Meet the new football coaches at Pender, North Brunswick & West Brunswick

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — “Success in football is consistency and repetition and being able to do the basic good fundamental things without mistakes.” That’s what new Pender coach Bob Via plans to work on between now and the start of the season for his Pender Patriots squad. Pender will be a young team this season. They’re also fairly small without a whole lot of depth as they try to improve on last year’s effort which only produced two wins. “I don’t think we’re the kind of team that will just knock heads and bend, but not break,” Bob Via told WWAY. “That’s because that will wear us out.”

Bob Via is an experienced coach. He’s been a head coach at a handful of schools. Last season he was an assistant coach at Ashley and the key question is, will Pender continue their long tradition of playing option football on offense? “I mean we are definitely option oriented. Absolutely. What’s interesting is it’s sorta a hybrid of a flex bone that coach Eanes ran.” Tom Eanes coached at Pender for seven years. Tony Hudson coached Pender the last four. As long as those seem, that’s nothing compared to Garry Bishop who stepped down a few months ago at North Brunswick. “When the job opened up, if a person can stay somewhere for 25 years then you know it’s a pretty good place.” Larry Brock is the new North Brunswick head football coach. He’s a graduate of South Brunswick. He played at Appalachian State. He previously served as the head coach at Western Harnett. “There’s no doubt they have some fast guys here,” Brock told us. “You can look up there and see those state championships for track. The skill guys are here, but you know what we have some pretty good linemen too.” Larry Brock is trying to beef up those linemen, the old fashioned way, with hard work. “I would like to win a conference championship and a state championship, but at the end of the day I want to make sure that we teach how to act, like men. Our offense will be wing tee. We’ll run the wing tee and we’ll have a package where we can spread out a little bit.”

Kelly Williamson will have a package or two in Shallotte. Williamson is the new head coach at West Brunswick. He’ll be the fourth head coach at West in the last four years. “At the end of the season I’ll be happy if we get better,” Kelly Williamson revealed earlier this week.”My expectations are always to win. I want to win a championship, but we have to take baby steps, I understand that.”

Williamson recently served as the head coach at Latta High School in South Carolina. He’s north of the state line now and he the Trojans have more than fair share of talent, especially at the running back and wide out positions. “We’ll run a little bit of wishbone, and we’ll run some spread, some one back stuff and 2-back I back stuff.” West Brunswick certainly has the ability to move the ball around, and you can look for the Trojans to definitely improve on last year’s 5-7 record. “The ones we put out there are going to fly around and we’ll get to the football. We’re gonna get after it on Friday nights.”

• ** Make sure you’re with us on Monday on WWAY. We’ll introduce you to Earl Smith, the new head football coach at New Hanover