Rogers Coaching Staff Seeing Many Changes For Upcoming Year
One new Rogers High coach comes from 1,200 miles away, the other comes from the neighborhood.
Bill Hughes and Shawn Carney represent the changing face of Pirate athletics for the upcoming year.
New girls basketball coach Hughes and wrestling coach Carney are the highest profile hires among five head coaching and several assistantships that opened this year.
Steve Kiesel, since 1991 the boys cross country coach, assumes the boys track position. Football and golf assistant Dave Hughes is the new golf coach. Girls tennis is expected to be filled in August. Additionally, assistant football and basketball coach Dexter Griffen has become the head basketball post at Mariner High School in Western Washington.
“Sometimes you hit a cycle,” said athletic administrator Janice Truant. “Usually there are a variety of reasons for change.”
Drew Vanderpool resigned girls basketball to become head boys coach at East Valley High.
Wrestling coach Walt Arnold’s wife is in the military and he commuted weekends to her previous assignment in San Francisco. She has been transferred to Kodiak, Alaska, and he’s following to be with her and their young daughter.
Track coach Aaron Hansen has left Rogers to pursue other opportunities, also leaving open an assistant football post.
Larry Williamson will be retiring in a year and is turning golf over to someone else.
And girls tennis coach Barb Silvey wanted to spend more family time.
“Fortunately we have projected increased enrollment,” said Truant. “A few years ago we had coaching openings and no teaching. It’s nice this fits together.”
Carney is a 1991 Rogers graduate, all-league football player and state wrestling champion who is returning to his alma mater to become just the third Pirate wrestling coach.
He spent his days going to school and nights working at UPS following graduation, coached at Shaw Middle School and slept when he could.
“I came out of high school with big aspirations,” he said. “Originally I thought about physical therapy, but once I started coaching I realized it’s what I wanted to get into.”
He coached at Shaw for six years and helped at Rogers.
“I’ve been around the program since I graduated,” he said. “It would have been ideal to come back, but it’s hard getting a teaching job in Spokane. This is a dream come true.”
Carney said he will stess the basics, focus on discipline and pride in the wrestling room.
“I’m ready to jump in there and learn,” the new Rogers science teacher said. “I’m going to make mistakes but I’ll learn from them and move on.”
Hughes, brings to Rogers an unbridled enthusiasm for basketball.
That led to his being named Great Northern League coach of the year last year, his only season as Newport High’s basketball coach. The team started 0-6 and finished 11-11.
“The first time I saw the players was in November,” he said. “I think my downfall was I didn’t know anything about them coming in.”
Hughes decided after a lifetime in California and high school coaching success, that it was time to relocate. This area appealed to him. Finding a teaching post wasn’t easy.
“I knew coaching was a way to get a job, a way to get up here,”he said. “I know the game, it’s my passion. I’m happy to be at Rogers.”
This will be his first time coaching girls basketball, but his first experience in a summer league game was encouraging.
“They played their hearts out which is what I wanted,” he said.
He said that the game will be slower and he will work harder on fundamentals than if he were coaching a boys team.
“But I think in some respects girls are more coachable than guys. (The boys) all want to be like Mike,” Hughes said, referring to NBA legend Michael Jordan.