the process of doing that he’s given back a lot to people, the game of football, the people who play and the people who care about football. He’s a real ambassador for the game, a class act.”

Cancer resurfaced in two different areas just prior to the 2025 season, making recovery a difficult, if not impossible, task. Still, as Perry always did, he handled his illness with a spiritual approach.

“The good Lord’s got this,” Perry said. “I don’t have it, He does. No amount of worrying is going to make it better. Just turn it all over to Him.”

Arrangements for Perry’s services will be announced later.