HPCA Football Gets Its Maine Man

High Point Christian Academy football coach Steve Lechner talks to parents and potential players at a Thursday night meeting. The Cougars will add football this fall.

The sheer number of eager students and parents at High Point Christian Academy on Thursday night impressed Steve Lechner.So, too, did the welcoming atmosphere the Cougars provided as they met their new football program's head coach."They're the warmest group of people. They have welcomed me unconditionally," Lechner said. "I got one Yankee joke tonight - that was fine. And no lawyer jokes. That was good!"

The Cougars' football program will be built from the ground up by a man with experience tackling such a job - and many others. Lechner played college football for Boston University, worked in media relations for Al Davis' Raiders in the 1990s, got a law degree from Maine in 1999, helped start two high school football programs in Maine, and has coached nearly every position in the past 20 years.

The 39-year-old father of two arrives in High Point after leaving the law profession to move into education. At HPCA, he'll teach social studies and guide the Cougars' transition from a new program competing at the junior varsity level to eventual varsity status."I was drawn to coaching from the intellectual perspective: Football is a unique game and I was drawn to the Xs and Os," Lechner explained. "It went from that to the relationships with kids, the game being a platform to reach kids. You can consider coaching a ministry, trying to get them going in the right direction and strengthening their walk with Christ."

How did Lechner get going from Maine to High Point? Thank Bill Urbanik, said a laughing Corey Gesell.The HPCA athletic director got a call "out of the blue" from Urbanik shortly after details of the new football program were announced earlier this year. Urbanik, a long-time coach who is best known in this area as the voice of Demon Deacons football during Wake Forest broadcasts, told Gesell he knew the perfect candidate for the job.Then Urbanik called Lechner to let him know he'd put in a good word for the high school coach - at a place Lechner didn't know existed."Bill was my mentor at the Raiders," Lechner said. "I had had some conversations with him, we re-connected, and a month later he called and told me about the opportunity. It sounded ideal."

Gesell said the Cougars received a number of applications for the position, from former head coaches in the area or local assistants to others as far away as Florida."For one reason or another, they didn't seem like the right fit," Gesell recalled. "We kept searching, kept praying, waiting on God."After Lechner applied, he and Gesell went through several phone interviews before Lechner came to High Point for a face-to-face meeting. The Cougars liked what they saw, and Lechner's family made the decision to re-locate despite spending the last dozen years in Maine."High Point has everything you would want in a town, and the proximity to Greensboro and Winston-Salem is very attractive to me," the coach said. "This is the land of sports. It's attractive to think about going to an ACC football game in November - and I don't mean to malign the University of Maine at all."

In reality, though, Maine is still a growing state when it comes to football, especially at the prep level. Lechner said the towns where he started the last two programs had perhaps three or four kids with any kind of football experience. At HPCA last night, more than a dozen mentioned having played before."That's just a huge difference there in getting started," Lechner explained. "If it can be done there (in Maine), it can be done anywhere."Getting ready for the Sept. 4 opener against Southlake Christian starts now. Parents and prospective players received workout schedules and other organizational materials at Thursday's meeting, which was attended by nearly 100 people.

A camp in July will get this year's players - seventh- through ninth-graders - acclimated to the game and also help introduce the sport to those in grades 4-9.An equipment "needs list" also was circulated at the meeting, with everything from tackling dummies to goal posts to - yes, the most basic necessity - footballs adding up to more than $12,000.Official practice opens Aug. 1 for the program's debut season. Gesell said the Cougars may compete at the JV level one or two seasons, with the goal to have two teams in place in the second year and then make a shift from JV and middle school to varsity and middle school.Most important, though, is the fact the Cougars will compete on a football field every Friday."My sense is that the people who were here, they were here to play football," Lechner said of Thursday's gathering. "They weren't here to learn about a potential opportunity. It's extremely encouraging."