Smith takes reins of Pioneers’ football team

Doug Smith took a year hiatus from coaching football at Heritage this past fall to spend more time with his father, Carl, who is battling esophagus cancer in Rustburg, and oldest daughter, Nichole, a Brookville graduate who played in every game as a freshman on Winthrop University’s soccer team.

After a year away from the sport, both family members encouraged him to get back in the game he loves.

“Over the Christmas break, Nichole said, ‘Dad, you need to get back into coaching. Those kids need you,’” Smith said, noting his father is fighting for his life right now. “They were both expressing a desire for me to get back into it.”

On Tuesday, Smith was introduced as Heritage’s sixth head football coach since the school opened in 1976, succeeding Chris Jones who resigned last month after seven seasons at the helm.

During his 22 years of coaching, first as a receivers coach at Liberty University, where he played receiver in the early 1980s, then for five years at William Campbell before moving to Heritage in 1992, Smith had had other head coaching job offers.

But since arriving at LU from Upper Marlboro, Md., he has established strong roots in the community and didn’t want to move his family — including wife, Susan, and younger kids Noelle, 15, and Austin, 12.

“My wife’s in concrete,” Smith said. “Her family’s in Appomattox, my family’s in Rustburg.”

He is happy to be stuck at Heritage, where he has taught computer science for the past 17 years.

“I’ve always liked the type of kids we get at Heritage,” Smith said. “Most of these kids will do anything for you. They work hard. Once they know that you’ve got their back, and that you’re in it for them, they’re going to perform.”

The Pioneers have taken to Smith over the years and the returnees showed their willingness to work for him during a team meeting to announce his hiring on Tuesday.

“I had eye contact, they had incredible mannerism, everyone shook hands with me afterwards,” he said. “It’s a great group of kids.”

Heritage athletic director Mark Storm believes Smith is the right man for the job and will have the Pioneers well trained and prepared.

“He is very organized and very thorough,” Storm said. “It’s hard to find somebody who outworks him. He’s excellent with his group of assistants, utilizing all of his talent, and excellent in terms of building relationships with kids and parents.”

Smith, who served as defensive coordinator for the 2007 season and offensive coordinator before that, has hit the ground running, trying to catch up for the time spent apart from the team.

“I’m already working with them,” he said, noting former E.C. Glass coach Ed Landis and athletic trainer Tony Tucker will continue to run the weight room and do speed work with players in the offseason. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, but we’ve got an incredibly talented coaching staff.”

He said a handful of assistant coaches who are coming back, including former offensive line coach Jeff Pultz, who retired after 27 seasons last summer, former Virginia player Jeff Tomlin, who got into officiating last year, and Heritage baseball coach Paul Johnson, will be a big plus.

They will help him assess the returning talent and develop an offensive strategy that suits the personnel.

“The goal is to get to know them, watch them on film and watch them in the weight room and in their workouts and make a really good assessment before we get to 7-on-7 (this spring),” Smith said.

Smith served as coach of both the freshman and JV teams at Heritage in 1994 and 1999, three years before the Pioneers won their first state championship in Jones’ first season in 2002.

“Jeff Tomlin offered to take the ninth-grade and JV teams,” Smith said. “That’s huge for us.”

He is looking forward to delegating responsibility and developing the potential in his coaches and players.

“It’s not about me,” Smith said. “It’s about this great group of kids, about building a program for them. With the great staff we have, it’s about us coming together as one unit and putting all our resources together to put the best quality football team on the field each Friday night. No doubt, we’ll get our program rolling like it’s been in the past.”