THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 15, 1996 TAG: 9608130144
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 23 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Sports
SOURCE: BY VICKI L. FRIEDMAN, COMPASS SPORTS EDITOR
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 83 lines
The first thing Lake Taylor football coach Dan Newell assures you about his Titans is that they will be disciplined - hardly surprising, considering the source.
After all, first-year coach Newell owns a degree in biochemistry and was once on the road to medical school.
``On the football field, we won't be a scatterbrained team; we won't be helter-skelter,'' says Newell, 30, who spent last season as Maury's co-offensive coordinator. ``We're going to stick to exactly the schemes and game plans we've laid out.''
But quickly he adds, ``We're perhaps not going to be as conservative as Lake Taylor was in the past.''
Newell replaces Bert Harrell, now the city's Virginia High School League coordinator. Harrell, who had also been the school's athletic director and Lake Taylor's first football coach, had led the Titans for 16 seasons. And Newell admits taking over for someone considered a school institution could have been awkward, but it wasn't. The two have developed a close relationship.
``He's in a position that I have a lot of contact with and have to deal with all the time,'' Newell says. ``He's helped me get established and I haven't had to go through that transition. I don't think you could find that too many other places.''
Newell has been all over the place in Virginia. At Danville High, he quarterbacked his team to the 1982 state championship, ironically, beating Lake Taylor in the title game. He attended Hampden-Sydney College, where he starred as quarterback and, mainly, tight end.
``I grew two inches in college,'' says Newell, who today stands 6-foot-5, ``a little big for a Division II quarterback.''
By 1988, he had earned a bachelor's degree in biochemistry with a dual degree in Spanish. His goal was medical school, and he made the waiting list at all three of the state's schools. So he did the natural thing. He decided to coach.
He took his first job at Nansemond-Suffolk Academy that fall, teaching the jayvee and eighth-grade teams.
``I worked there for two years teaching AP chemistry,'' he says, ``hoping that would give me a chance to take the medical school admission tests over again and give me a better shot of getting in.''
Instead, he changed his mind and moved to Culpeper, where he worked for an environmental firm heading an industrial treatment center for the Bureau of Engraving in Washington.
But he missed coaching. It was in his blood, as his dad had been a youth league coach for 35 years. And he had designs on attaining a master's degree. He enrolled in Virginia Tech, hoping to assist football coach Frank Beamer. But that never came to pass.
``My classes were in the afternoon, right smack in the middle of practice,'' he says.
Master's in hand, he returned to Danville and went to work as co-offensive coordinator at his old high school. Last year Tidewater beckoned again when his wife, Sam, was accepted at Eastern Virginia Medical School.
Being considered a finalist for the Oscar Smith coaching position that eventually went to Bill Lyons last fall restored his confidence that this would be the year his head coaching dreams would be fulfilled.
``It's always been a goal of mine,'' Newell says. ``But I didn't expect it to happen so soon. A good friend of mine told me, `Don't ever pass up the opportunity. You don't know when it's going to happen again.' ''
Newell is a student of college football, studying the latest techniques in the game and trying to incorporate them into his team. ``You won't find anybody better prepared every week,'' says Maury coach Bobby Pannenbacker.
And Newell, who will teach biology and chemistry at Lake Taylor, says grades will be a point of emphasis. ``I went to school on an academic scholarship, so to me it means a whole lot more for the grades to be where they need to be in order for me to feel confident about my job,'' he says. ``We're going to begin tracking them in the ninth grade here so that we ensure kids who show potential for future scholarships are taking the proper core courses, that they're in the proper math level, that they take the SAT prep course, that they take the PSAT.''
To prepare for the job, Newell has not only talked to Harrell and the folks at Lake Taylor, but parents, community leaders, recreational coaches and spiritual leaders. He's thought about the role of surrogate father, which often is a given for high school coaches today.
``I'm learning what they expect out of me,'' he says. ``That role is going to take on its own meaning as the season goes on and I learn more about what these kids mean.'' ILLUSTRATION: Newell by CNB