It took a while, but Liberty High School has found its man.
Thursday, Athletics Director Lonnie Flores announced that Antony Smith would become the new Chargers football coach, replacing Brett Munroe, who guided the Chargers to a 5-5 mark last season before stepping down unexpectedly in June for health reasons. The departure left Flores with just over four weeks to find a replacement before the opening of fall camp.
“It has been a hectic 30 days and this is certainly not the best time of the year to look for a new head football coach,” Flores said. “We managed to get 11 strong applicants, but Coach Smith stood out. He was used to working at schools similar to Liberty and I really appreciated the vision he presented for our program during his interview.”
Since Cory Johns’ four-year stint as Liberty’s head coach from 2013-16, Smith becomes the Chargers’ fourth head coach in the last six years — another point that resonated with Flores.
“Coach Smith has expressed a desire to be here in the long-term. While the school has had some success, we have not had stability at the head coach position for various reasons. It is something both Coach Smith and I would like to see change.”
Taking over at this stage of the game, Smith said it would take some adjustments, but he is excited about the future.
“I was able to watch Liberty’s spring game this year, so I have some idea of what we have talent wise. There’s no question we are going to have a steep learning curve as far our players learning how I want them to practice and play,” he said. “But from what I have seen so far, I like. There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm and energy for the program and that is certainly an important building block.”
Other than taking over as head coach, Smith said he anticipated little change in the coaching staff from last year.
“Coach Munroe and his assistants did a great job last year and I appreciate the fact that most of the assistants are still there and will be with me.”
Smith graduated from Grand Canyon University in 2017 with a degree in Science Education, and also earned a Master’s Degree in educational leadership from Saint Leo University. He spent the last two seasons as head football coach at Anclote High in Holiday. He moved to Orlando and taught school in the spring semester at Colonial High. Prior to his stint at Anclote, he was the offensive co-coordinator and head junior varsity football coach at Lake Weir High. In 2018, Smith helped guide the Hurricanes to an 8-4 record, one playoff win and a spot in the regional semifinals. Smith had coaching stops at Chiefland, Umatilla, and Dunnellon.
Smith’s county paper work was not approved until this week, which kept him off the field until today.
“This has been an extremely difficult situation for both our players and our new coaching staff and it is going to require a lot of adjustments from everyone,” Flores said. “Our players are going to have to buy in quickly and Coach Smith may have to make some adjustments in the first year to work with what he has. The main thing to keep in mind is we do not hire coaches for one year. It takes time to build a program.”
