Jackie Pettway has a long history with the YMCA, one that stretches back to her childhood.   ///  “I played YMCA basketball when I was a kid,” she said.   ///   That history continued when Pettway returned to Vicksburg after attending junior college in Florida on a softball scholarship. She played league volleyball at the Y until 2001.

Pettway is a Vicksburg native with roots she can trace back to the city’s founding. “I had a great-great-grandfather that was a teacher at Oak Ridge,” she said.  My great-grandfather and great-uncle were doctors in Warren County and Sharkey County.”
When Pettway’s children were old enough to start playing youth sports the choice was easy.
It’s the philosophy the Y emphasizes in youth sports that draws Pettway to volunteer her time to the organization. For nearly 10 years she has been coaching youth sports at the Y.
“I like the YMCA philosophy a lot better, other rec leagues the atmosphere is more about winning than developing the kids,” she said.
“Trying to develop youth at a younger age is the philosophy of the Y and trying to give them a really firm foundation, spiritually as well as athletics,” she said.
The YMCA’s goal in youth rec leagues is developing the fundamentals needed in the sport versus counting wins and losses.
“It’s a more laid back atmosphere and the focus is more on developing the kids than on just winning,” Pettway said.
Although the emphasis might be on teaching, the competition can be fierce.
Pettway stalks the sideline of the basketball court like she is coaching the championship game of the NCAA Final Four. Her face showing the ups and the downs of the game as the action plays out on the court.
“I was a very competitive person in high school,” she said “I’m a lot more laid back with my kids than I used to be.”
So competitiveness has been replaced with passion, passion for teaching and for making the game fun.
She is not alone on the sidelines as her assistant coach is her ex-husband, Walter Hallberg. “We’ve coached them in soccer, baseball and football also,” she said. “We focus on the best thing for the kids.”
In her book the best thing for the kids is to develop fundamentals and to enjoy playing the game. That hasn’t always been an easy thing for Pettway.
Pettway is the chief of the navigation division at the U.S. Army’s Engineer Research and Development Center. Her career path is in a science, technology, engineering and mathematics field. STEM is a male dominated world with only one female lab director at ERDC.
A competitive nature started early for Pettway as she played football for Redwood Elementary School.
“I went to Redwood and Warren Central, was involved in a lot of sports and activities there,” she said. “I played basketball with Donnie Fuller and he used to break clipboards.”
Fuller was head coach at Warren Central High School where he captured two state titles and seven district championships. He was elected into the Mississippi Association of Coaches Hall of Fame in 2014.
Pettway didn’t break any clipboards and when the game was over she didn’t rehash the game. She gathered up her two children, gave them a hug and headed out the door for dinner.