It’s the start of something new, there is a new football coach at Lenoir City Highschool. Gary Duggar, originally from Florida, has come to take the title of the head football coach at LCHS. He has been coaching for a total of eight years. 

“I’ve coached offense for five years, head coach for one year, and then defense for three years, so I’ve been around the game since I was about seven years old,” said Duggar.

In the fall he will be teaching as well, as a PE and wellness teacher. In the meantime, he will be teaching Algebra to Mrs. Ogle’s class as she is on maternity leave. He is very excited to be coaching for LCHS, to learn the area, and begin to love his new home.

“I didn’t know a lot about Lenoir City High School: my family loves the area of East Tennessee, but once we started coming up here and meeting different people and now that we’re kind of in the process of getting settled in we realize how great of a community this can be and how supportive they (Lenoir City High School) can be of the sports programs across the board,” Duggar said.

Duggar made it a point to talk about how he thinks it’s just as important to make a physical mark on your students as well as an emotional one. 

“Yes ma’am… everyone has been very welcoming, the players especially, they grasp the things we are trying to do. They’re working hard, it’s probably a little uncomfortable for some of them, but they are working extremely hard and hopefully, they can get some off-the-field things,” Duggar said.

He has had a very good welcoming experience with his new players as well as the student body he could get to know. He said he wanted the boy’s football team to be the best, well-rounded students in the student body.

“We want to work hard but we also want to act the right way and represent our school, our program, and our community… so we’re going to be picking up trash, holding doors for people, saying sir and ma’am: things like that so I think they are probably struggling a little bit more with that than the actual weight room,” Duggar said.

He’s taking his time getting settled in at the school and his new environment as a whole, but he is extremely excited for the upcoming football season to start, to get on the field with all the players, and begin to meet all of the student body.