Crawfordsville football will have a new man patrolling the sidelines this season as CHS has officially named Brad Clark the next head coach of the Athenian football program pending board approval. Clark who currently coach the Crawfordsville softball team spent last season calling the defensive plays for CHS as the defensive coordinator and has previous experience with 4A Greenwood and 2A Whitiko.
“Brad did a great job sharing his vision for the Athenian football program in his interview,” Crawfordsville Athletic Director Bryce Barton said. “He understands the importance of our feeder program and the continuity that must take place in our elementary, middle school, and high school programs in order for us to be successful. He has shown the ability in his time on our football staff and as the head softball coach to create positive relationships with our student athletes. Playing football can teach a student athlete many life lessons that will make them a better person now and later in life. While holding our student athletes to those high standards, Coach Clark hopes that translates to wins on and off the field.”
Clark will replace Kurt Schlicher who stepped away to take the head coaching position at Clinton Prairie. In three seasons Schlicher went just 2-28 as head coach at the helm of CHS. The opportunity to coach the CHS is one that Clark couldn’t pass up as he talked about accepting the position.
“I’m super excited and really thankful that Mr. Barton believes in me and the vision that I have for this program,” he said. “We have good coaches and good kids and I think everyone is excited because there’s already that familiarity from me being there last year. They know what I’m going to expect and what we’ll be about. We’re going to have to take care of the things that we can control and I believe we have the pieces to compete in a lot of football games.”
Crawfordsville is begins the season with a different first two games than in previous seasons. They’ll begin with a trip to Attica followed by a home game against Fountain Central before moving into Sagamore Conference play.
“An emphasis of mine is going to be to attempt to establish a good running attack and control the clock a little bit,” Clark said of his approach to the CHS offense. “If we can do that and sustain drives and wear teams down that will bod well for us.”
