Indians’ coach chats about first win in his new gig

After 11 seasons, Jeff Polites had had his fill of coaching varsity football at Elizabethtown High School.

So the Bears’ longtime coach tendered his resignation last spring and walked away from a program he helped build into a Section 2 champ (2007) and a District 3 threat – E-town went to Districts in 2007 and 2008 under his watch, winning a first-round Triple-A game in 2007.

Instead of taking it easy for a year or so, and maybe staying in the game as an assistant coach or as a coordinator, Polites applied for the Donegal job, which became vacant when Bill Groff stepped down following last season.

Couple of interviews later and – bang! – Polites took a teaching job and the head varsity football-coaching job at Donegal.

The Indians didn’t get off to the greatest start of all time, going 0-4 out the chute, including a gut-wrencher 20-14 overtime loss to Eastern York in Week 2.

But last Friday, Donegal earned its first win in the Polites regime – a 28-22 Section 3 victory over Pequea Valley.

Polites has done some tweaking here and some tweaking there, and now that his new team has tasted a victory, he’s hoping to keep the mojo going.

I chatted with Coach Polites about the win over PV, and what it meant to his kids and the program to finally get a W, and about how well the transition is going under his tutelage.

You can listen to the interview by clicking on the ‘play’ button above.

You can also download the Podcast and play it on your favorite mp3 device by clicking here.