<\/p>\n
Scott Conklin addressed the Panthers football team on Tuesday afternoon as interim head coach, settling days of uncertainty and speculation about the Montezuma-Cortez coaching staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened yesterday (Monday) is in the past, and we\u2019re moving forward, from today on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Conklin was referring to the stated resignations of assistant coaches, and later, to the firing of first-year head coach Dave Wagner.<\/p>\n
Now that the dust has settled, Conklin and the Panthers say they\u2019re ready to move forward.<\/p>\n
What happened?<\/p>\n
Athletic director Stacey Hall confirmed Wednesday that Wagner was fired Monday afternoon and that assistant coach Conklin was named interim head coach Monday evening.<\/p>\n
Hall declined to discuss the reasons for Wagner\u2019s firing, but the assistants said the staff controversy stemmed from Wagner\u2019s insistence to run a spread offense and his refusal to punt.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe asked all four of us, \u2018What do you want to run?\u2019\u201d Keith Mikhail said. \u201cEveryone said double-wing. All four coaches. He showed up later that night and said, \u2018You know what? I\u2019m the head coach, I do what I want, and we\u2019re running the air raid,\u2019\u201d Mikhail said.<\/p>\n
Assistant coaches also said they disagreed with Wagner\u2019s refusal to punt on fourth downs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe told him we needed to punt the football,\u201d Mikhail continued. \u201cAll of us coaches told him that, and he said, \u2018It\u2019s my team, I do what I want.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI never said, \u2018I do what I want,\u2019\u201d Wagner said in a text message on Thursday. \u201cI said, \u2018I am the head coach and it\u2019s my decision.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Wagner also said that he had told administrators and assistants that he didn\u2019t punt since his initial interview, and that he decided to go back to the spread offense after watching film of Miyamura against the double-wing.<\/p>\n
The squabble continued after the Panthers\u2019 29-12 loss at Aspen on Friday, and led assistant coaches Conklin, Tim Robinson, Kirby Case and Mikhail to complain to administrators.<\/p>\n
While some of coaches claimed to have quit, or expressed a desire to resign, there were no official, signed resignations.<\/p>\n
Hall confirmed that she spoke with Conklin over the weekend and that Principal Jason Wayman spoke with Robinson, but she declined to comment on whether any resignation was official. Hall also said that she spoke Monday with Wayman about the football program.<\/p>\n
When asked who was responsible for hiring and firing coaches, Hall said, \u201cThat\u2019s a decision that\u2019s made by multiple people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mikhail said that he also spoke with administrators on Monday, and according to Wagner, Case quit Monday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that a lot of people in the town think that we quit because we lost,\u201d Mikhail said Monday evening. \u201cThat\u2019s not the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Wagner, Wayman fired him on Monday at 3:45 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was it,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cThey called me in and said I\u2019m no longer the head coach.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hall would not comment on the motivation for firing Wagner, or say who fired him, adding, \u201cWe all spoke with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wagner speculated that he was fired because of the uncertain state of his staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI lost four of my coaches, and that\u2019s about it pretty much,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is it: They didn\u2019t want my package, so they quit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mikhail opposed Wagner\u2019s game plan, but added that there were other reasons for the assistants\u2019 uprising.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we did today wasn\u2019t for us,\u201d he said on Monday. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t because we were getting treated unfairly or anything like that. We wanted what was best for the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of us coaches \u2013 me, Scott, Robinson \u2013 we wanted the program to go in one direction, and (Wagner) was in a total opposite direction,\u201d Mikhail said. \u201cWe left it up to the administration in hopes that they were going to do the right thing. And that\u2019s what they did.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of us coaches talked to Dr. Wayman,\u201d Mikhail said. \u201cWe talked to Stacey Hall. And I feel like right now, we\u2019re all on the same page.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new chapter for M-CHS begins with former offensive coordinator Conklin as interim head coach. Mikhail remains as defensive coordinator, and Robinson and Case remain as assistants. Wagner is out of a coaching job, but he\u2019ll remain at M-CHS as a social studies teacher.<\/p>\n
The realigned staff is busy implementing its favored double-wing offense and preparing for a home game Friday against Miyamura High School.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not changing a lot,\u201d Conklin said. \u201cJust the offensive scheme. Defense is still going to be the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not changing, that\u2019s the thing,\u201d Mikhail chipped in. \u201cWe\u2019re picking a direction, and we\u2019re moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that the kids are ready to move on,\u201d athletic director Hall said on Wednesday morning. \u201cKids are resilient, and they can adjust sometimes better than adults can. I think that they\u2019ll pick up and go from here, and they are looking for a successful season like we\u2019re coming off of.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
it for the kids, assistant coach says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[21,222,13,221,83],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-109780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-cortez","tag-environmental-pollution","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-gas-and-oil","tag-mancos"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109780"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=109780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}