Dave Perkins excited about new job as head varsity football coach at Century High

Dave Perkins is the new Century football coach. (Photo courtesy Perkins family)

Century High has a new football coach.

Dave Perkins, who has coached at Estancia, Brethren Christian, Costa Mesa, Magnolia, Northwood and Crean Lutheran has been named new coach, according to Athletic Director Matt Cavanaugh.

Perkins replaces Andrew Lapic who resigned at the end of last season. The Centurions were 2-8 last season.

Cavanaugh said that Perkins, who is a substitute teacher with the Irvine Unified School District, was the perfect candidate because of his extensive coaching background and availability.

“His time schedule is as good as we could ever hope for,” Cavanaugh said.

Perkins said he looks forward to guiding the Centurions.

“I’m real excited about the opportunity,” Perkins said Saturday night. “I spent a lot of time with the administration talking with Dr. (Jonathan) Swanson (the principal) and Matt Cavanaugh about the possibility of getting the program going in the right direction and they were very supportive and I’m really looking forward to working with both of them.”

It will be the second head coaching job for Perkins. He was at Magnolia, where he coached for three years starting in 2009.

“It was great, I took over a program that hadn’t been to the playoffs in 23 years and my second year there we went to the playoffs,” Perkins said.

Most recently, he was an assistant coach at Brethren Christian and also worked at Crean Lutheran. Perkins will continue to be a substitute teacher in the Irvine district.

“I’ve been doing that for the last nine years as a PE teacher,” he said. “That’s really good because I basically work until 11:30 a.m. every day so it enables me to be the walk-on coach at Century, so it worked out really well.

“I’m really excited about the opportunity to be a head football coach again.”

Perkins, 67, said “I feel 25. I love coaching football and I love being around the kids. The wins and losses are part of it and winning, we want to do that. But my job is turning out good people, people who can come back in the community and give back to the community and I think I’ve always been able to teach kids about how to deal with adversity because I think football is life.

“Football teaches you how to get knocked down and how to get up. And how you translate that into your daily life. Because most of our kids aren’t going on to play college football. But they’re going to have to be dads in the community, and they’re going to have kids and they’re going to have families and they’re going to have mortgages to pay and they’re going to have all those responsibilities.”

He said former Brethren Christian Coach Pat McInally and former Crean Lutheran coach Matt Bowman helped him develop as a coach. He worked at both schools as an assistant coach.

“I’m very appreciative of them,” he said.

Perkins said he believes there is potential at Century.

“I think the kids are there, Drew Lapic, who stepped down, is a great guy and has laid a pretty good foundation. There are people there who are totally supportive who are on board with my ideas of what I think we can do to get the program going in the right direction,

“It’s basically trying to get as many kids as I can on campus back into the football program. We’re going to try and open up the offense a little more and be more attacking on defense. I also have the ability to bring some coaches with me that I’ve coached with before. So that’s going to help in the transition.

“And there are also some guys at Century who are going to stay and help so there’s a good blend of people who know the kids at Century, know the neighborhood, know the faculty, know the administration and are going to help me move forward.”

The offensive coordinator will be his son AJ and the strength and conditioning coach will be his daughter, Alley.

She has been a weight coach for the softball progam at Chapman and played Division 1 football at Tennessee.

“She’s been a personal trainer, she’s been at an academy so she’s really on the cutting edge of getting athletes to perform at their highest levels.”

Lapic has agreed to be the head freshman coach, Perkins added.

-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com