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Dave Stephens hired as new GHS football coach
Dave Stephens isn’t quite an out-of-the-blue pick as the next Greencastle football head coach.
Stephens has prior experience working with the Tiger Cubs, having been an assistant on Josh Buis’ staff from 2011-13 and was recently an assistant to former Tiger Cub, Owen Valley and recently-appointed Avon head coach Rob Gibson the past two seasons as part of the Patriot coaching staff.
Neither will Stephens’ schemes look too different from what those in purple and gray have been running the past few seasons.
What will change is the way the players and coaches go about their business and translate that on to the field as Stephens said as much as things have changed physically since he was a coach a decade ago, there were changes in mentality that were on his mind for the current crop of Tiger Cubs.
“There have been some changes and things that are being changed currently, such as the facilities,” Stephens said. “The way the parents and football club organize fundraisers are different, the investment in the school in both academics and the athletics, such as the football, the incoming weight room and the rest of the new facilities are things I’m excited about.
“There are also some things that haven’t changed for the good. I remember, as an assistant, that we had around 60 kids on the sideline and last year saw there were about 30 kids. Yes, enrollment has dropped but our goal is to get back to around 60 players on the team every year, as well as to bring back the enthusiasm and excitement for the game of football.
“The big thing, more than anything else, is that we want guys in that fit the culture we intend to build, one built on relationships,” Stephens added. “We want the kids to know we care about them, hold them accountable to championship standards on the field, in the classroom, their behavior and their preparation.
“We, as coaches, need to hold ourselves to those same standards. There were 25 individuals interested in coaching at Greencastle; between returning personnel and individuals we want to bring in, we’ve whittled it down to 11 coaches, four of whom are former players that know what it’s like to win at Greencastle, have a winning pedigree and have a similar value system to myself and see the game the same way I see it.”
After leaving Greencastle in 2013, Stephens worked in education out of Jasper before being named head coach at Pike Central, coaching for three years between 2018-20 before jumping on board with Gibson at Owen Valley..
“We had a really good thing going on at Owen Valley,” Stephens said about the Patriots, having helped the team to win consecutive sectional titles in 2021 and 2022. “Robbie was getting some looks from Avon; we had worked out a deal to ride things out at Owen Valley unless certain jobs came open and, as the process shifted, Greencastle had its opening come up.
“With Robbie opting to go to Avon, I told him I would pursue the Greencastle job and the wheels started going in motion from there.”
Having coached against the Tiger Cubs the past two seasons and seeing them up close, Stephens was excited with what talent Greencastle had available to work with.
“There are some good core players on the roster, guys who are tall, have some length and athleticism,” Stephens said. “It’s a core group of players that, with a tweak here and there, could be a really solid group and be competitive this year.”
As offensive coordinator for Owen Valley, Stephens ran a unit that ran for 3,072 and passed for 2,180 yards, finished second in the state of Indiana in scoring average (47.54 ppg) and 11th overall in average margin of victory (30.38 ppg).
The incoming senior class will be familiar with some of the concepts already, having had Gibson as offensive coordinator during their freshmen year, and Stephens said the kids would take to formations and ideas quickly.
“The kids they have fit in lockstep with what we want to do schematically,” Stephens said. “There are a lot of parallels personnel-wise going into Greencastle in 2023 as we had at Owen Valley going into 2021.
“Developmentally, we’ll see how it works but there are a lot of players were looking at to execute our schemes. We’re also looking to get some kids out in the hallways right now that are not playing that would helps us as well.”
Stephens added the formations may not look a lot different on both sides of the ball at first glance but the ways in which they would be utilized would vary from game to game.
“We like having multiple styles of attack,” Stephens said. “We spread things out but, while we might have four wide receivers one play, we might move to having three tight ends and a running back the next play.
“We want to be able to take advantage of situations, where it’s with quickness, with strength or wherever the advantage lies. Defensively, we will use a 4-2-5 that will look like what we’ve done at Owen Valley.
“We ran it at OV not just because of the kids we had but the formation allows us to guard against multiple attacks and is something I believe in,” Stephens added. “When Robbie asked me to join his staff at Owen Valley, it was because our philosophies aligned and that’s part of the reason things will look similar to what Owen Valley has done in the past.”
Stephens will officially begin his teaching and coaching duties on July 1 but before then, the new coach will spend the spring getting the players into the expected rhythm once formal practices begin in the fall.
“We have a limited contact period during April and in that time, we will take the guys we have available to teach our base drills and set ups,” Stephens said about his spring plans. “Everything has a purpose; we have a systematic process to get extra reps in during practice and we want to be the most efficient time users in the state, stealing reps from time all throughout practice.
“We will teach those basics, setup and get kids familiar with the process so, come June, we can put in the basics of the offenses, defense and other stuff. We’ll got of all the drills and terms so that when guys hear inside run, 7-on-7, routes on air, etc., the kids will know what to do and how to do it efficiently,.”
Though still a few months from formally being in charge, Stephens said there was already an air of excitement around the program and wanted to extend that energy from the high school down in order to build up Greencastle football as a whole.”
“I cant wait to get going,” Stephens said. “We’re on the ground level of building something exciting.
“I didn’t come here for Greencastle to be a mid-lelvel team; I want to teach football, talk about winning characteristics and traits and look forward to competing for a lot of title. All of that has to come from being a process-first team.
“The excitement and buzz from the kids has already gotten back to me,” Stephens added. “I want to meet with the youth board and hold a coaching clinic as those guys are great and wanted to be guided.
“My job to coach the coaches whether at varsity, middle school or youth level. I want to help be a beacon of light for the others, to raise the tide for all the kids from K-12.”