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Jackson High School coach Ben Pack instructs his team during the first day of football practice for the season on Monday morning at Dungy Field. (MLive file photo/J. Scott Park).MLive Media Group

JACKSON, MI A familiar face to many local football fans will be returning to Jackson-area sidelines this fall.

Ben Pack, a longtime head coach at Jackson High and Parma Western high schools, will be taking over the Manchester High School football program. Pack last coached in 2012, when he served as an interim coach for the Vikings.

Its an exciting opportunity, Pack said of his new role at Manchester. Manchester has all the ingredients right there to be successful. Its an outstanding community, theyve got great facilities, theyve got a tremendous tradition in their football program and all their athletic programs across the board. You look at all their sports, whether its boys or girls sports, and you see the amount of pride the community has for its athletic teams and that is something that really drew me in.

Pack grew up in Jackson, where he graduated from Jackson High School in 1976. He lettered in football, wrestling and track for the Vikings and went on to attend Jackson Community College and Central Michigan University. He earned a bachelors and a masters degree in education from Central Michigan.

He started his coaching career as a freshman assistant coach at Jackson High while attending Jackson Community College and helped coach at Mount Pleasant High School while attending Central Michigan. After graduating, Pack was hired as a teacher at Parma Western High School, where he also doubled as an assistant coach for the football, wrestling and track programs.

Pack took over as the head varsity football coach at Western in 1983 and led the Panthers to back-to-back winning seasons in 1985-86. A year later, Pack returned home to the Vikings, where he took the varsity head coaching job for the football program.

Jackson head coach Ben Pack cheers on his team during halftime in the Vikings 20-16 loss to Holt Friday evening at Withington Stadium. (MLive file photo/J. Scott Park)JACKSON CITIZEN PATRIOT

The Vikings enjoyed some groundbreaking success under Pack during his 16 years at the helm, as Jackson made its first playoff appearance in school history in 1999 and put together three straight winning seasons from 1998-2000. Pack coached 20 All-State players while at Jackson High and saw 60 of his players advance to play college football and finished with 59 wins during his time at the school.

Pack stepped down from his position at Jackson High in 2002 to take an administrative job within the district but the call to coaching brought him back a year later when he took a job as the running backs coach at Albion College.

He was part of the staff when the Britons won the 2005 MIAA championship and qualified for the NCAA Division III playoffs. In 2007, Pack stepped down from that position to focus on his role as an assistant superintendent in the school district. Even during his hiatus from coaching, Pack knew he would eventually be back.

Honestly, I really never got out of coaching, he said. There hasnt been a day thats gone by that I havent worked on something football-related. I didnt have the daily operational stuff to worry about since I wasnt actively in coaching, but Ive spent numerous hours doing extensive studies on position techniques, studying film, reaffirming my philosophies about offense, defense and special teams and then putting all of that information in PowerPoint presentations.

Now I can just go from place to place and bring all that information with me on a thumb drive and plug it in wherever I am and have access to that library of information. So, I never really got out of coaching. Ive always had a passion for it and just because I was technically retired from it doesnt mean I wasnt still involved. They always say you find new hobbies when you retire, but Ive never really been into climbing mountains, sailing around the world or anything like that.

Ive always just wanted to coach high school football.

Jackson High football player Russell Davis and football coach Ben Pack demonstrate some line moves during practice on Monday. (MLive file photo/Marcia Butterfield)CITIZEN PATRIOT

Pack served as a volunteer assistant coach for the Parma Western football program for the past two seasons before taking over at Manchester. The opportunity to be a teacher on the gridiron again was something he just couldnt pass up.

Ive always loved coaching high school football, he said. I enjoy working with the kids and establishing that bond with them. This is a very important stage in anyones life and to have the opportunity to shape these young men into future leaders and members of the community is something I am really passionate about.

The Flying Dutchmen qualified for the playoffs last season at 5-4 but fell to Cascades Conference champion Grass Lake 30-22 in the district opener. Before a pair of 4-5 seasons in 2017-18, Manchester recorded 14 straight winning seasons. Pack believes that kind of tradition will help get the ball rolling in Year 1.

Were going to seize everything that theyve been successful with in the past and try and capitalize on that and just work hard and get our feet underneath ourselves as quickly as possible, he said. Manchester has always been a historically successful program, and I think every player who comes through here expects to win and that kind of mentality will be a huge benefit to us as we try and put this all together.

The process of installing his new system and learning about the players in his program grows increasingly difficult with each passing day that the Flying Dutchmen arent allowed to participate in offseason workouts. For Pack, the most difficult opponent hell face this year is the clock.

It definitely doesnt make things easy for me, he said. Unfortunately, theres not much we can do as a team right now, so we just have to trust that players are putting in the work individually to come into fall practice as prepared as possible both physically and mentally.

From there, well have to put together a crash course and kind of figure things out on the fly.

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Former Jackson head coach Ben Pack takes over Manchester football program - MLive.com