Read stories on more high school football coaches at new schools,
Editor’s Note: The Oklahoman will have stories on more new coaches in Tuesday’s editions.
Justin Jones, Norman North
For at least the next four months, Justin Jones will get in his truck every morning at his Yukon home and drive 35 minutes to Norman North High School before he repeats the drive later that evening.
Plenty of time to focus on how to continue the Timberwolves’ recent success.
As practice begins Monday, Jones is embracing every challenge of becoming Norman North’s new head football coach. The goal is to continue winning, but it’s also to build something that is sustainable with the ability to bring the state championship back west.
“I think we’re going to be a good football team this year,” Jones said. “I think we’re going to be a great football team in five years. It’s the process of building.
“With that said, to our current players and the players who are going to graduate this year and next year, we’re going to do everything we can to be successful to go win. Somebody at some point in time has got to shock the state and bring the title back to this side. When that will be? I don’t know. But it’s got to happen.”
Jones spent the past seven years building McGuinness into a Class 5A powerhouse. The Irish played in the last two state championship games, losing both times to Carl Albert.
That still left Jones with a sense of accomplishment and made it easier to move to Norman North, which is down the street from Westmoore. his alma mater.
Norman North made the quarterfinals last season, a year after losing the title game. But to take the next step, Jones is focusing on how he built McGuinness
When he took over, the program was moving to Class 5A, but some doubted it could compete with Carl Albert, Guthrie and Lawton MacArthur among others. Jones embraced that, instead modeling the Irish program after those programs outside of the Xs and Os.
I think when you look at Best 11 vs. Best 11, I think the West side has what the East side does,” Jones said. “Where the East side has won a lot of those games is because of the program development and the alignment that they have.
“I also know that at Norman North High School we’re going to treat this from our seventh grade and up and even het into our youth. I think that’s something the West side is getting better at and I think that will close that gap.”
Luke Orvis, Edmond Memorial
Before he even graduated from Edmond Memorial High School 23 years ago, Luke Orvis knew he wanted to coach his alma mater.
“I just had so many influential coaches here that I wanted to come back and give back all that they had given to me and try to be that person to some athletes that I had coming up,” Orvis said.
But to get home, he first had to go elsewhere.
Orvis spent the past two years as the head coach at Arvada, Colorado, following an 11-year stint as an assistant with Edmond Memorial. He left with the intention of returning one day.
“I didn’t know that if I stayed here and just tried to keep working my way up that I would be able to have that chance,” Orvis said. “I didn’t know that. That was my feeling on the situation.”
Monday morning, Orvis will take the field as the Bulldogs’ coach, replacing Justin Merideth.
Orvis knows hard work is ahead after Edmond Memorial went 2-8 in 2017. But he took on a similar challenge at Arvada, working to turn around a struggling program.
“I took it as if I can go install a program in this school and get it going in the right direction, it would mean something,” Orvis said. “I didn’t really know anybody. I went on my own and thought I would test myself.”
Jonathan Garfield, Putnam City Original
Days before the start of fall camp and Putnam City Original coach Jonathan Garfield is already operating on no sleep.
With two crushed energy drinks on his desk, a few boxes left to unpack in his office and a to-do list as long as the football field, Garfield says building his own program means putting in long hours.
“We were pretty ambitious from the get-go,” Garfield said. “We painted the locker room and we painted the offices and miniscule things that go great with building a culture.
“Take pride in the small things and the players will take pride in the small things.”
After leaving his post as offensive coordinator at Southwestern Oklahoma State University to take the head job at PCO after the departure of Preston Pearson, Garfield said his first priorities were to get to know his players and establish a set of values and standards.
“Culture wins championships,” Garfield said. “First thing I told parents when I was hired is that we are a values based program. We will never evaluate our program on wins and losses.”
This past Friday, Garfield and his staff took the team on a retreat to Hinton where a friend of the program set the team up on 1,400 acres to play games, go through team bonding exercises and just have fun.
“Just trying to get them bond as a team and a family,” Garfield said. “We want to mold these young men into productive adults who are one day good fathers and husbands.”