Q&A: Cotter sets sites high for RMA football

Chris Cotter has coached at a lot of different high school football programs, and all of them share one thing in common: winning. This week, Cotter was announced as the new head coach and athletic director at Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, where he has served as an assistant the past two seasons under Scot Sloan – who just left for an assistant coaching position at Appalachian State. Cotter says he expects to keep both his and the Eagles success going after earning the promotion. On Wednesday afternoon, Cotter talked with Access North Georgia sports editor Morgan Lee about how he got to Gainesville, what he thinks about the Eagles dropping down to Class A next season, the challenges a military boarding school faces as a football program and how Georgia high school football compares with his native Virginia.

QUESTION: Other than a short bio released by the school when you’re hiring was announced, I really don’t much about your background. Tell me about your football background and how you came to Riverside.

ANSWER: Well, I’m from northern Virginia -- Alexandria. I coached high school football there for 16 years and was a graduate assistant for two years at the University of Virginia under [legendary coach] George Welsh. Anyway, my brother has been down here coaching for some time, and he was always telling me I needed to get down here and coach in real football country. And about 10 years ago I had a chance to make the move and took it. I took a job coaching linebackers at Grayson under coach Mickey Conn. Well, one of the guys I worked with at Grayson, Doug Giacone -- now the defensive coordinator at Mountain View High School -- knew Scot Sloan and he told me I should go check out Riverside. They were just going into GHSA and knew that would be a big challenge, so that intrigued me. I came up here and they offered me a full-time weight training position, which is something I had wanted to do and everything just worked out real well. I’d say we’ve done pretty well in my time here too; we’ve gone to the state playoffs in back-to-back seasons and been very competitive. I know we didn’t go far in the playoffs, but we lost to Pepperell and Callaway, neither one of them slouches.

Q: Was there anything else that intrigued you about Riverside?

A: Once I saw the campus I was pretty sold. I also like the military structure the school offers. I’d been in public education all my life and been where they cram 50 kids into a trailer – which is not an optimal situation. Here you have the small class sizes and the kids have to balance education with the military-style discipline and athletics.

Q: I know you were named as the interim athletic director and head football coach when Sloan announced he was leaving, but did you know you wanted to be the full-time guy at both those positions right away?

A: Absolutely. As soon as he announced he was leaving, I went to coach Sloan and told him I was interested in both jobs. And, luckily enough, I got to be one of the four people they interviewed for the positions. I’m really thankful for the opportunity and really excited.

Q: What do want to accomplish as coach? What’s your coaching philosophy?

A: I want to win [chuckling]. I’ve been very fortunate to be involved with winning programs throughout my entire career, and I want to continue that. I think winning breeds winning, and we’ve certainly had some success here over the past two years. I know we’re a little bit behind the eight ball here in a couple of ways: the kids aren’t here over the summer, and it costs quite a bit to come here. Those are two issues we have to deal with. We don’t necessarily know what kids we’re going to have from year to year. They may come here one year, be gone the next and come back as seniors after we haven’t seem them since they were freshmen. And while most programs have their kids all summer in weight training and passing camps, ours are scattered across the world. But I feel like we can overcome those issues. We have a coaching staff that’s been together for two years now, and that’s crucial to success. One of the places I coached in Virginia, Centreville High, we started that program, and in the 11 years I was there we went from playing a junior varsity schedule to winning five district titles, three region titles and eventually a state title. And a lot of that was due to the fact that we kept a great staff intact the whole time. I’ve got a great staff around me now. Everyone is still here from the last two years except coach Sloan. Most coaches have just been bumped in their titles now. Coach Rico Zackery is now the defensive coordinator.

Q: Will you run the same styles of offense and defense the program has been running?

A: Defensively, we’ll stick with the 3-4 package we’ve been running. Offensively, we’re going to switch it up big time. Last year we started with a spread and ended up running a power package. This year we’re going to open it up more formationally, and we’re going to go with the triple option. We’ve got three coaches on our staff that played at Georgia Southern under Paul Johnson and Mike Sewak, so they are very familiar with the triple option. And I think we have the athletes to pull it off -- even though we desperately need a quarterback, because ours graduated. We’ve got a pretty solid idea of who’s going to play where, except QB. Darius Smiley, our offensive coordinator, played quarterback at Georgia Southern. And we’ve got an open invitation to come and talk with the staff at Georgia Tech whenever we need to.

Q: What are your expectations for the Eagles program?

A: The mentality of this coaching staff since I’ve been here is to find a way to win. And that’s the way it’s going to stay. I know we’re bumping down to Class A next year, but we’re still going to face great competition. That said I do expect us to be region champions and go further in the playoffs than we have the past couple of years.

Q: Enough of the football talk for a second -- what do you away from the football field?

A: I’ve got four kids, so that pretty much occupies all my time! I coached my son’s little league team last year, but that’s gone now. I’ve pretty much become a transport guy on the weekends, getting the kids to games, their friends houses, to events, whatever. They’re all over the place. We also have a brand new baby, which, at 46, was a surprise, but a very welcome surprise.

Q: OK, so you’ve been here long enough now, was your brother right about this being “real football country?”

A: I love the ability you have to really coach football in Georgia. In Virginia, you have no spring practice and really limited access during the summer. And the level of football here is great. I coached what was Class AAA-level football in Virginia, and the level of football here is really great. And people love their football here. I would hesitate to use the word religion, but it’s pretty darn close the way people love football in Georgia. I was also blessed for my first gig in this state to be at Grayson, which is becoming a powerhouse in this state. There’s nothing quite like Friday nights to me. There never will be. And here, Friday night is important. The fields are excellent. The crowds are huge. And having Georgia and Georgia Tech within a stone’s throw of here is also exciting. I was living close to Washington D.C., and the University of Virginia was two hours away. It’s definitely not like here.