Forest Hill High football coach Jude Blessington steps down after transforming program into a winner

After a transformative eight seasons at the helm of Forest Hill football, coach Jude Blessington has resigned to spend more time with his family. 

When Blessington took over in 2013, he inherited a program that had won just two games over the prior two seasons. He then guided the Falcons to six winning seasons in his eight years, including their first playoff appearance in over 30 years. 

"One assistant coach said we should erect a statue down here at the stadium for him, and I couldn't agree more with that," Forest Hill athletic director Ron Kotouch said. "He brought this program up from the gutter, built it up from the scratch, made Forest Hill a respectable program."

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With a foundation in place and three kids ages 5 to 12 at home, it made sense to Blessington to step down. He wants to watch his daughter compete in gymnastics and be there for his sons, perhaps even coach them, as they play everything from flag football to wrestling to baseball. 

"I don't want to not be fully invested at Forest Hill because those kids deserve so much," Blessington said. "We have something six or seven days a week with my kids."

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The resignation, first reported by ESPN West Palm, was announced Wednesday, after Blessington told the players he was stepping down.

"It was a great meeting," Kotouch said. "He congratulated the kids, especially the seniors, who were here during the last two years. Two years ago everyone expected us to go 0-10 after we had like eight starters transfer, but we went 6-4, and this past season with COVID."

Offensive coordinator Jim Basford has been appointed the interim coach.

"Coach Basford is definitely on the top of our list," Kotouch said. "We're accepting applicants for the next week or so. We'll do interviews and go from there.

"Coach Basford was here with coach Blessington every step of the way and basically built this program from stretch."

Blessington's best season was 2017, when the Falcons broke a playoff drought that dated back to the '80s, and he was named coach of the year at the Lou Groza Awards banquet.

While the Falcons lost in the first round of the playoffs, they finished 9-2. The following year, Forest Hill went 8-2, but just missed out on the postseason.

"[2017] season was probably a highlight of his time here and just showed how he built the program," Kotouch said. "There were 13 seniors on the team, and they had all been here for four years."

While transferring has become commonplace for high schoolers, Blessington's Forest Hill focused on the kids already in the program. What's more, all 13 seniors on that 2017 team attended a post-secondary school, be it college or a technical school. 

"I never wanted it to be said any success we had was because we were cheating or because we were stealing kids," Blessington said. "We did a really good job of getting the most out of every kid who played for us. We owe that to them and to their parents.

"It doesn't mean every kid was going to be a starter, but we never looked at a kid and said you aren't the guy, we are going to find someone else. Even when we weren't the greatest team, we were very competitive because of that culture. Our kids weren't mercenaries."

Each year, the players did something that would amaze Blessington. Then, the next year they would top that achievement, whether it was beating a team for the first time, making the playoffs or winning a game this past season without most of the coaching staff on the sideline due to COVID issues.

"If you give yourself to those kids and that school, they will fight to the end for you," Blessington said.

Blessington will remain an employee at Forest Hill High School and help out any way he can, be it test prep or something else. But he says the future is in good hands.

"I can't say enough about our coaching staff and coach Ron as our athletic director to help us become successful," Blessington said. "Talk about a group of hard-working, zero ego guys who just wanted to help kids and on the way, win football games."

With Blessington's departure, seven Palm Beach County high schools will have new football coaches next season: Atlantic, Wellington, Pahokee, Santaluces, John I. Leonard, Forest Hill and Cardinal Newman, the only one to have hired a replacement, getting legendary coach Jack Daniels to come out of retirement.