Gloucester, Jamestown secure their leadership
Two Peninsula-area football programs that struggled last season have stabilized their coaching situations in hope of future success.
Gloucester named Noah Crouch to replace head coach John Scalf, who guided the Dukes to some of their most successful seasons before resigning after a one-win 2022 campaign.
Jamestown, which did not win a game in 2022, has removed the interim tag from Scott Lambin and promoted him to full-time head coach.
Crouch is the son of state coaching legend Mickey Crouch, who guided Amherst County to three state championship games and a state title. Noah Crouch was a player on the 1998 Amherst team that lost to Hampton 35-0 in a state title game.
“I learned from him that everything in coaching, and life, is about relationships,” Crouch said of his dad, who coached for 40 years. “He’s been retired nine years and his [former players] still call him.”
After high school, Crouch played on scholarship for four seasons at Liberty, where he twice earned All-Big South honors at punter. He has been a high school assistant coach for 12 seasons in four states.
Crouch plans to employ the Wing-T offense and multiple defenses at Gloucester.
At Jamestown, Lambin, an ex-Marine who worked in counterterrorism after serving in the military, became the Eagles’ interim coach in June after Terry Smith, now a Lafayette assistant, resigned after one season. The Eagles have won just 13 games in the past nine seasons.
But school administration is happy with the progress Lambin is making, citing increased participation numbers in a letter to team parents. Lambin, the weightroom coordinator and former JV coach at Jamestown, says he ended last season with 62 players, a significant increase from 2021, and that he has 82 on his tentative roster for next season.