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Doug Nichols takes OHS football post PDF Print E-mail
Sports
Thursday, 25 March 2010 00:07
By Rick Pedone
Sports Editor
It didn’t take long for Osceola High administrators to find their next head football coach.
He was only a few miles away at Liberty High: Doug Nichols.
Nichols, 43, coached for 16 years at OHS prior to taking the Liberty job. He was the offensive coordinator for the Kowboys’ 1998 state championship team and also served as the head wrestling coach for eight years at OHS before establishing the Liberty football program in 2007.
He will start at OHS April 12, three weeks before spring football practice begins.
Nichols enjoyed rapid success at Liberty as the team won its first two varsity games in 2007, including an upset at St. Cloud. Liberty posted a 15-16 record in three seasons and was 8-3 last year. The Chargers beat Mount Dora, 28-21, in the Scholarship Bowl in their first postseason contest.
Nichols inherits a Kowboys program that was 37-13 in four years under Jeff Rolson, who resigned last week to take a similar job at Springfield Rutherford High near Panama City.
Nichols faces a daunting challenge next season against a schedule that had seven 2009 playoff teams. Many of the players responsible for the school’s recent success will graduate in May.
“It’s going to be a challenge, no question, but that’s what the situation is, so we’re going to make the best of it,” Nichols said.
OHS Athletic Director Jim Bird said Nichols is a perfect fit for the football program.
“Doug is someone I know and someone I coached with for many years, so you know exactly what you are getting with him — an outstanding coach and an outstanding individual,” Bird said. “I’m really excited about it. Doug, and some of his assistants at Liberty, have strong Osceola ties. It probably divided our fans a little, it had some of them turning into Liberty fans because they like Doug so much. With him coming back to Osceola, I hope that some of those people will come back and make our community support even stronger.”
Bird, who coached with Nichols under OHS Coach Greg Johnson in the 1990s, said he looked over many applications for the position and did two phone interviews with other candidates before choosing Nichols.
Osceola High Principal Gary Preisser, who opened Liberty High before moving to OHS, hired Nichols in 2007 to be the Chargers coach.
Nichols said it was not an easy decision to leave.
“The seniors at Liberty this year are the guys who were freshmen when we started, they are the first class that is coming through and I was looking forward to this season,” Nichols said. “The one thing I can say is that whoever takes the Liberty job is not getting a bare cupboard. J.J. (Elisis) led the county in rushing last year, Marc Castillo is a Division I tackle and Evan Durand is a heck of a fullback, plus we’ve got some good ones coming back on the offensive and defensive lines.”
Nichols left OHS before any of next season’s Kowboys players were in school.
“The senior class that is graduating, with Marc Deas and B.J. Butler and those guys, was the freshman group when I was last on campus. We didn’t play Osceola, so I don’t know a lot about the guys who are here,” he said.
Nichols knows that Kowboys fans expect victories no matter the situation.
“That comes with the territory. The pressure never bothers me, because nobody puts more pressure on me than I do,” Nichols said. “I still beat myself up over a bad call I made at Rutherford (in a 1999 OHS playoff game) near the goal line that cost us that game. I called a fade pass to J.D. Bracy (that was intercepted). I still feel it 11 years later.”
Nichols said that his defensive coordinator, Scott Spencer, is moving to OHS, and other assistant coaches may follow.
Bird said Rolson was taking several of his assistants to Rutherford High, where Rolson begins work April 1.
Nichols was a high school standout at Spencer High in West Virginia, where he was the quarterback for a state championship team. He placed at the state wrestling tournament, helping Spencer win the state title. He played quarterback at Concord College in West Virginia.
“He’s been a winner at every stop he’s made,” Bird said. “We know we have found a coach who wants to be a Kowboy, and knows how to win.”
Nichols and his wife, Reedy Creek Elementary Principal Diane Crooks-Nichols, have two daughters, Madison and Auburn.
Liberty Athletic Director Scott Birchler said he is reviewing resumes and hopes to have a new coach in place for spring practice.
He wished Nichols well.
“Doug is a great coach and a great friend, and more importantly, a class act professional,” Birchler said. “He did a great job getting this program off the ground, and it’s now our duty to keep things progressing in the professional and competitive manner that he established.”
 

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