After three seasons of helping reestablish a solid foundation for Boyd Buchanan's football program, Jeremy Bosken stepped down Tuesday morning to accept an offer to become the coach at Tri-Cities Christian Academy, a fledgling program in Blountville.
"This is an opportunity to be closer to family," Bosken said. "It's where my wife is from and we both went to college in that area, plus I have coached at public schools around there, so we have a lot of connections there.
"I love building programs and this one will be building from scratch. Literally from the dirt up. It's the only private school of its kind in that area so I'm fortunate to get to be a part of that. It's really a dream come true for us for a lot of reasons."
Tri-Cities Christian, which opened in 2020, is the sister school of Lakeway Christian Academy and will begin its football program this fall.
"I appreciate the Boyd Buchanan family welcoming us in, and I hate to leave but I am confident in what we were able to do to get the program headed back in the right direction," Bosken said. "This was a very tough decision. We have loved this place, but this decision is what's best for me and my family right now."
Bosken had already earned a reputation for rebuilding programs before taking over at Boyd Buchanan. After five years as an assistant at Science Hill, he took over at Crockett High School, which had been to the playoffs just once in 40 years. In just four seasons there he became the winningest coach in school history, then left to become the offensive coordinator at Cleveland.
Bosken was selected over nearly 200 other applicants at Boyd Buchanan. Prior to his arrival the Buccaneers had finished 2-18 the previous two seasons, including 0-10 the year before he took over when they were outscored by an average of 49-5.
"When we got here we had 12 kids who showed up at spring practice and we had reached the point where we didn't even know if we could keep the program going," Bosken said. "We basically started the program over again.
"As hard as leaving is, to go from getting mercy ruled by everybody in the conference before we got here to beating everybody in the conference, except for Chattanooga Christian, over the past three seasons is something our staff takes a lot of pride in. They have the best middle school program in Chattanooga, so the foundation is solid and the future is very bright for Boyd Buchanan."
In Bosken's first season the Bucs finished 8-3, climbing as high as No. 2 in the state rankings, and reached the playoffs for the first time in three years. Although the team did not reach that wins total again over the past two seasons, it did advance to the Division II-AA playoffs in all three of his seasons in charge and he exits with a 15-15 overall record with the Bucs.
"Coach Bosken did a great job with his many contributions and leadership to build our program back to respectability," Boyd Buchanan athletic director Matt Pobieglo said. "We wish him and his family the best with their future.
"We have begun the search for our next head coach and hope to move quickly to find someone who can help us take the next step to competing in Division II."
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293. Follow him on Twitter @StephenHargis