It’s been five years since Fluvanna County had a change at head coach for the football program, but after former coach Jason Barnett and the Flucos parted ways, the search began. In the end Fluvanna County athletic director Scott Morris, found what he was looking for in house.
“We’re looking for a disciplinarian,” Morris said in his introduction of the programs new coach. “We’re looking for someone who will keep our student involved in education based athletics.”
A former collegiate football player and with coaching experience in prior years at Albemarle, Steve Szarmach has spent his time at Fluvanna this far coaching weight lifting as well as track and field. Now after much consideration, he’s taking the reigns as the Flucos head coach.
“We want to expand to the lifting program into the football program, to make everybody stronger, faster athletes,” Szarmach said. “I think this is a great opportunity. We have great kids, great student athletes and just building their strength and the way they feel about themselves, that’s going to go a long way.”
After his time as an assistant at Albemarle, Szarmach took a break from football, but he scratched the coaching itch just a few years later as he joined the Fluvanna County middle school staff while also participating on the Pop-Warner level. Szarmach has also spent time as an official.
Szarmach, a Connecticut native, played wide receiver and defensive back at Trumbull High. From there he went on to play at Southern Connecticut State University.
“Getting back into football, it’s great thing,” Szarmach said. “It’s been a passion of mine. I played in high school and college and coached many years. I loved coaching track (too). So I think speed and power is going to help us a great deal.”
Now at the helm, Szarmach plans to take his time in evaluating the talent on his roster before he makes any decisions schematically. He plans to have his players heavily involved in both off season training and in team related events such as 7-on-7 camps and so forth.
“You have to build the program around the athletes that you have,” Szarmach said. “There’s a lot of variations as to what you can do in this day and age of football, offensively, defensively and on special teams. It’s going to be a great challenge and a really positive place to work. We’ve got lots of things in the work but it’s still so early so we have to weigh everything out first.”
With the move at Fluvanna, Powhatan remains the only Jefferson District school to have not made a coaching change in the last four years. The last move for the Flucos was taking the interim tag off Barnett who took over for Rodney Redd after the 2009 season.
