Championship coach rebuilding with speed

Jeff Dicus had just about everything a high school football coach could want.

A high-profile head coaching position at Austin Lake Travis High School.

He coached one the best quarterbacks in the state of Texas in Garrett Gilbert, a returning senior who passed for 4,827 yards and 52 touchdowns last season.

Lake Travis also was coming off of a Class 4A Division II state championship.

He had no reason to polish off his resume, but Duncanville, a Class 5A school in the Metroplex, came calling.

Dicus left everything in Lake Travis behind.

"You always love a challenge," Dicus said. "There are things here that added to the excitement."

Some coaches simply can't stand too much success. They like the building process too much.

Duncanville offered Dicus a chance to build.

The Panthers already had some playoff history, a nine-year playoff streak from 1996 to 2004 that included the school's only state championship in 1998.

By the end of last year those memories were starting to fade. Duncanville finished 3-7, the third straight year the Panthers missed out on the playoffs.

Dicus was hired to change the program's direction.
"We're trying to resurrect the football program," Dicus said. "The potential's here, you could see it with the players' summer work habits and a good scrimmage against Coppell last week."

But Dicus didn't start off his coaching career at Duncanville with football.

He decided to start with teamwork instead.

So for the first practice of Duncanville's football season, the team piled onto the bus and drove west to Camp Wisdom, a Boy Scout ropes course in that focuses on building teamwork.

"At first we thought it was weird," Duncanville wide receiver Chase Joubert said. "But by the end of the day everybody was pulling for each other and working hard."

Dicus split the Panthers up into five groups and told them to solve several problems as a group, problems that included getting 15 players through a tire hanging from a tree and balancing as many players as possible on the same two-by-four.

"I wanted to send a message to the kids regarding the importance of coming together as a team," Dicus said. "They had to talk and communicate with each other."

Working on the ropes course set the stage for a camp that has most of the Duncanville players excited about the season for the first time in three years.

And he's got the players excited about the possibilities available in his spread offense.

"He's using every position on the field," Joubert said. "We move around a lot. No player has one set position or one set play."

Dicus has already found the player he's hoping can do some of the things Gilbert used to do for Lake Travis.

Larry Miller had 1,286 yards passing and 12 touchdowns last year, and he also added 545 yards rushing. He's also picked up Dicus' offense well, developing arm strength, accuracy and an ability to read the defense.

Miller's athletic gifts, though, aren't the virtues that have Dicus excited about his quarterback's upcoming season.
"He has become a great leader because of his work ethic," Dicus said. "He has immense respect from his teammates, and you'll see that on the field."