DECATUR — Athletic director Bobby King announced that Stan Ellis will be the senior high school head football coach next year.

The announcement coincided with the beginning of Spring practice last week. Decatur High School has not fielded a football team since 2008 because of a lack of participation, but according to King, 21 students were practicing last week.

Ellis is already a familiar face in Decatur. He has served as the assistant senior high football coach and the junior high head football coach in Decatur for the past three years.He also serves as the track coach and teaches math, social studies, health and physical education.

Ellis has been coaching and teaching for 22 years, but his face still lights up when he talks about football and his team.

“I have a great time coaching. Even a bad day coaching is better thana lot of other stuff,” Ellis said.

High school teams are allowed two weeks of spring practice in full pads. After spring practice, the team will be doing summer workouts until official practice beings again in early August, Ellis said.

“The numbers look good. The enthusiasm from the kids looks good. We’re definitely going to give it our best shot,” Ellis said of the team.

Math teacher Beau Collins will be serving as the assistant coach for the high school team. Ellis will continue to be the junior high head coach as well.

“Our goal as a team is to compete each week, to make each game competitive, and we want to win a few, hopefully more than a few,” Ellis said, “We will definitely put up the best fight we can. A year off has left the kids really wanting it.”

Ellis is facing a few challenges. Decatur will have a young team and many of the players have lost a year of experience. A lack of players forced school officials to make the decisionto cancel the football season last year.

This year there are potentially 24 or 25 boys who are interested in joining the team but they will all have to qualify academically, which could pose another challenge, according to King and Ellis.

On the positive side, Ellis has already worked with all the students on the team for several years as their junior high coach and assistant senior high coach.

“I’ve worked with them for three years. We don’t always have enough of them, but we have good boys,” Ellis said.

Football teaches students skills such as teamwork, competition, responsibility and the value of hard work, Ellis said.

The two keys to keeping a football team in Decatur will be support from parents by choosing to keep their teens in Decatur and making sure the students remain academically eligible, according to King.

“We can’t have athletic programs if the kids aren’t here to participate,” he said.

Sports, Pages 7 on 05/19/2010