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Centralia
Welcomes Coach Phil Watson
“If we’re a better football team
every day we step out there than we were the day
before, well then that’s where we’ll start
seeing the wins come along.”
First year Orphan coach Phil Watson
described his goal for the 2007 football season
and how he plans to improve from a winless 2006
season.
Coach Watson’s football career began in
Freeburg where he graduated in 1978. He began
his coaching career as defensive coordinator at
Freeburg where he coached off and on for 20
years. He then took the head coaching job at
Wesclin where he built the program from
“ground up.” After two years without a
varsity program, Watson led the team to a 4-5
season in their first year of varsity play. The
three years following would all include 3 loss
seasons and three straight years in the
playoffs.
Coach Watson has had a very good first
impression of
Centralia
High School
. “Everybody’s really personable. I like the
student body. I like the staff. It seems like a
good place to work. As far as my team, I like
the kids that we have.”
In his spare time, Coach Watson likes to
perform as a member of his band. He and his band
have put out two albums under the name, “Phil
Dog and the Strugglers.” Watson explained the
biggest accomplishment of his band was “when
we opened for Great White, there were 15,000
people there.”
When asked about the upcoming season,
Coach Watson told us “We’re probably gonna
try to use our athleticism. We’re not very big
up front, so we’re gonna spread the ball
around a little bit, try to get outside on the
edges and throw the ball down field a little
bit.”
When asked how the team was coming
together as a unit, Coach Watson had this to
say, “Well, I think we’ve done a real good
job of coming together, the kids are thinking
more about each other than themselves,
individually. The team is starting to expect
more out of itself and when you start getting
that and they become more accountable, I think
you have a good chance of having success.”
Coach Watson will look to sophomore
Mitchell Broughton to captain the quarterback
position. “We’ve got Mitchell Broughton,
sophomore, and you can kind of say that
‘tongue in cheek,’ because he did get a lot
of snaps last year, so he’s kind of like a
sophomore who’s more like a junior. I think
he’ll become more and more developed as we go.
He seems to be a very composed kid, so I don’t
really worry much about that. He’s going to
have to get a little more arm strength and a
little quicker decision making.”
Coach Watson looks to a few of his
seniors to take charge and lead the team for the
season. “Matt Niermann’s out there and he is
doing a great job as a lineman. He’s probably
our leader on the offensive and defensive line.
He’s very quick and he’s also a wrestler.
He’s a good leader, and he’s very smart out
there. In the receiving core, our leader’s
probably Derek Teitsort. He can make some good
things happen and gets open and has very good
hands and catches the ball. In the linebacking
core, Trevor Pryor is probably our leader there.
At defensive back, we look to Winston Bailey.
He’ll be our veteran there at D-back. He moves
out there from linebacker, but he will be
leading the secondary there.”
Click
here to read Stile's interview with Coach Phil
Watson
Click
here to read Stile's interview with Coach Ryan
Blaha
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