Loris football coach adds youth to football staff

By David Shelton

Staff Writer

Loris – Loris head football coach Jim Longerbeam felt he needed to breathe new life into his program and did exactly that by hiring several new, younger coaches for the 2010 season.

Longerbeam is entering his fourth season at Loris and the Lions showed solid improvement in 2009. With a talented group of athletes returning this fall, the coach decided to infuse some youthful coaching talent into his program.

“We have added some younger coaches, guys who played college football, and they all have brought a great deal of energy and enthusiasm into the program,” said Longerbeam. “They bring instant credibility with the kids because they played high school football and they played college football and it wasn’t that long ago. I could see during the spring that our players were relating well to their energy.”

Not all of the new coaches have full-time teaching positions but will instead be considered full-time substitute teachers.

“We had to be creative in  creating some jobs for them and get them involved in the school and it has worked out good for us,” said the coach.

Longerbeam has handed over the reins of the Loris offense to Jamie Snyder, who will coordinate the offense and coach the offensive line. Snyder was most recently an assistant coach at Coastal Carolina University.

Added to coach the defensive line this fall is former Coastal Carolina defensive tackle Adrian Grady, a former Big South Conference all-league selection.

John Green, who also played at Coastal, will coach the receivers and former Coastal Carolina player Patrick Martin will assist Snyder on the offensive line.

Working with the quarterbacks is Terrence Butler, who prepped at Socastee High and played collegiately at Presbyterian College.

Returning to Longerbeam’s staff from last year are Jack Jordan and Gene Daughtery. Jordan will coach running backs and special teams and Daughtery will work with outside linebackers and serve as the head junior varsity coach.

Longerbeam and his staff will enter August preseason drills with a high level of optimism. The Lions were 6-4 last season and return a host of starters on both sides of the ball. The junior varsity team posted eight wins in 10 games last season.

“When I was hired in 2007, most of this core group of kids were eighth-graders and this is the team we’ve been waiting for,” said Longerbeam. “We’ll have 22 seniors and about 21 juniors on this team. They were once a young group that was trying to learn but now they are experienced and eager to succeed. It should be an interesting year and we are hopeful that things will be very good for us this fall.”