Smith projects calm after elevation to Hornet head coach
CALIPATRIA — As of this writing, the official start of the 2019 high school football season is exactly one week away. After months of strength training, conditioning and practices both padded and not, things finally begin again in earnest next Friday.
All eight local teams will be in action, but while the standings will show them as equals for a day, one team feels like they may already be in a bit of a hole due to some preseason turmoil.
That unlucky bunch would be the Calipatria Hornets, who were blindsided last week by the sudden resignation of going-on-fourth-year head coach Mike Swearingen. Swearingen’s exit was swiftly followed by the entirety of his varsity coaching staff, leaving the cupboard nigh on bare as the team hurtled towards week one.
Acting quickly, school administration did the logical thing, elevating first-year JV coach Keith Smith Sr. to the varsity level.
Not only was Smith already on hand, and thus able to step into Swearingen’s slot without wearing through the soles of his shoes, but he brings with him a bevy of experience belied by his relatively brief time in the Hornet coaching ranks.
Most famously a wrestling coach — he minded the mat at Brawley for just shy of 30 years (1976-2003), helping maintain the sterling tradition inaugurated there by California Wrestling Hall of Famer Jack Gifford — he also has extensive experience out on the gridiron, having served as the Brawley freshman or JV coach most years he was a teacher there, and later having spent eight years as the defensive coordinator for his son, Keith Smith Jr., when the latter was
running the show at Holtville.
Still, Smith Sr. hasn’t been a varsity head-man since 1975, when he was working at the impossibly tiny Panguitch High School (present enrollment 146) in Panguitch, Utah, and there can be no doubt he’s got a job of work on his hands.
This isn’t the first challenge Smith has undertaken on behalf of the school where he’s been a two-period-a-day biology teacher for the past five years, however. Last schoolyear he tackled the unenviable task of building a wrestling program from scratch, and that was an unmitigated success.
Almost overnight Calipatria went from having no wrestlers to fielding a team of 31, with representatives for every weight class. They went on to win the 2019 Citrus League title and had four team members place at the CIFSDS Division IV individual finals.
As far as Smith is concerned, making wrestling happen was a tougher nut than he expects managing the football transition to be, because at least the guys on the football team already know the first thing about the sport.
“We only had two guys on the (wrestling) team that knew anything remotely about wrestling,” said Smith, “So we were starting from nothing (with most kids). They were empty pitchers [and] we filled them up during the season … but these guys here, they’ve got a jump on it. They know how to tackle well; the linemen know how to block well. They’ve been well coached over the years. They know the fundamentals of football.”
Even so, Smith understands that nothing about his situation will be easy.
Swearingen’s departure took everybody by surprise, particularly the players — though Smith believes they’ve handled themselves admirably and thinks they’ve got the fortitude to weather the storm.
“I think it was a shock, a real shock to them,” said Smith, “but we’ve had our team talk and I’ve told them about myself and they’ve set some good team goals, and when you have some good team goals you know what you’ve gotta do to reach ‘em.”
Smith declined to share the precise nature of those goals, but, speaking broadly, said they amounted to the team being committed to, “every game that we play, be[ing] able to walk off the field and say, ‘That’s the best we can do.’”
Some of the goals are likely to be tied to the smooth implementation of a new (old) offense, with the veer option favored by Brawley during the John Bishop years replacing the double-wing configuration utilized by Swearingen.
Both offenses are run-heavy (though Smith indicates a desire to incorporate more passes into his sets) and thrive on deception, but the veer can provide simpler reads for the quarterback and tends to take a touch longer for the defense to diagnose if executed properly.
Helping Smith and the Hornets find their footing is an impromptu cadre of assistants recruited largely from the ex-Brawley/Calipat ranks by Athletic Director Josh Wise and Superintendent Doug Kline — including Mark Valdez, Isaiah Quiroz, Jacob Whannel, John Reyes, Pete Sanchez, Brandon Self and Wise himself. Most if not all (Whannel played at Calipatria under David Shaw) have ties in one way or another to the Bishop tree.
In terms of on-field personnel, Smith isn’t planning on making any drastic alterations.
“It’s pretty well set,” he said. “Coach Swearingen did a good job there. We’ve got Kalin Sotelo here at quarterback — best athlete on the field probably, put the ball in his hands as much as possible, that’s the theory there — and we’ve got Hugo Cervantes (at receiver) over here … most of them are where they were before.”
On the whole Smith feels that the team has embraced the challenges tossed its way, and is hopeful that this attitude will translate to overall success.
“These guys are realistic. They know this is what we gotta do and they’re doing their darn best to make the adjustment,” he said.
But wins and losses are secondary to Smith, who sees his role as providing them with a viable way forward. “I’m way past the scoreboard,” he said. “This is all about these kids out here. I love to win and I fight to win, but it’s all about helping them out.