Coach Jake Nester leaves legacy of hard work, competitor
Former Lake baseball coach Wyatt Tullos remembers it well.
It was the middle of June and the Hornets were playing a summer doubleheader later that afternoon but a group of young men were already at the field. Tullos broke out his fungo and started hitting balls to his eager players.
More than two hours and a bucket of sweat later, Tullos said shortstop Jake Nester wanted more balls.
Tullos said Nester, who passed away early Friday morning after a year-long fight with cancer, approached everything that way.
“I think back to the practices and games and whatever the situation was, Jake just kept coming right at you,” Tullos said. “I loved that guy. I could go on for hours about him. He was a special guy.”
In Tullos’ first year at Lake, Nester was just a freshman but was already an accomplished baseball player. He started at third as a freshman and Tullos said he went the entire year without committing an error. Nester was a member of the 2000 Lake team that went 35-9 and won the state championship at Lake.
“He was incredible,” Tullos said. “He played three years for me and was amazing. In thinking back, I remember that little kid running out to play short for us. He was a really good pitcher but he was so good at short, I just kept him there because he made every play. He had such a tremendous work ethic and attitude. He was so much fun to coach. I was really blessed to be able to coach a player like him and then get to see him succeed in everything he did.”
The news of Nester’s passing spread quickly throughout the Lake community. As a tribute, the scoreboard at the baseball field a Lake was all eight’s, Nester’s number.
Football coach Tate Hanna was close with Nester and his family.
“Since we have been here, we have been really close with his family,” Hanna said. “His son is the same age as my middle son. We have probably spent every other weekend together in that four years. There were lots of night grilling out and just spending time together. They are a special family to us. Jake has been a mainstay here for a long time. There’s not a person in this community that doesn’t know Jake and his family. It’s a tough deal and everybody wants to celebrate what he’s done for this school and this community.”
During his time at Lake, Nester also assisted with the football and slow-pitch softball teams. Nester was an assistant on the 2019 Lake slow-pitch team that won the state championship, helping coach Jake Loper in his first season as a head coach.
“It was my first head coaching job, and you are nervous and want to do a good job,” Loper said. “He really helped take the pressure off. It really helped having an experience head coach and he helped take the pressure off. I was able to ask him questions and I knew I was getting good advice.”
Loper said Nester was ever the competitor, no matter what the game.
“He just had a competitive spirit,” Loper said. “He is the kind of guy you wanted your kid to play for, the way he carried himself and the way he went about coaching. He was liked by the whole community and the kind of guy that everybody wants to be like. He was just a very genuine guy. He bled Kelly green and was a Hornet through and through. I think the most impressive thing was how he carried himself and how the other coaches thought a lot of him. I haven’t been coaching but three or four years and it seems like nobody likes me but seems like he was liked wherever he went. I think that says a lot about the character he had.”
After starring for the Hornets, Loper played for two seasons at East Central Community College and then graduated from Mississippi State.
“He went on to East Central and had really good career there,” Tullos said. “When he was in college, he coached a year for us at Newton County. We were kind of short of coaches and he was in college at the State branch. After that he was an assistant for Brian Goodman at Lake. And when Brian left, he got the Lake job. And he did a great job there as well. His teams were always competitive and his guys really play hard and get after you, just like him.”
After doing his student teaching at Newton County, Nester became an assistant football and baseball coach at Lake. After Brian Goodman left Lake, the Hornets turned to Nester. As the head coach at Lake, his reputation around the state started to grow.
“He was well thought of around the state,” said former Lake football coach and AD Jeff Breland, whose daughter Laurel was a member of the 2019 state championship slow-pitch team that Nester helped coach. “He was a person of great character. He didn’t mind rolling his sleeves up and going to work. He was always willing to do whatever and was a total team player and that’s what I will always remember about him. He will be sorely missed. He was a big influence on that community and at Lake High School. He expected to win every time he went out on that field, no matter the sport.”
But just like Tullos, Hanna said there was one word that comes to mind when thinking about Nester.
“Jake was a competitor,” Hanna said. “I have known him since I was at Nanih Waiya and helping with baseball. One of the things that interested me about coming to Lake was Jake. I’m telling, being here with him these four years, you aren’t going to find a better fella. He was Lake Hornets through and through. The biggest thing is he didn’t like to lose at anything. He was an outstanding competitor.”
Tullos said he feels like Nester kept that fighting spirit with him throughout his fight with cancer.
“I told my Sunday school class this week that I was talking to Jake’s dad after he passed away and Jake’s attitude reminded me about story in Daniel when the three men were going to be thrown into the fire,” Tullos said. “They wouldn’t back down, even when they knew they were going to be thrown into the fire and that’s the way Jake approached this whole fight with cancer. He just wasn’t going to bow down to it. Even when he knew it was a at point where they said it would take a miracle, it never affected Jake. He never had a negative thought. He would just say it was in God’s hands and attacked it, just like he did everything else.
“I think of that little guy running to short and he would always have hat dirtiest uniform and hat. He would dive for balls in practice just to start the game with a dirty uniform. That’s just who he was.”
Nester is survived by his wife Renee and two children, Wes and Laken. Nester’s visitation was Monday and his funeral was Tuesday.
