Broken Arrow hires Ron Lancaster as football coach

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Veteran high school football coach Ron Lancaster, a former national coach of the year, was named Tuesday as the new coach at Broken Arrow High School. <br/><br/>Lancaster, 65, has

Tuesday, January 23rd 2007, 12:53 pm

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Veteran high school football coach Ron Lancaster, a former national coach of the year, was named Tuesday as the new coach at Broken Arrow High School.

Lancaster, 65, has won 278 games in a career that started in 1976 at Rancho Cordova (Calif.) and continued at four Oklahoma high schools _ Enid, Jenks, Sallisaw and Muskogee. Lancaster won state titles in the state's highest classification while at Enid (1983) and Jenks (1993), making him one of less than 15 Oklahoma prep coaches to have won championships at different schools.

The Broken Arrow school board approved Lancaster's hiring during a special meeting on Tuesday morning and set his annual salary at $30,000. During an afternoon news conference in Broken Arrow, Lancaster committed to stay at Broken Arrow for at least three years.

``Ron's experience and success speak for themselves,'' Broken Arrow athletic director Ken Ellett said in a statement. ``I have no doubt that coach Lancaster will get Broken Arrow to where we want to go and that is the state championship.''

In five seasons at Rancho Cordova, Lancaster went 59-3 and won four California section titles. The state does not crown state football champions, but Lancaster's team finished No. 1 in the final 1977 rankings produced by Cal-Hi Sports. Student Sports named Lancaster as the 1979 national coach of the year.

Lancaster moved to Oklahoma in 1981 to coach at Enid. He resigned as Muskogee's coach after the 2005 season, citing health reasons. But the opportunity to coach at Oklahoma's largest high school _ Broken Arrow has an average daily attendance of 4,326 _ lured Lancaster to return to coaching.

Lancaster replaces Brent Whitson, who resigned earlier this month. Whitson went 22-14 in three seasons at Broken Arrow, including 5-6 in 2006, when the Tigers lost to Jenks in the first round of the Class 6A playoffs.

Despite its enrollment advantage, Broken Arrow never has won a state football title.

Lancaster said his offensive coordinator will be Morris Watts, who formerly served as an assistant for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL and was the interim head coach for Michigan State for three games in 2002, and his defensive coordinator will be former Tulsa Union High School assistant Steve Spavital.

``I can assure you that there is not another high school coaching staff in Oklahoma with the proven track record of accomplishments and success that coach Lancaster and his two coordinators bring to our program,'' Ellett said.

Watts, Lancaster's former teammate at the University of Tulsa, has also been an assistant coach at Michigan State, Louisiana State, Indiana, Louisville, Drake and Mississippi State.

Spavital spent 14 seasons as the defensive coordinator at Union, winning Class 6A titles in 2002, 2004 and 2005. He was a finalist for Union's head-coaching job in 2005.