NC’s young football coach brings readiness to post

On this day back in 1977, a linebacker blitz was still called a red dog, future baseball Hall-of-Famer Ryne Sandberg was the North Central High School quarterback, and Grady Emmerson, well, he was just about to celebrate his first birthday.

Now it’s 28 years later and Emmerson, a former Washington State University linebacker and two-time Greater Spokane League defensive assistant coach of the year, is on the sidelines at NC as the Indians’ head man, their third coach in four years.

He succeeds Jay Jordan, who moved to Havermale High School as an assistant principal after two years at NC. Wes Hobbs was at NC for several years before stepping down after the 2002 season.

Although Emmerson is relatively young for a head coach position, there is ample recent precedent in the GSL – his most recent coaching boss, East Valley’s Adam Fisher, was hired at 24, and Jordan was 28 when he became NC’s coach.

“My goal was to get a head job before I turned 30,” he said recently, “but it’s still a pleasant surprise any time you get a job you want.

“When I graduated from WSU, I knew I wanted to coach and to be a defensive coordinator. Eventually, though, I decided I wanted to be a head coach. I talked with Coach (Bill) Doba about the route I needed to take, and when I met the East Valley coaches through my master’s program, one thing led to another.”

The biggest adjustment in making the move from assistant to head coach, he says, is the amount of time required to make sure everything’s organized, from ordering equipment to finding out who’s painting the lines on the practice field.

“Everybody tells me that the first year is the toughest,” Emmerson said, “because it requires so much time and effort to make sure things are being done the way you want ‘em done. I think I was down here every day this summer. I have a family, though, too, so I need to find my balance.”

The Indians took their lumps in their opener against Ellensburg last week, although Emmerson’s staff took heart in their fourth-quarter performance, when NC scored two touchdowns and kept Ellensburg off the scoreboard.

“We got beat up pretty good,” said Emmerson, “and before we watched film on Saturday, we told the kids they were going to need to be thick-skinned.”

Emmerson feels for the North Central players who’ve had three different sets of expectations from three head coaches in four years. But he’s impressed that he hasn’t heard any negatives about past coaches, and credits Jordan for that.

“Jay did a great job in starting to develop a program,” Emmerson said, “and that’s what I hope to do. Not just a team for one season, but a year-round program with lifting, conditioning, fund-raising and reaching down into the middle schools, to have those kids around the program even in the summer.

“I love teaching (math) and being in the classroom, so this is really the right place for me.”