New football coach wants to build team cohesion

Derek Scroggins is the new California Pintos head football coach. (Submitted photo)
Derek Scroggins is the new California Pintos head football coach. (Submitted photo)

The California Pintos new head football coach has plenty of experience under his belt.

Derek Scroggins has been a football coach for 14 years. Before coming to California, he was the head coach for the El Dorado Springs Bulldogs last year, where the team went 8-3 and lost to Versailles 48-36 in the Class 2 District 4 semifinals. Scroggins became the Bulldogs' head coach in 2014. He also coached at Jefferson High School in Festus.

Scroggins said coming to California gives him an opportunity to take a job in administration.

"My wife who works at Eldon in the career center, she was able to get a job in administration as well. Really that is what ended up bringing us here and then things just happened to work out. The head football coaching position opened up, and I was able to step into that," Scroggins said.

Heading into this season, Scroggins said he is keeping the goals pretty basic for the football team.

"We want to play a physical brand of football, and we want our kids to be disciplined and take care of the little things and be fundamentally sound and work hard and play to the whistle. Things around those lines," Scroggins said.

He said helping his players grow into productive members of society is the reason he coaches.

"And to help them become better men," Scroggins said. "I find it incredibly rewarding just to coach them, and so that is honestly the draw. Plus I am a competitive person, and the game of football itself I love, and so it kind of just blends well."

Scroggins drove through California for the first time last November.

"I had a friend tell me that I needed to look at California High School, that things had not gone that well for the program in the past, and they thought there was a possibility of an opening coming up. So my family and I came up and drove through the town and tried to get a sense of it that way, and we really liked it," Scroggins said. "Things ended up just being able to work out for us."

Scroggins said the team is in a developmental phase.

"We are trying to build some team cohesion and trying to build a brotherhood," Scroggins said. "We are doing that through weights and in conditioning throughout the summer. We had a lock in with the players, and we went to the Evangel football camp last week. We ended up winning the camp championship down there. We went to Incredible Pizza Company and got time to gel as a team. So far, it is looking pretty solid."