FLOWOOD, Miss. (WLBT) – The Jackson Prep girls soccer team defeated Heritage Academy, 7-0, last week, giving Prep head coach John Marcus Duncan his 832nd career win, making him the all-time leader for a high school soccer coach in Mississippi.
Duncan, a 1995 graduate of Jackson Prep, became the boys’ and girls’ soccer coach in 2000. In the 24 years since he was head coach, the teams have combined to play in 29 state championships.
“It’s unbelievable, I never thought I’d be here this long. 24 years in the same place, so many wins. I always tell people it just means I’m getting a little older, a little older every day,” Duncan laughed. “But to think that with so much dedication, so much time spent on the field, the record being broken, it’s pretty special.”
When Duncan took over the job in 2000, he never imagined setting a record.
“I never even thought about there being a record. I didn’t know,” he said. “When I did the 500, one of the local reporters said to me, ‘Hey, I know the record is 831, what do you think?’ I thought, ‘I feel like I still have some energy left, so I’ll keep coaching and see what happens.’ And before I knew it, four or five years later, this is what happened.”
After his high school boys soccer team won the state championship last season, Duncan was three wins away from tying the record, so when the girls soccer season began last month, he knew that record was close.
They set the record at home against Lamar on Aug. 5, then followed it up with a record-breaking win on the road in Columbus just two days later.
Wins by both Patriots teams for the rest of Duncan’s career will count toward his record, but his focus isn’t on the next milestone but on the same end-of-season goal the team sets every year.
“My goal right now is to get the girls team ready for the state championships this year,” he said. “That’s our goal. We want to win it. We came up just short last year, and we want to win it this year.”
The Patriots next play on Aug. 26 against St. Joseph Catholic School in Madison.
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