Aarestad looks to win with the Storm

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Aarestad looks to win with the Storm

Sports

Friday, 26 March 2010 08:04

By Ken Jackson
Sports Writer
North Dakota to Celebration, by way of South Florida and Polk County football powerhouse Lakeland.
The Storm’s new football coach is young, well-traveled and has seen a little bit of everything.
And that’s just how Athletic Director John Bangley likes it.
Ben Aarestad, 30, a college football All-American — and likely Osceola County’s first North Dakota native among its football coaching ranks — formally took over the Celebration program on Monday, when he met with players and parents. He takes over for Bangley, who coached the team to a 3-17 the last two seasons.
The AD said Aarestad has youth and a pretty good pedigree on his side, things necessary to help Celebration finally succeed on the field. The Storm’s best record since its 2003 debut is 4-6 (2006).
“He impressed us as we went through the candidates. He’s got the game knowledge, especially on defense, and is young with a lot of enthusiasm,” Bangley said. “He’s the kid of guy who can win over attitudes that need to be changed around here. A new coach can kick-start that.”
Aarestad, a Fargo native (“The movie’s pretty close to the truth”), comes to town after a year as a junior varsity assistant at powerful Lakeland High, where he coached the JV team and worked with with the linebackers.
Prior to that, he was at Hialeah American, serving as defensive coordinator in 2006 before taking the head coaching job for 2007-08. He was 10-10. American was 7-3 in 2007 and held eight opponents to 13 points or fewer while he continued to call the defensive plays.
“I really liked the kids and the people there, but my fiancee wasn’t working the last few months there and we couldn’t afford living there,” he said. “When she got a job teaching in Haines City I landed at Lakeland.”
Aarestad will join the Celebration staff on April 12, if all paperwork goes through as scheduled, and he may also coach weightlifting.
Aarestad played collegiately in his home state at Valley City College, where he was an NAIA All-American linebacker in 2000-01. His coaching career began there as a graduate assistant before moving on to Chadron State (Neb.) College, a Division II powerhouse for two years. He was the defensive coordinator at Banning High in greater Los Angeles in 2005 before arriving in Hialeah, thanks an old college coaching contact.
Aarestad said his first items of business are setting the groundwork, and that comes even before spring workouts begin in May.
“At first we’ll take small steps, like setting up the right lifting and conditioning programs,” he said. “This is a 12-month sport, you’re either lifting or running at other times of the year, and doing it as a team.”
He said his one year at Lakeland’s multi-championship program taught him many things that he plans to bring with him into Celebration’s program.
“Lakeland is a tremendous program. The best thing they do is how they practice, getting ready to play their games,” he said. “It’s fast and game-like but they don’t hit a lot.”
Aarestad said his 4-3, cover-2 and 4-4, cover-3 defensive schemes are meant to be aggressive.
“I like to blitz, I like to attack. Kids like to hear that sort of thing,” he said. “You just don’t want to sit back and get beat up on.”
He said the offense will be based on his yet-unknown personnel.
“On offense, we’ll probably do a little bit of everything. You want that balance of 55 percent run, or maybe more, because if you’re winning you’re running the ball at the end of the game,” he said.
“The key is to get the ball in the hands of your best-skilled athletes. If that means going four-wide or a power-I to do it, that’s what we’ll do.”
Celebration jumped back into district play last season after spending 2005-08 as an independent. The Storm was 0-6 in 3A District 9, which included established Polk County programs like Lake Wales, Winter Haven and Auburndale.
“He’s well aware of the challenge,” Bangley said. “He’s going to be very good for our program.”
Aarestad said his approach to turning the Storm’s fortune is as much mental as it will be physical.
“The point I’m trying to get across now is that the first goal is to win, and to expect it. If we’re competitive in each game, we have a shot to get some wins.”
Aarestad said the simplest way to do that is to build the program from the bottom up.
“The idea is to get more kids out, and to get better every year,” he said.
Aarestad’s arrival marks the third coaching change in Osceola County since last season. Michael Timpkins replaced Gene Smith at Poinciana, and Doug Nichols took over for Jeff Rolson at OHS.