Northridge's Jeff Sparks was set to enlist in the United States Marine Corps when he decided to run college track and field at Mississippi College.

"That Monday morning, the Marine recruiter came fueled up in the van," Sparks said. "I told him 'I signed to go to college this weekend,' ... He was steaming."

Sparks instead went to Clinton, Mississippi, to begin his collegiate career. Little did he know that decision would lead him to a career of vast success, coaching 13 state championship teams and 126 individual state champions over 31 years.

In the AHSAA, Sparks currently ranks eighth in all-time girls outdoor and indoor track and field state championships, with seven outdoor titles and four indoor. He has seen 38 athletes sign college scholarships to run track and field or cross country at the next level.

"He's always been a guy who is very knowledgeable," Northridge athletic director Jeff Cameron said. "He's a tireless worker and one of the most respected coaches in the state of Alabama. When it comes to track, he is the authority on that sport."

Northridge's Jeff Sparks' track and field career

Sparks began track and field when he was 10 years old, having moved from Clearwater, Florida to Montgomery, Alabama. Sparks was struggling to adjust with the move and his mother, Wilmer Smith, noticed. She began looking for things to involve him in the community, eventually finding a track and field program at the YMCA. By his first meet, Sparks finished in first place in the high jump, jumping 4 feet, 7 inches, and from then on, he was hooked.

Sparks originally began as a high jumper, but when he began at Mississippi College, coach Billy Lamb had other plans. His freshman year, Sparks won conference in javelin. After that year, he began competing in the decathlon, which became his main event.

In 1983, Sparks transferred to the University of Alabama to run for Hall of Fame coach John Mitchell. Sparks competed in the 1985 SEC meet, but struggled stay healthy during his college career, eventually joining the Alabama staff as a student assistant before graduating in 1986.

In the fall of 1986, Sparks spent a semester in Jakarta, Indonesia, at their national training center where he coached athletes and shared information with their coaches. Sparks had the opportunity to remain in Indonesia, but instead came back to the U.S. and joined the Alabama staff as a graduate assistant, which he did until 1989.

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The transition into high school coaching

Sparks' high school coaching career began in 1990 in Selma, Alabama, where he was at for five years, coaching eight individual state champions along the way.

After Selma, Sparks returned to Tuscaloosa where he was an assistant under then-Alabama coach Doug Williamson. He went back to coaching high school permanently in 1998 at Shades Valley. He stayed there for one season, where he coached four individual state champions.

In 1999, Sparks became the head coach at Central High in Tuscaloosa. By 2000, his second year there, Sparks won his first state title with his boys bringing home the indoor track title that winter. From there, he won four-straight (2000-03) girls outdoor track state titles.

When Northridge opened in 2003, Sparks made the move to Northridge. Many of his runners from Central were redistricted for Northridge, so it did not take Sparks long to continue with his winning ways, claiming back-to-back girls indoor and outdoor state titles (2004-05). Most recently, Sparks led the Northridge boys to the 2024 Class 6A indoor state title, his eighth championship at Northridge.

Over his career, Sparks has also become a person his students can go to with issues they are having on or off the track. Northridge sophomore Shawn Stephenson, who has run for Sparks for over two years now, said his coach is a person everybody looks to for advice.

"Everybody is able to talk to him about issues they are having, whether it is athletics or personality or something like that," Stephenson said. "He's always somebody you can talk to."

How Jeff Sparks has created such success

Sparks credits much of his track career as a decathlete to the success he has seen as a coach. Once he became a coach, though, he knew to build a successful program, his athletes would have to compete with the best, so he made sure that happened.

When he was at Selma, he drove his team across the country on multiple occasions to compete in national meets, including a trip to Los Angeles and another to Minnesota.

"Whatever they do on a national scene, we are going to go and do, because that's how you build a program," Sparks said.

Also at Selma, Sparks once made the 1.5-hour drive to Tuscaloosa to pick up a pole vault, something the school did not have. Sparks brought it back to Selma, dug a hole in the ground as they did not have pole vault pits, and taught his kids how to pole vault.

"I knew that these schools were beating us by having pole vaulters," he said. "We didn't have any."

At Northridge, Sparks had a group of parents — which he called the '06ers — which helped him fundraise the program. Before he knew it, his Northridge program had a little bit of everything, including a pole vault. He also said the creation of Northridge Middle School in 2018 and its proximity to the high school has revitalized the program, as students can now just walk over from school to practice.

"I've seen this sport come a long way," Sparks said. " ... I've been truly, truly blessed."

Now, Sparks is preparing to lead the Jaguars at the 2024 AHSAA outdoor state meet May 2-4 in Gulf Shores. The Northridge boys and girls teams are both coming off of Class 6A, Section 3 championship last weekend, and the program is seeking its first outdoor state title since 2021, when the girls last took home the blue map.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: AHSAA track and field: How Jeff Sparks has built one of state's top programs