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Photo by Sarah Finnegan.
Karon Niblett, wife to Hoover head football coach Josh Niblett, cheers on Hoover players as they take to the field of the Hoover Met for their home opener against Meridian on Sept. 1.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Karon Niblett puts food out for Hoover High varsity football players after a voluntary Wednesday night Bible study led by her husband at their house in Trace Crossings.
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Photo by Sarah Finnegan.
Karon Niblett jokes with husband and Hoover head football coach Josh Niblett, right, and Hoover assistant Adrian Abrams during a pre-game meal Sept. 1.
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Photo by Sarah Finnegan.
Karon Niblett cheers on the Hoover team as they make their way up to the Hoover Met for their home opener against Meridian.
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Photo by Sarah Finnegan.
Karon Niblett cheers from the stands of the Hoover Met with her sister-in-law Heather Rickman after an interception returned for a touchdown by Hoover during their home opener against Meridian Sept. 1.
The year was 2009, and Josh Niblett was in his second year as head football coach at Hoover High School.
The Bucs were in a tense battle with Georgia powerhouse Camden County, and a Hoover fan was loudly lambasting Niblett, saying he didn’t know what he was doing and that Niblett should let the fan’s brother play.
What the fan didn’t know is that he was sitting very close to Niblett’s wife, Karon, in the stands, and she had had about all she could take.
The normally soft-spoken and non-confrontational coach’s wife came to his defense and told the fan that Niblett was the coach and knew what he was doing.
She identified herself as Niblett’s wife and said she would be glad to inform her husband later what the fan had to say.
“I didn’t say it quite that calm,” Karon Niblett recalled. “I took it personal. I didn’t handle it well.”
Josh Niblett is now in his 10th season at Hoover and has led the Bucs to five state championships. Karon Niblett said she doesn’t hear people criticize him a lot, but in 10 years, it has happened more than once or twice.
She knows criticism comes with the job of being a coach, “but for me, it’s hard to hear it because I know how much time [he puts into it] and how hard he works for the team,” she said. “I don’t like it when people call out my husband’s name.”
But she said she’s tried to learn from that second-year experience. “We didn’t get into a fight or anything like that. It was just words,” she said. “But you’re not going to win some kind of dispute or argument like that.”
Most of the time at games, Karon Niblett tries to surround herself with family and other coaches’ wives in an attempt to limit hearing criticism, but when it does happen, she tries to stay calm and let it go, she said.
Support role
Being the wife of a high school football coach can be hectic, Karon Niblett said. Coaches have many time demands on them, especially during football season, and she sees her role as one of support for her husband, she said.
“I do what I can to help him so he can do his job,” she said.
She tries to take care of things around the house (except grass cutting) and make sure their three children get to all their activities, she said.
“My role is to make it as easy on him as I can,” she said. “He has enough stress on him as it is.”
Some people might think it’s harder being the wife of the coach at one of the most successful high school programs in the state — perhaps the most well-known high school football program in the country — but Josh Niblett has always handled his job the same way, Karon Niblett said.
He had the same hard work ethic in his five years at Oneonta High School, and later three years at Oxford High School, as he does today, she said.
“He puts more pressure on himself than anybody could ever put on him,” she said. “That’s just the kind of person he is. He’s a perfectionist. He wants to do the best he can.”
There is more recognition at Hoover, and “yes, it does take a lot of time to keep a program like Hoover successful like it was before we got here, but he’s not putting in extra time just because he’s at Hoover now,” she said. “He’s just a hard worker.”
The experience for her has been the same all along, she said.
The redhead in the choir
She and Josh Niblett met when he was a graduate assistant coach at Jacksonville State University. He came to visit her church after her pastor spoke to the football team at JSU. He quickly spotted her in the choir and later called the choir director and asked for her phone number. She had noticed him as well, she said.
The two went out and were engaged two months later and married six months after that. They both knew right away they were meant to be together, she said.
“Josh was just very different than anybody I had ever met,” Karon Niblett said. “He was very handsome, but yet he was very bold in his faith, which is what I had been looking for. You don’t find many people like that. I just knew he was the one I had been waiting on.”
She was 29 — more than three years older than Josh Niblett — when they met. They dated during his first season at JSU and got married his second season. Josh Niblett said the time demands were greater as a college football coach.
“When I left in the morning, it was dark, and when I got home, it was dark,” he said.
Karon Niblett said it’s a big shock when you become a coach’s wife, but she was very independent, so it wasn’t that hard of a transition for her, having been on her own for a while anyway.
“I think God just prepared me for being a coach’s wife in that way,” she said.
In Josh Niblett’s third season at JSU, she gave birth to their first son, Shaw. Then, when Shaw was about 5 months old, the head coach at JSU resigned, which meant her husband lost his job as well.
“That was stressful but part of God’s plan,” Karon Niblett said. “That’s when he opened the door for Josh to become a high school football coach.”
They went to Oneonta, only knowing one or two people there, Karon Niblett said. “It was scary, but it was a blessing,” she said. “Oneonta — that will always be special to us. We still have dear friends there to this day.”
Five years later, Oxford offered Josh Niblett its head coaching job, and he moved up to the 6A level. Three years after that, Hoover — where Rush Propst had created a dynasty with national fame from MTV’s “Two-A-Days” TV show — came calling.
“We could have never imagined Josh’s career to take that path so soon,” Karon Niblett said. “But once again, God laid it out there. It was all part of His plan. We have loved every minute of being in Hoover. We just love the area, the people, the schools; we love all of it.”
