Moody’s new head football coach Jay Brown dons a Blue Devils cap.

After nine seasons at Pell City High School, Jay Brown has been named head coach of the Moody Blue Devils.

“I feel real good about building this program back up,” he said Tuesday after meeting with players and coaches.  “I hope to have everything on a positive note going into spring training.”

Brown’s appointment was announced Monday, and city officials plan a reception to introduce him to the community at 5 p.m. today at Bill Morris Stadium.

“There seems to be a lot of great support for Moody athletics in the community, and I’m fixing to call on them,” he said.  “There’s a lot that we need to do to change the mindset of our programs, and I’m exciting to be working with the community to do that.”

Second-year head coach Brandon Wiley resigned shortly after the 2010 football season started, creating the vacancy for which Brown was chosen from a field of 146 candidates.

“Coach Brown very quickly rose to the top and he remained there and we’re very excited very pleased that he accepted this job,” said Bill Weathington, who served on the search committee.  “We think we got a very great coach, we think he’ll do well with Moody. Coach Brown is a good quality person.”

While his first official day on the job is next Monday, Brown has spent this week “getting to know the coaches and players.  We had a good meeting Tuesday, and I told the seniors that our goal is to be successful right now.  A lot of times a coach comes in and ignores the seniors, but I don’t believe in that.”

He expects to add “at least a couple of people” to Moody’s coaching staff and will assume duties as the school’s athletic director after the end of the current school year.

Brown said he is proud of his record at Pell City, where he took over a program that had had nine consecutive losing seasons, taking the team to several post-season appearances during his tenure.  “It took us eight years to have one losing season,” he said, adding that several school football records were set while he was head coach there.

“I’m very proud of all the players there at Pell City. They always played with class and represented our county well.”

A coach for 27 years, Brown said he’d rather look at the future than what’s gone before. “It doesn’t matter what happened in the past. You build a program one brick at a time by doing things right, professionally, and with class.”