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TERRY JONESEx-Indians assistant Mike Gottman, who said he will only tweak the Cougars' Wing-T offense, replaces David New.
For several years, Mike Gottman turned down attractive head coaching offers because he was content as an assistant at East Bay, which has a winning program.
When David New resigned as coach of Durant to become an assistant principal at Newsome, he left a successful program and a pool of talented players. That persuaded Gottman to finally accept an offer, this one to become the Cougars' new coach.
"I had an ideal situation at East Bay, including a great relationship with head coach Brian Thornton," Gottman said. "I didn't want to give up a good thing just to take on the serious headaches of being a head football coach.
"Durant principal Joe Perez offered me an opportunity. He respects his coaches and the kids and is doing everything possible to help me get the assistants I need."
At East Bay, Gottman said, integrity and character are the goals set by the coaches and players. And he said he sees the same goals at Durant.
"We are impressed by his knowledge of football, his sensitivity for the kids and his determination to teach our young men positive character and life skills they can take far beyond football," Durant athletic director Pam Bowden said. "We interviewed some very good applicants, but we feel we hired the right man. He is also sensitive to our seniors by not coming in and forcing them to learn an entirely new system."
East Bay, which has made the playoffs for the past three seasons, started using the wishbone triple option offense when Thornton, who hired Gottman in 1995, took over as coach in 1994.
Durant has used the Wing-T, which is similar to the option. And Gottman said he will stick with it because it is a good formation and add only two or three option pitches, which he believes can be implemented without too much confusion.
"They already are in a good position to run some options with just a little work on catching pitches, reading the defenses and running the option," he said. "The more I look into Durant football, the more I am impressed with it. They get the kids to good camps, work all summer on the weights and their academics are high. My big challenge will be to maintain the high level coach New achieved in the past few years.
"The family atmosphere is important between the players and players and coaches and coaches. All our coaches will respect the kids."
Gottman said Durant lost a wealth of football knowledge with New moving on, Jim Wilt taking over at Brandon and Chad Haschel becoming Newsome's baseball coach.
But he still wants the Cougars, who last season went 9-1 in the regular season (losing 19-12 to Riverview), tied Lakeland for first in Class 5A, District 5 and advanced to the second round of the playoffs before losing 20-14 to Wharton, to strive for improvement.
"Developing the athlete, scholar and the person is our objective," he said. "When each player is achieving and improving in each of those three areas, the accountability of the team and success of the team will be there.
"You will also have some responsible young gentlemen who are intense football players. I also want to compete each year for the district championship. Building character and skills in seniors down to freshmen will also help the program constantly rebuild itself."