COLONY — Nick McAnulty believes his high school coaching days couldn’t have brought him to a better place than Crest High School.
A Uniontown native, McAnulty is heading into his fifth year as head coach of the Crest Lancers football team, a team he’s helped revive in the last half decade. The year prior to McAnulty coming to Crest, the Lancers finished the season an abysmal 0-9.
In McAnulty’s second year the Lancers went undefeated through the regular season and reached new heights of a 10-1 record.
“Seeing some of those kids be able to turn it around and then two years later go undefeated was amazing,” said McAnulty. “Seeing them get the recognition and seeing their confidence grow was just awesome. It’s such a tight knit community and everybody says it’s a family, which it is.”
McAnulty’s idea around coaching Crest’s football team keys in on being a coach that his players enjoy being near which will in turn propel them to play harder.
“I want to be the coach that I would have wanted in high school,” said McAnulty. “I want the kids to know that I care and I’m not just here to win games and use them. This is a for-life deal and they know if they need anything they can come talk to me, I’ve got their backs.”
McAnulty played football at Fort Scott Community College for one year before serving as the junior high head football coach at Marmaton Valley for a year. He then went to Emporia State where he played club rugby before taking different youth coaching jobs around Iola.
Coaches Doug Kerr and Luke Bycroft were instrumental in McAnulty coaching in the Iola area. McAnulty then went to coach football at Baldwin High School alongside Kerr before earning the head coaching job at Crest.
“Everybody that’s in this game has knowledge of the game but the difference is whether the relationship between a coach and his players is good,” McAnulty said. “It’s more important than your knowledge of the game. If your kids don’t believe in you, it’s not going to work.”
The Lancers must prepare for this fall season in an eight-man format. The size of Crest’s school only allows the Lancers to play eight-man football which means tackles and an eligible receiver are taken out offensively as well as three others on defense.
“The biggest difference is for defense. On offense, it’s basically just taking extra tackles out and an eligible receiver, which does change some things where I can’t run everything I’d like to run,” McAnulty said. “Defensively, there’s so many more holes and it’s just about covering up those holes. One-on-one tackling is so important in eight-man.”
Every year, McAnulty takes some of his players to the Kansas City Chiefs training camp practices so they can soak in what a professional football training camp looks and feels like.
Though the Lancers lost a number of seniors to graduation in the spring, McAnulty is optimistic about the younger players he already sees stepping up in practice.
“We’re excited. We’re going to have brand new starters all over the place,” McAnulty said. “The kids are really excited and hungry for these opportunities. Most of them haven’t gotten an extended period of playing time at the varsity level.”
The Lancers kick off the season with a jamboree at Oswego on Friday, Aug. 25.
