People gathered at the Tomato Bowl on Monday to welcome new Jacksonville athletic director and football head coach Jason Holman on Monday.

After 25 years of coaching, Jason Holman is back home.

The 1990 Jacksonville High School graduate was hired on Jan. 10 as the new head football coach and athletic director for Jacksonville. He officially started his role on Thursday and was formally introduced to the media and others Monday afternoon at the historic Tomato Bowl.

“It feels great,” Holman said. “I’m very excited about the opportunity. I’ve got a lot of fond memories out there at that stadium that’s behind you. Just the opportunity to come back and coach my hometown is a great feeling.”

The Tomato Bowl has had several changes with a renovation in 2019.

“The last time I was here was the Fall of 2015 when I was at Lufkin coaching on the opposing sideline,” Holman said. “And we were walking in about a foot of mud trying to coach from the sidelines. Quite a bit of improvement has gone on here since I was here last.

“It’s a beautiful facility, if not one of the best venues in East Texas. It’s just an exciting place to call home.”

Holman finished in the Top 10 of his class and excelled in football, basketball and track. He then lettered all four years playing football at Stephen F. Austin State University. Holman graduated from SFA with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree and completed his Masters in Education Administration.

Holman coached playoff teams at Cypress-Fairbanks, Chapel Hill and Lufkin before becoming a head coach for the first time at Tatum in 2019.

In Holman’s three seasons with the Eagles, Tatum was 19-12 with playoff appearances in 2020 and 2021.

“The opportunity at Tatum was an awesome one,” Holman said. “It gave me an opportunity to get my feet wet as a head football coach. We were able to have some success there. There are a lot of parallels to coming in and starting this new position. There were things that had to be done at Tatum that are going to have to be done at Jacksonville. It’s kind of the same floor plan, so to speak. I’ll be drawing from those experiences quite a bit. Hopefully we can get things going here kind of like we got them going there.

“It all starts with the bare fundamentals and hard work, putting your head down and going to work. It’s about committing to what you’re doing to the point that it becomes important. Then from that, you understand how much hard work you put in and why you put it in to begin with.”

Holman said his son, Jared, will be a freshman and will be a third generation Indian. Holman and his wife, JJ, also have a daughter, Jordan.

Now, Holman will just have to wait until the season begins in August and that first Friday night at the Tomato Bowl.

“I spent many Friday nights out on a football field, but being back home for this one, I don’t know how it’s going to feel,” Holman said. “I hope we get 11 on the field for the first kickoff or first kickoff return. That will be the No. 1 goal. I think there will be a genuine excitement, I know there will be from me, just having the opportunity to come home and coach and being on that home sideline as a coach for the first time.”

Jacksonville will scrimmage Kaufman and Bullard. The season opener will be Aug. 26 at Sulphur Springs. The first home game will be Sept. 2 against Whitehouse. The Indians will close non-district with games against Crandall and Pine Tree before getting into district play. The district schedule for the Indians is Athens, at Kilgore, Chapel Hill, at Palestine, Lindale and at Henderson.