It took a little longer than expected, but Liberty High School has a new football boss.
Brett Munroe, who spent the last two years on Bryan Smart’s staff at St. Cloud, will take over as the Chargers new head coach.
Munroe served as defensive passing game coordinator for St. Cloud in 2019-20. He has 10 years of coaching experience at the high school level, including a stint at Tohopekaliga as offensive coordinator. He also coached one year at Liberty and also coached at Oak Ridge and Ridge Community.
He takes over for Brandon Pennington, who resigned last spring to return to St. Cloud as its new defensive coordinator. Liberty had an agreement in place with another coach, who had to turn down the position in order to attend to personal matters.
“It’s a little late to take over, but we have hit the ground running,” Munroe said. “At our first workout, we had about 10 kids show up. A few days later we had 40. The word is getting out and I think we will have a good number when camp opens on Aug. 1.”
Liberty will play the 2021 season as independent and will be ineligible for the postseason, a decision that was reached last spring but one that Munroe agrees with.
“We would have been placed in a really tough district and this program is definitely in a rebuild mode,” he said. “By going this route, we were able to put together a schedule where we could be a lot more competitive. It’s certainly something we will sit down and address In the future.”
Trying to complete a staff has also been an issue.
“Two guys stayed on from last year’s staff and I’ve been able to hire a few more,” the first year coach said. “It’s a little late to be trying to put a staff together but I’ve interviewed a few more coaches and hopefully we’ll have a full staff in place in a couple of days.”
Munroe said he believes he has talent to work with.
“This school has always had some really good athletes,” he noted. “We need to get more of them interested in football and build on what we have.”
Smart believes Munroe will do a good job with the Chargers.
“He’s an excellent coach who pays attention to detail,” Smart said of his former assistant. “It’s tough taking over a position this close to the start of the season, but if anyone can handle, Brett can.”
St. Cloud and Liberty are scheduled to meet on Sept. 3, Week 2 of the regular season, at Tom Gannarelli Field. The Chargers have also scheduled in-county games this year at Gateway (Sept. 10) and Celebration (Oct.1), against Harmony (Oct. 8) and their annual Battle of the Boulevard, which they’ve never lost going back to 2007, on Nov. 5 at rival Poinciana.
A native of Orlando, Munroe graduated from Oak Ridge High School. He played two years of baseball at Seminole State College, before an arm injury finished his athletic career. Munroe would later graduate from UCF.
