This is the most important time of the year for spring high school sports in Citrus County: the Florida High School Athletic Association baseball and softball playoffs. Every day for three consecutive months catchers masks, batting helmets, gloves and sunglasses have been donned by the county’s team.
On Thursday, in the midst of the spring sports playoff push, different pieces of sports equipment that haven’t been worn since late November will reappear. Chinstraps will be snapped, shoulder pads pulled down and mouth pieces put in place.
In Florida, May 1 doesn’t just mean the start of the fifth month of the year; it means the start of high school football spring practice.
In Citrus County, this year’s spring practice season marks the start of a new beginning for three schools. Citrus, Seven Rivers Christian and Lecanto high schools will all have a new head coaches for the upcoming 2014 season. Justin Taylor is the head man at Citrus. Rayburn Greene, the former coach at Citrus, is back at Seven Rivers. Greg Harper takes over at Lecanto.
Taylor, a 2002 graduate of Citrus High, coached the Inverness Middle School football team last season. The one-time U.S. Army sergeant has been working in the county school system since August of 2010. His football coaching experience also includes being an assistant coach for Crystal River High while teaching history at Crystal River Middle School.
Of the three county vacancies, Taylor might have inherited the best program. Greene led Citrus to an impressive 2013 campaign with a 9-2 record while competing in Class 6A. It was the school’s first playoff appearance since 2007. The first hurdle Taylor will face as the Hurricane’s new skipper has nothing to do with on field execution.
“The biggest challenge for a new coach is always getting the players to buy in to your philosophies,” said Taylor. “We accomplish that by building relationships and showing them that everything that we do as a staff we do to put them in a position to be successful.”
The Seven Rivers football squad can only improve after going winless in 2013. School administrators are hoping Greene, the man chosen to start the Warrior football program in 2009, can make the Class 1A squad competitive. Greene only spent one year at Seven Rivers before moving over to Citrus. The experience of Greene coaching on the 6A level could help the Warriors. The biggest challenge Greene might face is numbers. Warrior squads in the past haven’t had many players.
When Harper blows the whistle for the first time Thursday in Lecanto, it will be his first as a head coach. Harper has been a career assistant coach, a majority of his time working at three different schools in Orlando: Evans, University and Colonial. He also served an as assistant at DeLand. Last season Harper was the offensive line and assistant head coach at University High in Orange City.
Harper, a graduate of Buchholz High in Gainesville, replaced McKinley Rolle, who left Lecanto for the head football job at King High School in Tampa.
Like Greene, Harper also inherits a major challenge at Lecanto. The Panthers ended the 2013 campaign on an eight-game losing streak and haven’t made the playoffs in 10 years.
Lecanto travels to Lake Minneola on May 15 for their spring game. Both Citrus and Seven Rivers Christian will be home for their spring games. The Hurricanes host Countryside out of Tampa on May 16 while Seven Rivers will host Citrus Park Christian on May 17