Plainfield East hires Bolingbrook assistant Harvey Jackson to lead program

Plainfield East has appeared to be on the brink of a breakthrough for quite some time.

Yet for whatever reason it hasn’t happened for the Bengals, who despite having made four playoff appearances have never won a playoff game since the program began in 2009.

If new coach Harvey Jackson sticks to his convictions, that pattern is going to change sooner rather than later.

Jackson, most recently an assistant coach at Bolingbrook, was approved as Plainfield East’s next head coach at the district board meeting Monday night. Jackson replaces Brad Kunz, who stepped down earlier this spring and is now an assistant at Minooka. Kunz put together a 15-19 record over four seasons with two playoff appearances.

Jackson will be making his official debut as a head coach in August, although he also served as Bolingbrook’s interim head coach last season during an illness for head coach John Ivlow.

Jackson’s staff will not be inexperienced by any stretch of the imagination. The group of assistant coaches Jackson plans to bring with him has amassed over 100 years of coaching experience. That includes Ivlow, who will reverse roles with Jackson. Ivlow amassed 158 wins and a 2011 Class 8A State Championship while leading Bolingbrook.

“The staff I’m bringing with me is going to be the reason why we’ll be able to get to where we got to go and get there quick,” Jackson said. “There’s a physical coach for every position and we’re talking some top-notch, solid coaches. And the kids are gonna benefit because they will have a dedicated coach to help them perfect their techniques and understand what it is that we’re asking from them in order for them to be successful.”

Jackson served as offensive coordinator last season for a high-octane Raider attack last season and expects to bring the same concepts to the Bengals.

“We’ll try to make sure we bring a lot more of that back into the program,” Jackson said. “So it’s going to be exciting. We won’t be boring football, we’re gonna really get after it.”

Jackson got a taste of whether or not he wanted to run his own program during the interim stint last season. It confirmed what he already knew deep down.

“It cemented it,” Jackson said. “Coach Ivlow was already sort of grooming me to take over at Bolingbrook, so I was already experiencing some of the duties that a head coach takes on. And once I wasn’t given the opportunity, I realized that I needed to seek an opportunity outside of Bolingbrook and just more than appreciative that Plainfield East saw something that Coach Ivlow saw in me in regards to me taking over a program.”

Jackson also has a wide resource base to draw upon, which includes his brother Reggie Johnson, currently the linebacker coach at Missouri State. Johnson has also coached at Arkansas, Purdue, Western Kentucky and Louisville, where he was a four-year letterman as a linebacker.

“My brother has been coaching Division I and has been doing it 20-plus years... where he’s been to see how its done at that level,” Jackson said. “And you know at that point, obviously it has a lot more of a business element to it.

“So I think this is a great opportunity before you get to that point to still have fun. Playing high school football because you’re going to remember it for the rest of your life. .... We’re probably going to have a lot more excitement on the offensive side of the football.”