HSFT Stop #5: Tupelo Christian Preparatory School
BELDEN, MS (WCBI) – TCPS did not have the season they had hoped for in 2024.
A quick one-and-done playoff run also ended with the school needing to find a new head coach. In comes Trent Hammond, the longtime Tupelo Golden Wave head man who was out of the coaching scene until this spring, and though the veteran is moving down from 6A to 1A, Hammond believes that the game doesn’t change.
“Football is football,” Hammond said. “Years ago, when I took a job in 6A, I had a guy say, ‘Hey, you’ve always been a small school guy, are you going to be able to handle it at the big school level?’. This is really just coming back home. I started 30-something years ago as 1a down at Bogue Chitto, man, it’s been great so far. I’ve loved it. You get really close with your kids and get to be with the same guys all day long, and it’s been fun.”
Hammond led a tough Golden Wave team to the state finals in 2013. But now with the private Christian school in the same town, Hammond feels that his team has a bit of a stigma that he knows they will break.
“We’ll play physical and we’ll play fast and we’ll have fun. That’s what I tell the kids we’re going to do. We’re gonna show up and show our fight. You know, we’re going to show our fight today and every day that we show up. We’ve kinda taken that soft moniker that people want to use, and we’ve used it and we’ve tagged it ourselves as ‘we’re gonna show our fight today’. We want to come in, we want to play ball, and be sound, and we wanna do it the right way. We are a Christian school, we want to glorify god while we do it, but at the same time we want to be a physical, hit you in the face football team.”
The players have certainly embraced and seen the change that Hammond has brought to the team this summer. Both on and off the field, it’s clear that Hammond has changed the culture at TCPS. Tight end Jax Coker was on last year’s team, and even though the 2025 Eagles are just going through summer workouts, he certainly can feel a different culture around the team.
“I’m really excited for what he’s going to bring to the season,” Coker said. “I feel like it’s gonna be different than last year. We’re going to have a different mindset on the field for Friday nights for sure. I’d say we feel more together instead of spread apart and doing stuff for ourselves. It feels much different than last year.”
Offensive and defensive lineman Jake Franklin Ramsey has also felt a change in culture. He has seen it first hand in his teammates, who he says, have been working as hard as ever.
“There’s a bunch of guys that just have been putting in a lot of work in the weight room, which completely changes the way you play the game,” Ramsey said. “I couldn’t put a single focus on anybody because everybody’s been working hard.”
The Hammond era at Tupelo Christian Preparatory School will begin on August 29 against East Union.
