After serving as head coach and athletic director at Holtville for the past seven seasons, Jason Franklin announced his retirement following the 2023 football season.He has been a mainstay in the Tallapoosa Publishers region for almost his entire career. Before his seven-year stint in Slapout, Franklin was the head coach at Horseshoe Bend for nine seasons and an assistant for another three years. Before that, he was an assistant coach at Goshen for three years.Franklin ended his head coaching career with 71 wins between the two schools in his 16 years. He recorded 34 wins at Horseshoe Bend and 37 at Holtville with four winning seasons.“I’ve enjoyed coaching all these years and I think when you get to make the decision, it’s better than someone else making it,” Franklin said upon his retirement. “You look at the nature of the industry and there’s three things that happen to a coach. You either get fired, you move to a different school or you can retire. This right here, I get to go out on my own terms and not somebody else’s.”While with the Generals, Franklin coached the team to three playoff appearances in nine seasons, including an 8-3 run in 2012, which is the highest win total in HBHS football history.That year, Franklin’s team set the school record for points scored in a game with 61 and most points scored in a season with 403 and its six games won in a row are still a school record.He then made the “life-changing decision” to make the move to Holtville. He took over a football program that had won four games in four seasons prior to him coming and took the Bulldogs to six playoff appearances in the last six seasons.He also took over a girls’ basketball team that was on the verge of ending its program and helped lead them to a school-record 27 wins last season and the first playoff appearance in school history.
