Kickapoos new coach
- Thread starter TadQueasy
- Start date
I personally know Coach Thomas and he will do a great job there.
Read the Ozark Sports Zone story (it was linked here by Rub D Do yesterday) and you will understand quickly how he got the interview.
In the last 10/15 years has anyone had a good record at Marshfield?
Hes a good coach, has coached class 6 before as an OC, has coached players in the league, was turning program around in a positive way prior to the news. Do I think he was their top choice prolly not, but tough to get anyone to coach at SPS
Hes a good coach, has coached class 6 before as an OC, has coached players in the league, was turning program around in a positive way prior to the news. Do I think he was their top choice prolly not, but tough to get anyone to coach at SPS
Sorry Harv Welch was happy in his retirement... Really though do you know anything about Coach Thomas or did you just see he coached at Marshfield and lost, so no way he's ready for such a prestigious institution as Kickapoo. I'm sure they contacted Dabo and maybe even Saban I mean it is a SPS job pretty lucrative gig.
You do realize this is about Kickapoo football, now if it was Kickapoo basketball....
Pretty sure he was one of the four finalists at Liberty North too. His two year record at marshfield didn't diminish his reputation as a great coach.
geez, I'm glad MOSPORTS wasn't around when I was looking for jobs...
you realize Coach Thomas has a family, right?
you realize Coach Thomas has a family, right?
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You would first have to take off your blinders and truly look at Football in the OC at best it is average. How many State titles do the Springfield public schools have in football, have they ever even played in a title game? You know that saying even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in awhile. Well that is what 5 public schools and none have every reached that level of success and are not even close year in and year out. Even this years Glendale team (who I was hoping was going to make it to the title game) was out matched when they got out of the Springfield area and played a good team by the tune of 52-22 who by the way got beat 49-14 in the title game.
Well, there's a big difference between a good job (which Kickapoo CLEARLY is) and the type of program you're talking about. What Webb City and Lamar and a few others? Are the other teams just not supposed to even field a team?!?!? Kickapoo and Glendale are over .50% winning percentage, which I think is pretty good in a non-football city. They pay pretty well and you'll contend for conference & district titles most years. I think you'd be a fool to pass on the Kickapoo football job. Clearly, Joel Wells still has a lot of say at POO and he gave the nod to Coach Thomas. I am surprised they didn't hire a guy with a winning record and/or proven post-season success as a head coach, though. Did Mauk's style of play at Glendale scare people off of the Kickapoo job, thinking that you'd be hard pressed to compete with that stuff?
Playing no defense scares People?????
Well number one Webb City and Lamar have not always been winners. It was not that long ago that Lamar's school board was exploring options to leave the Big 8 because they felt they were over matched in the conference. Those programs turned it around and became the Football powers because they wanted more than just contending for Conference and district titles they wanted to contend for state titles.
Springfield is not a football town, not saying that cannot change but right now your better athletes play basketball. Glendale seems to be on the rise, but they need to take that next step and only time will tell if they can. I was hoping Kickapoo would this year they seemed to have some pieces in place.
The difference is in expectations and you said it, you think being over .500 is pretty good along with just contending for a conference and district title. If a coach wants to just come in and do just that then yes those would be prefect criteria for a good job, and that is not always bad, but some coaches want to go to a place where the town is hungry for success and will get totally behind them and the team. Nothing more exciting then getting off a bus after a win to half your town.
In reading the statement from Coach Thomas it reads like Wells had to talk him into taking the job and I wonder if community support and knowing that football is not big in Springfield are some of those issues...I am not saying Nate will not do a good job or is a bad coach just not a proven coach with a successful track record yet. So all that makes you wonder did any proven coaches apply?
Well, contending for a district title in Kickapoo's district (which will typically include Rockhurst, LSW, LS, Ray-Pec, and a Blue Springs school for example) isn't too shabby. And Kickapoo won that district the year before last, and gave CBC all it could handle for a half in the semifinal game. Not too bad for one of the smallest Class 6 football schools in the state.
Time will tell if this is a good hire or not. Kickapoo's program is definitely on the rise over the past few seasons. If you don't recognize that, then you don't know what it was like before.
Time will tell if this is a good hire or not. Kickapoo's program is definitely on the rise over the past few seasons. If you don't recognize that, then you don't know what it was like before.
I agree. Springfield might not be a football town but I think they forgot to tell the Kickapoo fans that. Not sure if anyone has been to a game in the last 2 or 3 years. it is on the rise.
You won't find many places in this state where it's state championship or bust. That certainly isn't the mind set in Springfield (as far football goes), so you're response is a little over-the-top (at least for Springfield). I think winning a majority of your games over 54 years in the case of Glendale and 46 years in the case of Kickapoo should stand for something. If this state was better at record keeping, I think you'd be hard pressed to find many programs with an overall winning record over four or five decades outside of the long standing powers. Heck, even Jeff City has fallen WAY OFF from what they were from the 50's through the 90's. "I was hoping Kickapoo would this year they seemed to have some pieces in place"...um...they were 9-2 and ranked top ten the entire season. That's pretty damn good if you ask me. I'd take that at Glendale year in, year out in a New York minute. "Those programs turned it around and became the Football powers because they wanted more than just contending for Conference and district titles they wanted to contend for state titles." Well, it helps to have the TALENT to pull that off. One of the main problems at SPS is that I don't think the high school coaches are allowed to force the middle school guys to run their stuff. I don't think Coach Thomas can say I want new coaches at Carver and Cherokee or I want the coaches there to run my stuff. At Webb City, they run their stuff from the youth football level on up, I don't think the infrastructure is in place in Springfield for that to happen. In fact, I'd bet there'd be some major push back if some coach wanted to do that at any of the high schools. "Who does he think he is...I'll do my job the way I want, etc." Now, that's what I heard 10-15 years ago, maybe things have changed. "better athletes play basketball"...maybe at Kickapoo in the early-2000's that was a problem, but I've seen that change with DBG, Cameron Johnson, etc. The Individualization era has passed in Springfield. I'll give you that was a problem about 15 years ago, but it isn't as much of an issue now. Vokolek plays two or three sports at Kickapoo. Even back in the day, Shane Laurie and Deven Mitchell played football, but they got injured and realized their future was in basketball, not football, so they stopped playing. I'm not going to blame kids/parents for making that call.
Yes, between '06-'12 Kickapoo was down, but they had the strongest program (overall) in Springfield before then and they've gone 30-8 since then.
Maybe not "or bust," but it's definitely the overall goal for every program I've been around, and if it wasn't, I wouldn't be around it. To say that state championships aren't the goal is a problem in itself. Obviously, some programs are in a situation where winning a state championship is a five or even ten year goal, but it should still be the goal.
Updated and streamlined the SPS year-by-year football records page on the Quarterback Club website:
http://sgftoqb.weebly.com/year-by-year-records-for-sps-football.html
http://sgftoqb.weebly.com/year-by-year-records-for-sps-football.html
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