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Everhart ready to lead Warriors football team

New head coach Troy Everhart got his first look at what the Fallbrook High football team had to work with when summer practice started on Tuesday, July 30 at the school.

Everhart was hired to take over the head coaching position for varsity football at Fallbrook High School replacing former new hire Jim Fisher, who resigned from the position in early July.

It has been a bit of a whirlwind for the coach who had only met for the first time with parents, assistant coaches and program stakeholders on July 23 with FUHS athletic director Patrick Walker introducing him.

Less than seven days later, he was meeting the players for the first time and handing out gear. A day later, the Warriors, led by Everhart were on the football field together for the first time.

The group has to mesh quickly as the Warriors will play their first regular-season game on Aug. 23, that's right, that's less than a month since meeting the new head coach.

Everhart knows most of the team development that he can affect will come in the off-season.

"I think the biggest thing is you develop them in the off-season which is something that really needs to improve - the strength of the team has to get better. You guys here in California have a credible advantage of having a sixth-period class or activity class to get your weightlifting done. We've got to maximize that."

However, Everhart is committed to getting the Warriors to the field prepared and continuing to develop the athletes throughout the season.

"Every kid has skills, it's our job to figure out what those are," he said. "And as far as developing a player, the player gets developed when he realizes that his technique can help him be successful. You give him good technique to be successful, but at the same time you put him in position to win."

Everhart also knows that failure is a part of the process and it's the staff's job to minimize those play to play losses.

"You know, if you run a typical game and there are 60 plays in a game, give or take, at least 15 or 20 of those plays the other kids are going to win just because of the law of averages – the other kid is pretty good too if he's playing varsity football," he said. "So, make sure you give your kids a chance to win.

"That's what I think we're going to spend the most time on is what do these kids do well? I'm very fortunate, (Fisher) did an incredible job of hiring some really good football coaches, really good guys which is important. They care about the kids which is extremely important. And then the other advantage that I personally am excited about is that a few of these guys have coached these kids for a long, long time so they know these kids and what they've seen and gone through and played against it from the youth league up. So, I'm excited about that because that helps us in our player evaluation and it helps us make sure we put the right kids in the right spot."

Everhart comes to the Warriors with 14 years of head coaching experience in the state of Ohio where he guided the Winton Woods Warriors for 11 years before leaving to take over at Middleton High School for three years.

He's coached at the collegiate level at the University of Cincinnati, Indiana University and the United States Military Academy West Point.

At Fallbrook High, he will fill a full-time physical education teacher position.

The program has seen losing records in 13 of the last 19 seasons since winning the CIF championship in 2000. The program has also seen a tremendous amount of turnover in the head coaching position in those 19 years.

"My thing right now is to inject some enthusiasm and some stability," Everhart said. "That's my first order of business. These kids have been beaten down, they've been 1-9 for three straight years. They may be excited but can they stay excited when things don't go their way? That's what we'll find out. And then just the stability of having the same coach for a whole class. So, these freshmen coming in they don't have any reason to believe that I'll be here. The reality is I have to prove it every day. What I said to those parents is that you've got to give your all for Fallbrook, to defend Fallbrook."

Jeff Pack can be reached by email at [email protected].

 

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