By John Raffel
In Dan Falor’s 18th year of coaching at Alma High School, he has taken on the role of leading the Alma Panther football team. He’s a familiar face in a familiar place.
Falor was a varsity assistant one year at Fulton High School under Ed Lark, brother of former Alma skipper Randy Lark. He then joined Randy Lark at Alma and coached in various capacities as an assistant and a junior varsity coach. He was offensive head coach and offensive coordinator under Jeff Ingersoll.
“It’s tough,” he said of his transition to the head coaching job. “I’ve coached with Randy and Jeff for the longest time. Way back when he was in middle school and everything, I was their manager and played for them. When those two guys decided to hang it up. I guess I was next in line, so to speak.
“It’s nothing you plan to do. I could be an assistant for both of those guys. But it’s exciting. You can kind of put your own stamp on things now.”
Falor got the job last November, which gave him a head start on preparing for 2014.
“I obviously know all the kids coming back and the kids coming up through,” he said. “Being familiar with everything was a big advantage. Being around as long as I have, you can start to see areas where we needed to improve. We tried to focus on those in the winter, spring, and summer.”
Like any new coach, Falor has been eager to get his first season started.
“I’ve been happy with the dedication a lot of them put in over the winter, coming in the morning, doing our speed and conditioning program,” he said. “The kids that have dedicated themselves have seen pretty big improvement in that area of strength, speed and agility training. We’ve had good turnouts for our summer 7-on7 and weight room stuff. I’m pretty excited. I think the guys returning have put the time in to improve. That’s all we can ask for.”
Falor said his 2014 football team will do some things differently than in the past. “Offensively, we’ll stay with the spread. But we’re doing some little different tweaks here and there to it. We might do a little more no-huddle, up-tempo type. We’ll see how that goes.
“Defensively, we’ll be kind of like we always have, kind of a multi-front defense, really kind of a 3-4 base. We have the ability to get into different looks. We’ve always kind of had a multi-front defense.”
He was the offensive coordinator for many years but admits he won’t be calling the plays. Paul Seeley is the offensive coordinator, while Steve Humm is the defensive coordinator.
“I’ll oversee other sides of it,” Falor said.
He acknowledged that going from assistant to top dog on the coaching staff means some transition.
“It’s the behind-the-scenes stuff,” Falor said. “People don’t notice the phone stuff, doing the paperwork, coordinating the fund-raisers, and all that sort of stuff. I’ve been around long enough, so I probably knew what to expect. It’s a major change. As an assistant, you’re so focused on your position.”
Falor has enjoyed many highlights in his coaching career. The 2007 team went to the state semifinals and the 2011 squad won the district.
“That was another exciting year,” Falor said. “I had the chance to coach with Randy in the 2009 All-Star game. I was the offensive coordinator for the West team.”
Falor said that he has taken over a solid program. “A lot of times, first year coaches come into a situation where they’re completely rebuilding.” he said. “That’s not necessarily the case here. There’s always areas to improve. We’ve put emphasis on speed and agility training. That’s an area in which we look to improve. We’re putting an emphasis on fundamentals. We struggled last year tackling. We put a lot of emphasis on that this year so far.”