By Thomas Sellers Jr.
Stop if you heard this before, a member of the Munford Cougar Football Class of 2021 is signing to Campbellsville.
With the school up in Kentucky targeting four of Head Coach Slade Calhoun’s Cougars, the third in line to make it official was linebacker Jacoby Miguel.
Joined April 8 by his mother Charla McMahan, father Zebedea Borum, stepfather Eric McMahan, grandparents Arnell Borum, Barbara Borum and Bertha Borum and also Florence Blanton, Miguel inked his national letter of intent to become the latest Cougar to transition to a Tiger.
“Hard work and dedication had gotten him here today,” Charla said. “He’s very ambitious. He sets a goal and reaches it.”
Miguel’s goal of playing college football started when he picked up the game in the sixth grade. It was a couple of years later he gained teammates and friends like Kelton Mason, Traveon Hawkins and Jesse Savage.
Savage was an All-Region player at two position for the Cougars heading in their senior season. Then tragedy struck with Savage suffering servere injuries from an accident.
“We all know that Jesse is a great player and he was going to go to college and play somewhere,” Miguel said. “Somewhere high like D-I status. Then it happened to him overnight. We all saw how quickly it all can be taken away from you.
“Everyday we worked out we knew we had to hit it harder and harder just for him,” he continued. “When it came to the season starting I said, ‘I might as well go back to No. 3 I wore during my eighth grade year to honor him. I wore it for him and every game was for him.’”
The former No. 21 wore the No. 3 and honored his fallen teammate with an All-Region campaign. Charla said her son has always had a high-skill level when it comes to football.
“When he was in the ninth grade, we saw so much in him,” she recalled. “Especially when he was boosted onto the varsity team. We were just excited to see him go that far that quick.”
She added that the bond he started to develop with his teammates added to his accountablity on the field.
“ Those guys have been friends since forever,” Charla said. “They keep pushing each other to make each other go further. They’ve always leaning on each other. They’re a very good group of kids.”
Miguel said through growing pains and adversity the brotherhood grew each day they were varsity Cougars.
“It started off our freshmen year playing freshmen football,” he recalled. “We had a hiccup with Kelton getting hurt. With Keltoln not healthy we knew we had to hit it hard so everybody would know us moving forward coming together.
“Once we got him back starting our sophomore season it wasn’t the greatest,” Miguel continued. “But we made something of it. Junior year we upgraded and we just made our defense better and better. With Traveon on offense, he made that unit better. When it came to senior season, we just know each other and played together so long it became second nature.”
Calhoun and his staff groomed the Class of 2021 into leaders and stronger players on the field. The veteran coach and former defensive coordinator at Munford said losing a 6’1, 215 tackling machine to the next level is an honor.
“Jacoby is an extremely hard worker,” he said. “He wanted to play in college since I first met him as a raising sophomore. He had a vision and a plan. He worked hard to carry it out. He’t taken care of his business academically.”
With solid grades, impressive stats and individual honors, Calhoun said among all the offers for Miguel it was the brotherhood that tilted his decision.
“It’s good for the guys outside of football you’re going somewhere new with people you know,” he noted. “They can carpool. They can room together – whatever. They can lean on each other. They’re all football savvy guys.
“I would put there knowledge of the game against anybody,” Calhoun continued. “They’re going to be able to grasp whatever system they’ll be put into. I think he’s got a tremendous opportutinty to play early. I think that impacted his decision as well. They’re going to have some comforts of home.”
Before making Kentucky his new home, Miguel said he owes a thank you to Coach Calhoun for the move from safety to linebacker.
“He saw that I could tackle real well,” he said. “And I was getting bigger and bigger each day. He put me in the box. It was kind of like a second home because I already knew what it was. It helped me out to be a better tackler. And I was already working on my leadership looking up to Noah Robertson and those seniors. Those were great guys. It came my time I had to lead the defense and help us out.”
Miguel will be remembered at Munford for having 25 tackles in a playoff game against Clarksville. Some will note his physical growth while others will recall him wearing No. 3 to honor his friend/teammate.
Charla said the common factor to all her son’s past, current and future success will be his desire to always reach his goals.
“He going to put the hard work in,” she said. “He’s going to go for the goal. Off the field, first he’s very, very humble. He’s a genuine guy. He’s somebody anyone could be friends with. He’s very kindhearted and very caring.”
That caring side ultimately got Miguel to pick his college football home with a few familiar faces.
“It feels great and definitely going along with three of my best friends,” he concluded, “it also feels great because it starting to feel like home up there.”
