Jay Thompson

An All Conference baseball player for Southeastern, Harrisburg native Jay Thompson fondly remembers playing for the great coach Rick Hacker. After SIC, Jay continued playing baseball at Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO), where he was named Team MVP in 1980. Later that year, he began his teaching and coaching career at Harrisburg High School, where he has coached freshman football for 23 years, varsity baseball for 21 years, and freshman basketball for 10 years, and has served as Athletic Director since 1995. His baseball teams were state champions in 1989, second place in 1992, 1994, and 2003, and 4th place in 1995. He was inducted into the IHSA Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1997. Jay and his wife Kristie are perhaps almost as proud of their two talented twins Kirk and Laura as is their grandmother Robin Stricklin, Jay’s mother who has worked at SIC since 1967.