Learning about football
Karon Niblett grew up on a chicken farm in Alexandria in Calhoun County. She was one of three girls and has an identical twin sister, Sharon, who now lives in Tampa. All her first cousins also are girls. Her father coached her and her sisters in softball, and they practically grew up in a ballpark, just not a football park, she said.
Her dad always took them to Alabama football games when they were growing up, and her high school won a state championship in football her senior year, so she knew a little about football but wasn’t very involved in it, she said.
Being married to Josh Niblett, “I’ve seen a different side of it,” she said. “I’ve learned a lot.”
Karon Niblett likes softball and baseball, which their children play a lot, but football, which both their boys play, is absolutely her favorite sport.
“That’s kind of our family time — the football activities. We all enjoy it,” she said.
Their youngest son, 12-year-old Sky, plays defensive end in the Hoover youth football program. Shaw, now an 18-year-old senior at Hoover High, plays wide receiver on the football team and is a pitcher for the baseball team. Both teams won state championships last year. Their 15-year-old daughter, Harper, plays softball at Hoover High and on a travel team.
Karon Niblett said she has always enjoyed watching her husband’s teams play.
“I think I’ve missed maybe one game in 19 years,” she said. “It’s always fun, but with Shaw being out there, it just takes it to another level.”
Keeping family a priority
While Josh Niblett is extremely dedicated to his coaching job, he has never shirked his responsibilities as a father, his wife said.
“He’s a family man,” she said. “He always makes time for his kids’ games. He doesn’t put us at the bottom of his list.”
Josh Niblett said that during football season, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights take a lot of time, but he always tries to get the team off the field by 4:30 p.m. on Wednesdays. The Nibletts host a Wednesday night Bible study in their home for any football players who want to come, and usually 25 to 45 players show up, he said.
On Thursdays, practice is in the morning, so their family eats dinner together every Thursday night. And on Saturdays, the football team doesn’t do anything, so players and coaches can spend Saturdays with their families.
Josh Niblett said he usually cooks pancakes every Saturday morning, and the family frequently spends the day watching college football games on TV. They try to go to at least one Alabama game each year. Josh Niblett, a walk-on at Alabama, was the scout team quarterback for Alabama’s 1992 national championship team and finished his tenure with the Tide as a fullback in the 1995 season.)
He said good communication is an important key to making marriage and family life work as a coach. Some weeks are more involved with football than others, but he and Karon Niblett talk about things and work to schedule family time together, he said.
“She’s my biggest supporter — win, lose or draw,” he said. “Whether somebody thinks I’m a terrible coach or not, good mood or bad mood, she tells me she loves me.”
Woman of faith
Josh Niblett describes his wife as an optimist, a hard worker, an excellent cook and a very strong woman of faith. She prays for him and, on Friday mornings, writes him notes of encouragement with Scripture on them, he said.
“I definitely out-punted my coverage when I married her. I don’t know if she knew what she was getting into,” he said. “She’s gorgeous. She’s sweet. She’s just got a sweet, calm disposition. She doesn’t like controversy. She doesn’t like a whole lot of conflict. She’s just loving. She’s got a great heart. She’s an unbelievable mother, an unbelievable wife.”
Before the Nibletts had children, she worked more than 13 years for Alfa Insurance. She quit working outside the home and became a stay-at-home mom when they moved to Oneonta. But in 2016, with Shaw getting closer to college and Harper learning to drive, Karon Niblett took a part-time job working with babies in the nursery at the Mother’s Day Out program at Green Valley Baptist Church. She works that job four days a week.
When she’s not working, Karon Niblett is usually trying to get their children to sports practices and games, she said. But she also loves to shop, drink Starbucks coffee and read Nicholas Sparks books when she gets some free time, she said.
She has always helped prepare food for the Wednesday night Bible studies held during football season but became more involved with the football program once Shaw got on the team. Two years ago, she started helping with the Friday morning prayer breakfast on game days, and she also helps serve the game day dinner on Friday evening.
Karon Niblett feels like many of the football players, especially those she gets to know better at the Bible studies, are like their children, she said. Friends made in Hoover have been a great support group to help get kids where they need to be and have become like family, too, she said.
Sharing a passion and calling
Karon Niblett understands the pressures that come with coaching Hoover football.
“She knows how much I stress out or how much I don’t get a lot of rest. She does a good job of keeping me levelheaded,” her husband said.
Karon Niblett said she certainly doesn’t try to tell him what to do with the football team. He’s the expert there, but sometimes he does talk to her about issues that come up with the team or football program, and he listens to what she has to say and — sometimes — takes her advice.
Josh Niblett said he tries not to bring his job home, and she tries not to give too much advice.
“She tries to give support,” he said. “I don’t need suggestions. I want solutions.”
Karon Niblett said she’s more likely to seek advice from him.
“He just has a natural instinct to lead,” she said. “He was born to lead.”
Josh Niblett said he’s very fortunate to have her share his passion for football.
“When your wife loves your job just as much as you love it, you’ve got something pretty special,” he said. “I don’t ever want my wife to resent what I do for a living. I think that puts stress on a marriage.”
Karon Niblett said some coaches’ wives dread football season, but she looks forward to it. “It’s my favorite time of year,” she said. “I’m sad when it’s over. I don’t look at it as a burden … That’s why God put Josh and I together. It was not only a calling on his life, but a calling on my life, too.”
When asked how long they will stay at Hoover, Karon Niblett said she doesn’t know.
“We never dreamed we would be at Hoover,” she said. “Whatever God has planned for our lives, if he opens a door, we’ll pray about it and wherever God wants us to be. But we love Hoover. … It’s definitely a place we could stay forever because we love it here.”
