The future of the Houston High School football program has been handed over to Eric Sloan. And he is excited to take the reigns.
“There wasn’t a whole lot of sleep last night,” Sloan said about 13 hours after he was hired last Tuesday night. “My phone was going nuts and that was OK. I was jacked up and wasn’t going to sleep a whole lot anyway.”
Sloan was unanimously named the new HHS head football coach in the closed session of last week’s monthly school board meeting. He replaces Billy O’Neil, who coached three seasons at his alma mater before his contract was not renewed in December.
An assistant coach with the Tigers this past season, Sloan inherits a program that has struggled mightily since making back-to-back state semifinal appearances 2004 and ’05. Houston has a combined 11-80 record since those glory days and five times has failed to win a game, including the past year’s 0-10 mark.
Sloan, 32, is familiar with the state of the program. Not only was he an assistant at HHS in 2006 and ’14, but he also faced the Tigers three years as Cabool’s head coach. He won all three of those matchups.
“We’ve got to learn to compete in everyday drills. Everything we’re doing right now is about competition,” said Sloan, who was holding offseason workouts even before he was named head coach. “Winning and losing is an attitude. We’ve got to develop the winning side of that attitude. That’s something we’re really preaching.”
A 2000 graduate of Cabool High School, Sloan got his first teaching job in Houston six years later. The following year he returned to his alma mater as an assistant and in 2009 was named the Bulldogs’ head coach for a three-year stint. After two seasons at Neosho –– where he was an assistant on a nine-man staff –– he and his wife, Kayla, both took coaching opportunities with Houston in the summer of 2014 to return closer to home.
Along with his football assistant duties, Sloan coached the middle school boys’ basketball team this past season. Kayla was the middle school volleyball and middle school girls’ basketball head coach.
“It was attractive because it was close to home,” said Sloan, who has children ages 8 and 4. “It was fun to go get away and do the big school thing, but it was time. We were too far from family. I didn’t want our kids to grow up not knowing their grandparents.”
Now in charge of the HHS high school football program, Sloan has identified a few issues he is working to resolve. The biggest is participation.
Along with low varsity numbers, the middle school teams have struggled to field both a seventh- and eighth-grade team in recent years. When they did, a majority of the players were forced to play both ways.
Sloan and assistant coach Vince McCrosky have addressed the issue by raising nearly $7,000 in less than a month to place a middle school team for the first time ever in the Ozarks Football League. The players will get two months of instruction from the varsity coaching staff and compete weekly in Springfield.
“Numbers have been a real issue, especially at the lower levels,” Sloan said. “That’s something we’ve got to address. We’ve got to repair some relationships and get to working with the youth to try to build numbers there.”
He is eyeing even below the middle school level. Sloan said he hopes to develop a relationship with the Mighty Mites program to host coaching clinics and camps.
“I want the third graders to come to a game on a Friday night, look down to the sidelines and say, ‘That’s what I’m going to be in a few years,’” Sloan said. “We need to grow kids into wanting to be a Tiger.”
From a philosophy standpoint, Sloan said his team’s defense will look very similar to this past season when the Tigers, under the direction of defensive coordinator Ken Cooperman, had 54 tackles for losses and forced 12 turnovers.
Offensively, Sloan said HHS is moving away from the double wing of the past three seasons. He said he wants to be “multiple” with plays ran from several formations. He said the base formation will look like a spread to fans, but the fundaments will be down blocking, misdirection and play-action.
“We’re not going to line up and say, ‘Here we come.’ We’ll try to do some different looks and try to keep the defense guessing,” he said. “We’d like to use our athletes a little better. Kids that are tall, lanky and have a little speed, maybe we can put them in space and allow them to do what they are naturally meant to do.”
Sloan is surrounded by a staff that remains intact from last season. Both Cooperman and McCrosky said they will be assistants under Sloan. The trio worked together as assistants last season at HHS and previously were on the same staff at Cabool when McCrosky was head coach there.
“We’re like a family,” Sloan said. “We know what the others are thinking without anything being said. Strong relationships are a good foundation for a successful coaching staff. We’ve been together for a while. I think that’s huge moving into this thing.”
Sloan said he understands turning the tide for HHS will be a process, but he is optimistic about the future. He said he has been encouraged by participation in offseason workouts and was overwhelmed by the community’s fundraising support.
He said he has several ideas to promote the program and build relationships within the community.
“I’m hoping when we play Week 2 here next year, I hope to come in with a 1-0 record and this place packed and rocking,” Sloan said. “The kids are excited and the community seems to be excited. I have chills just thinking about it.”
- Graduated in 2000 from Cabool High School.
- First head coaching job was 2009-11 at his alma mater.
- Had two stints at HHS as assistant coach in 2006 and 2014.
- Also coached Houston Middle School boys’ basketball teams last year.
- His wife, Kayla, is a Houston Middle School math teacher and head coach of the volleyball and girls’ basketball programs in the middle school.
- Has two children ages 8 and 4.
I want the third graders to come to a game on a Friday night, look down to the sidelines and say, ‘That’s what I’m going to be in a few years.’ We need to grow kids into wanting to be a Tiger.”