Four locals join Cottrell at Lighthouse

Lighthouse Christian College in Gulf Breeze will kickoff its inaugural football season this Saturday at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kan., with Ronnie Cottrell as the team's first head coach and four players from Escambia County (Ala.) on the roster.

Cottrell, 65, a Brewton native and graduate of T.R. Miller High School, resigned last year after nine years as the head football coach at Mobile Christian, which won the 3A state title in 2023.

Cottrell coached at Flomaton High School, W.S. Neal High School and more before joining Bobby Bowden at Florida State as a recruiting coordinator. He later served as recruiting coordinator and assistant head coach at the University of Alabama under Mike Dubose.

Cottrell said he saw a unique opportunity to return to the college game at Lighthouse Christian and said he is looking forward to the challenge.

Lighthouse Christian was established in 2022 and had a basketball team the first year, a baseball team the second year and is starting football this year.

Cottrell said after resigning from Mobile Christian he immediately starting missing the relationships he had with players, coaches, fans and parents.

Cottrell began volunteering with Lighthouse Christian in June and was later named the head football coach and has spent that time recruiting the players.

Cottrell said he recruited northwest Florida and south Alabama while at Florida State and Alabama and said he's been concentrating on attracting players from the 850 and 251 area codes.

He said with NIL and the transfer portal a lot of young men simply don't get an opportunity to continue playing football and he's ready to give them that chance.

"My goal is to help them get a degree and keep playing football," Cottrell said. "The portal works both ways, they can come to us, keep working and develop and we'll help find them a place at a bigger school if that's what they want."

"I just wanted to finish my career on the college level and help these players better themselves," Cottrell said.

Cottrell added that scholarships are available but noted that a Pell Grant will pay $7,395 of the $8,000 tuition cost and added he currently has 65 players on the roster.

Four of those are from Escambia County (Ala.) with Chris Williams from T.R. Miller, Akayle Dixon from Flomaton High School, Jonathan Carter from W.S. Neal and Jaden Stuckey from W.S. Neal.

Williams, a defensive back at T.R. Miller, said he was looking for somewhere to keep playing football and saw where Stuckey had committed to Lighthouse Christian.

Stuckey added that he had a few other offers but knew all the time where he wanted to go and that was to play for Cottrell at Lighthouse Christian.

Dixon played receiver and running back at Flomaton and sees this a big opportunity for him.

"I didn't have any offers on the table and I still wanted to play football," Dixon said. "Coach called me one day and convinced me to come. It gives me another opportunity to play football."

Dixon said he wants to major in criminal justice and become a law enforcement officer.

Carter said his mother was sitting with Cottrell's mother and the subject of continuing to play football at Lighthouse came up.

"I told his mother what I was doing," Cottrell said. "He was going to trade school, but now he's one of our defensive starting linemen."

After the season opener at Johnson County, Lighthouse will host Suffolk County Community College from Kansas on Sept. 14; be at home on Sept. 21 against Birmingham Prep, be at home Sept. 28 against Treasure Coast (Fla.) Prep, host Southwest Florida Prep on Oct. 12, travel to Treasure Coast on Oct. 19, host Mississippi Prep on Oct. 26, Host Palm Beach Prep on Nov. 2 and wrap up the regular season at John Melvin in Pace.