St. Cloud High did not have to look far to find a replacement for football coach Bryan Smart, who was recently promoted to athletic director. Outgoing Athletic Director Eric Godfrey announced Wednesday that current offensive coordinator Michael Short, 47, would be the Bulldogs next head coach.
“The search committee, which included Coach Smart, Principal Nate Fancher, Assistant Principal Jennifer Wrona and I interviewed eight outstanding candidates,” Godfrey said. “At the end of the day, Coach Short won over the committee with his enthusiasm and passion for St. Cloud High. In our minds, he stood out as the guy most qualified to lead our football program.”
“I am excited about the opportunity to be a head coach again,” Short said. “In terms of philosophy, I do not think you are going to see a huge change between my style and the way Bryan handled things. Coach Smart did such a great job of getting our kids to buy into the system and just play hard in every play of every game and that’s certainly a blueprint any coach would want to follow.”
Short said the passing game would probably be the biggest difference fans will see on the field. “Throwing the ball has become a bigger part of the game at all levels, so we will probably chuck it around a little more than we have in the past. But in my mind, the main reason is we have the personnel to do that,” he said. “We had a gifted, young quarterback in Logan King who got a lot of snaps last season as a freshman and we have a lot of talented, skilled younger players around him. It will be fun to coach these players and watch them develop.”
Prior to returning to St. Cloud as a member of Smart’s staff last season, Short spent one year as assistant line coach and head wrestling coach at Robinson High School in Texas. He spent two different stints at East River (Orlando), splitting three years as an offensive coordinator and one as defensive coordinator, with one season as an assistant at Lake Howell.
Short was head coach at Colonial High School for 2013-15; as well as the offensive coordinator at West Orange in 2012. He spent three years at St. Cloud from 2009 to 2011 as both an assistant and head coach. Prior to that he was the freshman football coach and wrestling coach at Gateway from 2006-08 and also spent three seasons at Southern Lee in North Carolina as an offensive coordinator and head wrestling coach.
“As a football guy, he brings a ton of experience to the position. But Mike also knows our students, our alumni and our boosters; and more importantly understands the culture of both our school and our community,” Smart said. “We had a lot of outstanding candidates but Mike won us over with passion for coaching.”
Smart added that it was interesting to see how things have gone full circle. “Coach Short is the reason I am at St. Cloud. He hired me and gave me my first coaching job,” Smart said. “Without him I never get here and now -- almost a dozen years later -- I am on the committee that hires Mike to replace me.”
For the foreseeable future, Short added that he expects to also remain the head wrestling coach at St. Cloud.
