Saxony Lutheran has a football coach and vision for new program

Within a month of announcing a new football program, Saxony Lutheran High School brought in a familiar face to lead it.

OJ Turner, a former football star at Cape Central and Southeast Missouri State was hired as the new head coach on Wednesday, Feb. 21, in Jackson. Turner also played arena football in St. Louis for the River City Rage.

“I just thought as far as where my Christian values are and the love that I have for football, it would be a really good fit,” Turner said.

Turner, who also runs a business in the medical sales industry, said his motivation to become a head coach was to be the mentor that has an impact on student athletes similar to the a way his old mentors impacted him.

“That’s my ultimate goal. That’s why I’m doing it,” Turner said. “I feel like having a great football team will ultimately be a byproduct of that. I mean that. I run my own business and do some different things, and my choice is to be here mentoring these kids, so I’m super excited about that. I’ve had a lot of coaches, teachers and mentors in my life, and I’m super excited to be able to give that.”

Turner said the process of bringing football to Saxony Lutheran and having him be involved as the head coach was two years in the making. He was on the committee that explored new activities to add to the school and was interested in being a coach as well.

While this is his first job as a head coach at the high school level, Turner has been involved as a coach for various youth sports programs in the Cape Girardeau area. He developed the Junior Tigers for four years and has learned the system used by Cape Central head coach Kent Gibbs.

Turner sees the importance of a seventh- and eighth-grade program to create a pipeline of talent to the Saxony football program. However, until that is established, he will have to rely on the interest in the current high school kids coming to the program now that football is an option.

“One thing that Jackson and Cape both do is they run their youth programs and have a seventh- and eighth-grade program,” Turner said. “So I think until we have a seventh- and eighth-grade program, we’ll have to get creative in ways to have a pipeline of kids coming in.”

Saxony will play a road junior varsity schedule this fall before adding a varsity team in 2025. Students of all grades will be able to join the team next school year, including seniors.

A choice between going to a public school with football or a private school that religiously aligns with the student no longer needs to be made.

“My heart goes out to a lot of the Saxony kids,” Turner said. “They were interested in playing football but spiritually they felt like Saxony was the best fit for them. So a lot those kids decided that they were not going to have football in their life, and they were going to come to Saxony for all the great things that Saxony offers. I’m super excited that now those kids could have both.”

Saxony Lutheran is expected to start in the Class 2 level. Turner said if the Crusaders played on the varsity level this year, they would have ranged between Class 1 and the “bottom end of 2A.”

“That’s a good place to be,” Turner said. “We have plenty of room to grow within that range of 2A. We won't ever be passed 2A based on attendance, but we will be passed 2A based on performance.”

With the addition of the football program comes the transformation of the school’s soccer and track stadium, which currently doesn’t have any stadium lights or press box. With the inaugural junior varsity team on the road all season long, the expectation would be that the stadium will be built by 2025.

Turner did say that Houck Stadium, home of the SEMO Redhawks, could be a potential backup plan should the construction be behind schedule. Turner played all of his high school and college home games at SEMO but understands the importance of having your own home field.

“Houck is so big. Even though I played there at Cape, you might have 3,000 people there, but it feels like 10 people,” Turner said. “Those kids want to have a home field advantage. I think also concessions and different things that make a lot of money in those games. So I think there are a lot of factors that go into why they play at their own place.”