PICKERING – Excitement is brewing at Pickering High School.

Principal Jerome Henson has announced the hiring of two new head coaches at Pickering as Jared Underwood will take over the football program, while Xavier Montgomery will lead the boys' basketball program.

"We are excited to announce the appointment of Jared Underwood and Xavier Montgomery as coaches at Pickering High School," Henson said in a prepared release from the school.

Underwood comes to Pickering from the Mississippi coaching ranks. Hailing from Gulfport, Underwood has spent the last six years at Class 6A Hancock High School in Kiln, Miss., where he was the head track coach and a defensive back coach for the football team. Prior to that, he coached in the private school ranks, winning a couple of state championships.

A graduate of Southern Mississippi, with a Master's degree from William Carey, Underwood will bring his wife, Amanda, and 9-year-old son, Bradley, to Pickering. His daughter is a scholarship softball standout for Hinds Community College, while his eldest son is in the Armed Forces.

Montgomery, a resident of Zwolle, is new to the coaching game, having served last year as an assistant to Rickie Dixon at Leesville High School, while also working with the freshman football team. He spent the previous year as a student-teacher at Natchitoches Junior High, where he was the interim head coach of the girls' seventh-grader basketball team.

He is a graduate of Northwestern State University and has two children – a daughter named Zyriah (12) and a son named Xavier, Jr. (7).

This article originally appeared on Leesville Daily Leader: Pickering announces new coaching hires