Q&A: 2024 Jonesboro-Hodge LB Xavier Atkins

Jonesboro-Hodge made its deepest playoff run in decades this fall before falling in the Class 2A semifinals to eventual champion Amite. The Tigers’ talent from the senior class down to the underclassmen became clear throughout the memorable run. But sophomore linebacker [player_tooltip player_id="285191" first="Xavier" last="Atkins"], who broke out as a rising star with his 219-tackle season, emphasized the underlying impact of a tragic car accident last summer, the way the team galvanized together to cope and continue to keep their lost classmates at heart. <iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QuiLLwTSik8" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> <strong>What’s been going on? How have the past few months gone for you? I know you’ve caught a low of fanfare on the tail end of that. What has been like to see you and your team rise to the forefront?</strong> "It’s been different. When we did that, we had a lot of people behind us, and we had a good season. A lot of stuff’s changed throughout the months, like a lot of colleges have been noticing me, people are reaching out and telling me how much they see my talent — just stuff from last year that I never thought would happen to me. I thought it wouldn’t be until my senior year that people would start noticing me." <strong>For y’all, team-wise, you grew up in the area, you’re familiar with the trends and pride there and some history of success in that Jonesboro-Hodge program, but a lot of it a little farther back when you were younger —</strong> "I wasn’t born." <strong>So you guys make the deepest run that has happened there in decades and pushed the eventual state champion Amite Warriors to their closest game of their championship run. What was it like around town, around the community? When did you kind of feel that special nature of this group on the field building, and when did you feel the excitement around you guys starting to build and show that love and support.</strong> "I first noticed when I started taking leadership for the team, like we all started coming together and going at it in practice, me taking leadership and being accountable and letting people know what they’re doing and us not taking excuses, because when you take excuses, it makes your program weak. So we just every day try to get better. And then when played Amite, it was a live game for us. We weren’t scared. They weren’t scared. So it was like the best man won. And after the game, their coach told me, ’You’re a sophomore. You’ve got two more years. Give ’em hell.’ So that’s when I knew then that I had proved myself around the state that I was [player_tooltip player_id="285191" first="Xavier" last="Atkins"], that I was the best linebacker in the state." <strong>That level of leadership and maturity that you’re talking about and trying to take accountability as a young guy and stepping up and being one of the leaders of the team, where does that come from for you? Kind of describe to me your personality and what drives you that way to be that vocal early on in your career.</strong> "Pain. Just being as a kid, going through a lot, I was ahead of my time, knew a lot of things before my age. So when I got to high school, it was just already in me. And then I had former teammates that died, so that has driven me even more to just do what I need to do. Because that summer, we all had plans to turn up this season, and when they died, it just told me that life is not guaranteed every day. So I just took every opportunity I had, and every game, every practice, every rep, I went hard at it. And I notice it in the game. I’ll be the first one down from sprinting, and then I see it paying off. And now that it’s paying off, you’ve just gotta actually believe in yourself before somebody else does." <strong>You talked about it some, but through some of those tragedies you’ve faced in losing people close to you far too early, how much did your group having one another’s backs and the ability lean on one another and get out there on a football field — whether it be a Friday night, or just practice getting back together — how much was that brotherhood dynamic critical to getting through those kind of things?</strong> "It was big, because when that happened, we all just noticed that it was all us, us against the world. So we stayed on each other, made sure we were all right. If one needed something, we would help out. We just had each others’ backs, because we knew any day something could go wrong. And we just carried that onto the field and just knew, ’I’ve still got my brothers’ back no matter if it’s on the field or off the field.’ I still hit ’em up and motivate them and let them know, ’I’m from Jonesboro. If I can do it, you can do it.’ So we all just developed a big bond when all of that happened." <strong>As far as the skillset piece that goes with that drive and that hunger, you flew around the field and made so many plays. When you look at 219 tackles, that’s such an unreal number that when people heard what was happening, they were kind of shocked. And that’s when everyone started to say, ’All right, who’s the sophomore up there that’s putting up these crazy numbers?’ Take me through some of the way you look at game, you look at film and prepare yourself to not just be active and energetic, but to be in the right place and be playing what you need to be playing as part of that defense to be that effective.</strong> "You’ve got to prepare mentally. Like, as soon as practice is over, within 10 minutes I’m in the crib watching film on the other team noticing what their running back’s doing or what their quarterback’s doing. I just know when a team’s fixing to do something because I watch film so much, it’ll be to the point where I know what they’re fixing to do and then I’m straight to the ball then and making a play in the backfield. And every game, my name just kept getting bigger and bigger, and I just kept telling myself, ’If I just go harder this game, something’s gonna happen, somebody’s gonna notice me and something’s gonna click.’ And then eventually it just happened. Somebody just saw that I was doing my best, and it all happened from there."