Along with his fellow 2020 Hinds Sports Hall of Fame inductee, Jeffrey Fields helped guide the Eagles back to football prominence during the mid 1980s.
Fields, a Jackson native and Jim Hill High School product, helped anchor the defensive side of the ball from his defensive tackle position. He was selected a team captain during his sophomore season, one in which the Eagles won 10 games overall and set several records. The team won its first South State championship and earned a spot in the Mid-America Bowl in Tulsa, Okla., which was the Eagles’ first bowl game in 30 years up to then.
He finished the 1987 campaign with 65 tackles, with 42 of them solo – a spectacular total for a defensive lineman. His performance earned him first-team All-State, first team All- Region and second-team All-American, as well as being named defensive MVP.
His football career after Hinds took him to Jonesboro, Ark., where he played for Arkansas State University. In 1991, he was selected in the ninth round of the NFL Draft by the Los Angeles Rams, then spent three seasons in the Canadian Football League and one season each with the Carolina Panthers and New Orleans Saints.
Since 1996, he has worked with CN in Baton Rouge, where he is a locomotive engineer.
