After spending more than 30 years as a college football coach, Jay Hopson is taking a new career path.

The Vicksburg native has been hired as the Director of Athletics for the Starkville Oktibbeha Consolidated School District, the school district announced Tuesday.

Hopson will oversee the administration and operation of one of Mississippi’s biggest high schools. Starkville High School has 19 sports programs in grades 7-12, and more than 600 of its nearly 1,200 students play a sport.

Hopson was most famously the football head coach at Alcorn State from 2012-15, and then Southern Miss from 2016-20. He led Alcorn to two Southwestern Athletic Conference championships and Southern Miss to two bowl games. In all, he had a 60-40 record as a head coach.

Hopson, however, has coached in various roles at 12 colleges during a career that began in 1992. Most recently he was the cornerbacks coach at South Alabama. Before that, he was on the staff at Mississippi State for two years as the director of high school relations.

The Warren Central graduate also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Ole Miss and a Master’s Degree in Education from Delta State. His wife, Michelle, previously taught in the Starkville Oktibbeha Consolidated School District while Hopson worked at Mississippi State.

The position with the SOCSD will be Jay Hopson’s first in high school athletics. He believes his vast experience at the college level can help Starkville’s high school athletes get there as well.

“Many high school student athletes have a desire to participate on the collegiate level,” Hopson said in a release from the SOCSD announcing the hire. “Because of how I’ve served in those institutions over the years, I can give them insight at an early age into what college coaches are looking for and what it takes to achieve that goal. But more importantly, I want our student athletes to be developed in a program which teaches core values that help them win outside of sports.”

Hopson also said that establishing a consistent culture and mindset among the school district’s coaches, teams and athletes is an important goal.

“I want to be a servant leader,” Hopson said. “Our coaches have to believe and push those core values I mentioned, and that starts with me. I want us to be successful in all sports, and I want them to have everything they need to succeed in competition, as well as in pushing students to be their best in every arena.”