Mike Battles Jr.

Mike Battles, Jr. was a star linebacker and placekicker during his football playing days at Walter Wellborn High School in Anniston. He was named to the 1988 and 1989 All-State teams, earning first team honors as a senior in 1989. Battles also played in the 1990 Alabama-Mississippi All-Star game in Mobile. He was named the Player of the Year for Class 5A and to the Super 12 team by the ASWA. Battles received a scholarship from Samford University and played for coaches Terry Bowden and Chan Gailey. He received a Bachelors in Science Biology/ English degree from Samford University in 1995. His first head coaching job came at Oak Grove when he was named the Athletic Director and Head Football Coach in 1997 at the age of 25. Over the next eleven seasons his teams advanced to the playoffs seven times and won a region title in 2001. In 2008, Bibb County came calling and Battles jumped at the opportunity to join them in Centreville. His Choctaws won 46 games in four years with only six losses, winning three region titles and making the playoffs each year. In 2010 the Choctaws reached the semi-finals of the state playoffs. That team lost to Thomasville, who went on to win the State Championship. As the son of a coach , Mike Battles knows all about changing jobs. In 2012 he landed in Tallassee where he remains entering the 2022 season. His Tigers finished the 2012 season with a 9-3 record and a playoff berth. Battles has been a head coach for 28 years with a record of 202-114. He has coached twenty playoff teams and won five region titles. Following the 2023 football season he stepped down as the head football coach at Tallassee before taking over at Southern Academy in 2024. Battle's father was a 30 year veteran head coach who won over 200 games as a high school coach. The elder Battle's coached his son at Walter Wellborn High School in Anniston in the late 1980s.