Plant City High got a surprise when head coach Wayne Ward resigned in February. Fortunately for the Raiders, the school didn’t have to look far at all to find the new man for the job.
Greg Meyer’s third season on the Raiders staff will be his first as the team’s head coach, and the second head job of his coaching career.
“It’s incredibly exciting,” Meyer says. “The amount of support from students, faculty and the community has been overwhelming.”
Although it will be Meyer’s second role as a head coach, he says that this experience will be one unlike anything he’s ever been a part of before.
EARLY SUCCESS
Meyer, a Tampa native, got the opportunity to join the coaching staff at his alma mater, Plant High, at a good time. As an assistant under longtime coach Bob Weiner, he worked with the defense during the Panthers’ successful 2008 state championship run.
“I can’t say enough about learning from the guys at Plant,” Meyer says. “The guys on that staff have been together for a long time. You really got a chance to see what it was to be a part of something bigger than yourself, in the truest sense, when it comes to high school ball.”
Meyer says that he learned one of the most important lessons of his coaching career there, before he left Plant for another job in Jacksonville.
“They’re committed to the program — to the kids — for all the right reasons,” he says. “The core philosophy I’ve adopted from that is to make it about the kids 100% of the time, and you’ll never go wrong.”
When the opportunity for another coaching job arose in north Florida, Meyer jumped on it.
LEARNING EXPERIENCE
In 2008, Wolfson High was still going with longtime head coach and athletic director Frank Jenkins at the helm of the football program. Meyer joined the staff as Jenkins’ defensive coordinator, a position he held for three years before Jenkins departed to open up Orange Park-Oakleaf High.
Meyer was named the team’s head coach in 2010 and posted a 4-17 record there over two seasons. Coaching at Wolfson didn’t come with the universal support that Meyer saw in programs like Plant, and even Plant City, but he says he was still able to draw some positives from his time there.
“The experiences learned there were invaluable,” Meyer says. “Program organization, delegating with staff, all that. Surviving in an environment where there wasn’t a whole lot of support.”
He left the program in 2012 to return to the Tampa Bay area, as his mother had fallen ill, and joined the Raiders in the offseason as Wayne Ward’s defensive coordinator.
FRESH PERSPECTIVE
Meyer’s work with players like Montel McBride, Sedrick King, T.J. Chase, John Broome and Sawyer Dawson — all NCAA Division 1 college prospects — spoke for itself shortly after joining the staff. He was able to help develop a talented squad that, in 2013, boasted one of the Tampa Bay area’s best front sevens and an up-and-coming secondary unit. In 2014, he got results from a much younger defense. Thanks to great play from Dawson, Patrick Colleran, Steven Ogletree and Cory Cotnoir, Plant City turned into something of a linebacker factory.
Most importantly, from his perspective, Plant City provided the kind of football environment that Wolfson lacked: a program with the full support of both the school administration and the community as a whole. Therefore, the Plant City head job was the only one he ever considered applying for during his time here. When the opportunity presented itself, Meyer immediately threw his name in a full hat.
“This is the only one I was going to apply for,” Meyer says. “Tampa Catholic and all the other ones that have had openings are appealing on certain levels, but this is definitely unique.”
With what he feels is the right culture already in place, and a roster full of players that already know and trust him, Meyer is much more comfortable stepping into this role than when he took the Wolfson job in 2010.
The coaching staff won’t see too many changes, though Meyer has confirmed that he and the school are currently in the later stages of bringing a new offensive coordinator on board.
“I think there’ll be some similarities, offensively, because of our personnel,” he says. “We’re building our system around our kids. We will have a spread attack, but we’ll have a strong run identity between the tackles. We want to get back to the old school Plant City ways of being able to mash it up front.”
Football season is still many months away, but no one is more excited to get back on the field already than the Raiders’ new head coach.
“Plant City as a whole is just a unique community when it comes to football,” Meyer says. “Kids here have aspirations and solid work ethic — it’s definitely a special place when it comes to high school football.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
WHAT TO WATCH
According to Greg Meyer, Raider fans will have plenty to be excited about in the upcoming 2015 season. What’s in store? Take it from the coach himself:
“With the defensive side of the ball, the bulk of our guys are coming back,” Meyer says. “We had some good young guys behind Quay (Young), Sawyer (Dawson) and Patrick (Colleran) that are coming up. On offense, Antoine Thompson, Corey King, Markese Hargrove, Ge’Sean Parker and Sterling Day performed well. It’s gonna be a lot of fun, going forward.
“It starts with Markese Hargrove. To have a 1,300 yard rusher coming back is a wonderful advantage. We’ve got Corey King coming back at QB, and we like how he developed later in the year. Antoine Thompson, his consistency grew later on — we’re excited about him. He’s explosive.
“We’ll have a young, good O-line. We feel confident we’ll be able to get the O-line jelling as we go through the spring.”