New Lexington's Jim Rockwell headed to Ohio Coaches Hall of Fame in 2027
The short version
- Jim Rockwell will be inducted into the OHSFCA Hall of Fame on June 11, 2027, in Columbus
- Recognition comes at halftime of New Lexington's Sept. 25 game vs. Tri-Valley at the stadium named for Rockwell
- Rockwell went 136-30 at New Lexington (1959-76) with 10 MVL football titles and eight straight from 1969-76
- Son Jim Rockwell Jr. blames a 'good ol' boy network' among voters for the five-decade wait
- Rockwell Jr., the lone surviving immediate family member, will represent the family
More than 50 years after he left the sideline, the late New Lexington coach will enter the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame, with recognition set for Sept. 25.
The family of Jim Rockwell learned this summer that the longtime New Lexington coach will join the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame as part of its 2027 class. The formal induction is scheduled for June 11, 2027, in Columbus. The honor will also be acknowledged at halftime of New Lexington's Sept. 25 home game against Tri-Valley, played at the stadium that bears Rockwell's name, alongside the latest New Lex Athletic Hall of Fame class.
Rockwell died in 1985, nine years after stepping away from coaching. His wife and daughter have also passed away, leaving his son, Jim Rockwell Jr., as the only surviving member of the immediate family. Rockwell Jr., a New Lex Hall of Fame member who lives in the Akron area with his wife, will represent the family at the ceremonies. He described himself as "ecstatic" that the recognition finally arrived, while believing it should have come decades earlier.
The coaching record backs up that view. Rockwell went 136-30 at New Lexington from 1959 through 1976, a stretch that included 10 league titles in football and seven Coach of the Year awards in the MVL. His 1970 team finished 10-0 and claimed the Associated Press Class AA poll championship in the era before playoffs existed, and in 1976 he became the first MVL coach to reach the postseason, when only one team per region qualified. He also coached basketball for four years and built the track program into a powerhouse, winning 12 MVL track titles with five unbeaten seasons.
Rockwell Jr. credited a scheme change for much of that success. After visiting Massillon Washington, his father swapped the Robust T for the Power-I formation, ending a rough patch in the mid-1960s and launching a run of eight consecutive MVL championships from 1969 to 1976. Like his friend Woody Hayes at Ohio State, Rockwell was known for late nights spent studying film, and his son said no coach he saw matched his preparation and execution. "You win eight MVL titles in a row, and he didn't have material every year to do that," Rockwell Jr. said. "Not in Perry County."
The son believes a "good ol' boy network" among voting coaches in southern Ohio kept his father waiting. Rockwell began his coaching career in Ironton after playing at Marshall, where his service in the South Pacific during World War II came first, and Rockwell Jr. said grudges from that region lasted a generation. "They didn't want him in there," he said.
With many of those voters now gone, OHSFCA president Chad Grandstaff, who led Zanesville to two regional titles in the 2010s, pushed again for the election. An initial nomination in 2011 failed, and Judge Linton D. Lewis, a former Rockwell player, renominated him in 2022. Lewis delivered the news to Rockwell Jr. this summer. "After Linton called me, I sat in my car and wept for like 15 minutes," Rockwell Jr. said.
Rockwell's demanding style, which his son traced to his military background, was well documented. He told players not to embarrass themselves or him on Friday nights, backed by full-pad Saturday practices at 6 or 7 a.m., and in 1971 he made players run laps on the stadium track during the second half of a home game. Brent Barnhouse, son of assistant coach Larry Barnhouse, phoned Rockwell Jr. at his Muskingum dorm that night to say the coach had "gone crazy." Yet the son recalled that the toughness stopped at the final whistle, with his father putting an arm around players and telling them not to take his criticism home with them.
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