Search for new football coach will take time

The wheels are in motion for finding the next Jamestown High School head football coach. The question that still remains, however, is how long the wheels will have to turn before the hire is made?

Jamestown Superintendent Bob Toso said there is no timeline for making the hire, and considering the importance of the position, they are proceeding with caution while evaluating a number of different candidates both internally and externally.

“We have some excellent candidates internally and we feel like we have some excellent candidates that have indicated that they would like to come to Jamestown to coach football,” said Toso. “We just don’t have any teaching vacancies available at this time.”

Toso said there have been some requests for early retirement, which could open up potential teaching positions for an external coach.

“There are one or two positions that could potentially be for a head football coach, but we’re not sure what direction we’re going to go with those,” said Toso. “It’s a discussion that we’re going to have to have as a district shortly, and also, to be fair to everybody that’s shown an interest, we feel like we have to wait to see what kind of other teaching openings we might have.

“At the same time we don’t want to wait forever because we have some excellent internal candidates and we want to treat them right, too.”

Toso added that he knows there’s a sense of urgency to fill the position, but making sure the right person is hired is objective No. 1.

“I was talking with one of our assistant coaches recently and they indicated that they would like to see something done fairly quickly, so that the new head coach can get together with the players and let them know, ‘This is what my expectations are for this winter and this summer,’” Toso said. “We understand there is some urgency, but we can’t speed on in case there are other teaching vacancies later on. We’re just trying to be patient and at the same time be respectful to everybody that applied and that can be a difficult tight rope to walk.”

Bill Cahill coached the Blue Jays for 14 years before stepping down in October. Jamestown finished 0-9 last season.

“(Activities Director) Jim Roaldson and I are in communication with all of the candidates,” Toso said. “We’ve let them know that we don’t have a timeline, but we do know that it’s something we want to deal with as soon as possible.”

Sun sports writer David Griswold can be reached at (701) 952-8462 or by e-mail at dgriswold@jamestownsun.com. Follow him at www.twitter.com/DGriswoldSun

Tags: sports, jays, football, coach