Sport Contacts: Administrative, Football, Volleyball, M/W Cross Country, M/W Track and Field, M/W Basketball, M/W Tennis, M/W Golf, Equestrian (NCEA & IHSA), Baseball, Softball, Men's Lacrosse, Women's Lacrosse, Cheerleading

Additional Responsibilities: Sewanee Athletics Hall of Fame, Website Maintenance, Statistics, Web Streaming/Broadcasting

Layton Jackson enters his sixth season as Director of Athletic Communications at the University of the South, where he is the overseer of all 24 varsity sports for Sewanee Athletics.

During his tenure on the Domain, he has covered 21 Academic All-District® selections and one Academic All-American® with the College Sports Communicators, formerly known as the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).

Additionally, he has been a part of nine Southern Athletic Association (SAA) Tournament Championships and has represented the University as a media liaison for three SAA Tournament Championships, two Women's Indoor Championships with the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA), two tennis regional championships in 2018 and 2021 and the 2021 NCAA Division III Men's & Women's Tennis Championships. 

His responsibilities include maintaining the Sewanee Athletics website, sewaneetigers.com, social media channels and the statistics and promotion of each sport.

In 2021, he led the charge in the Athletic Department's website redesign with SIDEARM Sports.

While on the Domain, he has overhauled the social media for the athletic department. On the Tigers Instagram account, @SewaneeTigers, the followers nearly doubled, with his addition to gameday graphics, video highlights and #SewaneeW graphics when each Sewanee team won a contest. Fans saw video interviews of coaches and student-athletes on Twitter and YouTube. 

Also, since his arrival, he has led the charge of making the community-led "Coffee With the Coach" shows live on Facebook, which has been a staple in the Sewanee community for years on Monday mornings at The Blue Chair Tavern in the Sewanee Village. Because of this, fans, families of current student-athletes, alumni and prospective student-athletes have been able to watch their favorite coaches either live or on-demand. 

Jackson also helps promote the success of each student-athlete in the classroom by sending in nominations to the conference's Academic Honor Roll and the Sigma Alpha Alpha honor society. Along with assisting coaches with their respective academic awards for their coaches organizations, he has seen one student-athlete earn Academic All-America laurels with CoSIDA in Owen LeGrone C'18 of the cross country and track and field teams in 2018. 

In August 2021, Jackson began serving on the CoSIDA Academic All-America® Committee. Additionally, he nominates and votes for CoSIDA Academic All-District® and Academic All-America® representatives for Sewanee Athletics. He has also participated in voting for All-Region awards for D3football.com and D3hoops.com and is on the AP Division III Football All-America Committee. 

Additionally, the Birmingham, Ala. native is a permanent member of the Sewanee Athletics Hall of Fame, and he is serving on the University's Employee Advisory Committee (2019-23). On a conference level, he served as the chairperson of the Southern Athletic Association's Sports Information Council (2019-21).

Jackson comes to Sewanee from Belhaven University in Jackson, Miss. as a graduate assistant in the Athletics Communication department, where he was the lead statistician for all 17 sports, as well as serving as media contacts for the volleyball, baseball, women’s basketball, cross country/track and field and men’s and women’s soccer teams during his two seasons at the NCAA Division III institution.

Working with the Blazers from 2015-17, Jackson also portrayed his voice as the play-by-play broadcaster for the baseball program on the Blazers Sports Network. He also was the voice during the Blazers’ softball run at the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) postseason in 2016, including calling play-by-play at the NCCAA World Series for the Green and Gold.

While at Belhaven, he helped one student-athlete to Academic All-America honors with CoSIDA, Daniel Ammirati of the baseball program.

In his five seasons as a college sports information director, Jackson has been a part of five CoSIDA Academic All-District representatives and two Academic All-Americans.

Prior to his time in Mississippi, he worked as an intern at the Gulf South Conference in Birmingham as its Sports Information Coordinator during the 2014-15 academic year. He was the primary media contact for the volleyball, tennis and golf programs at the Division II conference. He also assisted with media for the conference cross country, basketball and tennis championships. He also assisted with updating the conference record books.

Prior to the GSC, Jackson spent nine years at his high school alma mater, Parkway Christian Academy in Birmingham as the school’s Sports Information Director.

In 2003, he was diagnosed with Perthes Disease, a disease affecting the left hip, limiting his mobility to walk. He was able to go through a total hip replacement in 2022. 

Unable to play sports, he wanted to help out in athletics in any way he physically could. During his freshman year of high school, the junior high boys basketball coach gave him the opportunity to keep the scorebook for both the girls and boys teams.

After the basketball season ended, the athletic department took notice of the work he did with the basketball program. Because of this, he escalated in the spring semester by becoming the varsity baseball statistician.

During his time at Parkway, Jackson was the head statistician for both varsity boys and girls basketball teams, scoreboard operator for the varsity volleyball, basketball and football teams, public address announcer and soundboard operator, news reporter for all sports and assistant coach duties for cross country and basketball.

Outside of the athletic department, Jackson is a member of the Sewanee Chorale, an organization with the Sewanee Community Chest of the Sewanee Civic Association, where he also serves as the social media manager. No stranger to choral singing, he has performed with the Samford University Chorale and A Cappella Choir and the Jefferson State Chorus and Singers as an undergraduate. He also sings for his home church, the First United Methodist Church of Center Point. 

He obtained his Bachelor of Science in Sport Administration from Samford University in May 2015. He also holds two associate degrees from Jefferson State Community College in Arts and Religious Studies. 

Updated 7/29/22