It seems to have worked. During her tenure as coach, her teams took twelve out of sixteen sectional titles (there was no sectional held in 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic), something of a girl’s track dynasty. But that dominance sprang from humble beginnings, and stands as a testament to Jackie’s dedication and skill.

 

Jackie’s coaching career actually began at St. Thomas School, where she volunteered as both a boy’s and girl’s track coach. Having two young sons in attendance there, in fifth and seventh grades, weighed heavily on her decision to pitch in and help out. “They weren’t going to have a program if someone didn’t take them,” she recalls. The first year, she coached fifth through eighth grade boys and girls, 37 in all. Among them were her sons, who were not exactly thrilled to have their mom as a coach. “Not at all,” Jackie laughs.

 

After five years building the program at St. Thomas, Jackie made the decision to leave it in the hands of others, but her passion for coaching never left her. When the Jasper County school district asked her to take over their girl’s track program, she jumped at the chance. Her first year at Newton Community High School, she coached just five young women – two sophomores, two juniors, and a senior. Though her team was small, they were dedicated and enthusiastic. A positive buzz began to spread through the student body about the program, and it quickly began to pick up steam.

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The growth of the girl’s track program at NCHS was no doubt due in no small part to Jackie’s coaching style. “I always tried to make things life lessons,” she says. “Because track practices aren’t going to carry through your life, but if you can sneak a life lesson in there once in a while, it’s a good thing.” Perseverance, self-discipline, and empathy are among the most important life lessons that participation in athletics can teach young people, but for Jackie, work ethic is perhaps the most important lesson of all. “That’s a big thing, because usually you get out of something what you put into it, and for kids to know that going forward, you hope that makes some sense to them,” she explains.

 

As a coach, Jackie not only talked the talk, but she walked the walk as well. She knew that she had to put in the work – at practice, and outside of practice – in order to give her athletes the best chance at success, what she calls “doing your due diligence”. As an example, she tells a story about how she would spend evenings with newspapers spread out all around her, pouring over the accounts of local meets and making notes about times achieved, records set, progress made and lost. She compiled all of that information and gathered all of that data in the hope that it might help her athletes tailor their training regimens, change their approach in some way or just gain some insight into a competitor, possibly making the difference between going home with a medal or going home empty-handed.

 

But being one of Jackie’s student-athletes was not all work and no play. “Make it fun, or those kids are gone. When I coached, we ate a lot of pizza,” she says with a grin. “It gives the girls a different bond. You’re not at practice, you’re out – they kind of cut loose a little bit.” Jackie knew that cutting loose together can create a bond among teammates that drives them to give the extra effort that can make all the difference. “I always tried to make it fun. We worked hard, because they had seen what happened before them, to kind of reap the rewards of what had happened before. They didn’t want to let anybody down. So for them to work harder, just seem to fall into line,” she recalls.

 

Jackie hasn’t only served as a coach and mentor to countless student-athletes over the years, but to at least one future colleague as well. She was once approached by a teacher who was considering taking over as track coach in a nearby town. “How do I know I will be any good at it?,” he asked her. The advice she gave was, predictably, “Make it fun.” If he made it fun, she told him, his success would be almost guaranteed. And this, in fact, turned out to be the case. Those four sectional titles that Jackie’s teams failed to secure? They were all won by teams coached by the man to whom she gave this sage advice, Troy Bierman. Troy would later go on to become a science teacher and basketball coach right here at Newton Community High School.

 

The other piece of advice Jackie gave to Bierman was to ask himself, “Would I do it for free?” If he could answer ‘yes’ to that question, then she was convinced he had what it took to take on the job and be a success at it. “What I got paid, I probably spent most of it on the team,” she remembers. But a commitment to the team, without regard for compensation, is what characterizes good coaches like Jackie and Troy. Very few get into education or coaching for the money, and if they do, they probably don’t last long. It’s those like Jackie, who do it with a passion and for the good of the young men and women in their charge that stick it out and make a difference in the lives of their student-athletes.

 

Jackie is retired from coaching now, but is in no way done trying to improve the lives of Jasper County students. She was recently elected to fill a seat on the Jasper County CUSD #1 Board of Education. The fact that three of her five grandchildren attend Jasper County schools was a big part of her decision to run, but it is something she has talked about for years. “For seventeen years, I’d see something and go, ‘Why do we do that in that way? Could we maybe do it better? Maybe when I’m done coaching, I’ll run for school board’,” she says.

 

Her time spent working in the district was an ideal prelude to her service on the board, allowing her to see issues from a different perspective. “One of the pluses I have is that I was in this building, the High School/Junior High, for seventeen years. So, I had an inside look at stuff, where some of the other school board members did not have that,” she says. She sees more communication about what’s going on in the schools to be key in further strengthening the already outstanding school/community relationship. “It’s very tight-knit,” she says of the Jasper County community. “I think the community takes great pride in our schools and our student-athletes.” However, she wants to dispel the notion some people have that if they have no children in the district, they can’t be directly involved with the schools. “All they see is that multiplier on their tax bill that goes to the schools, they don’t [always] see what good comes out of it.”

 

Jackie cites the district’s elementary mentoring program as one example. The program pairs elementary-age children with an adult who meets with them, one-on-one, to give them whatever help and guidance they may need. “It’s a support system for some of those kids who maybe don’t have that at home,” Jackie says. “That’s definitely a plus for some of those kids, to have someone that’s one-on-one with them, even if it’s only an hour a week.” She goes on to point out that participation in the program is an ideal way for district residents, perhaps retirees with life experience and time on their hands, to get involved with the schools. During her coaching career, she saw what a huge difference a little individualized attention can make for a child. “I had girls that would come to me with problems outside of track. That was rewarding for me, to know that I had that connection with the girls on the team.” She would like for more people to be able to feel that rewarding feeling by taking just a little time to make a connection with a student.

 

Coach, colleague, mentor, friend, and now school board member – Jackie Schackmann has worn many hats and filled many roles in her career in the Jasper County schools. The common thread that weaves through it all, though, is this: a singular focus on service and a dedication to the students of Jasper County, for which she should be proud – and we should be very grateful.