Perryville looks for football coach

Perryville High School has launched a search for a new football coach for the second straight offseason.

The Perryville school board accepted coach Jim May's resignation at its meeting last week. May resigned to accept the coaching job at his alma mater, Scott City, after one season with the Pirates, who went 3-8 but made the Class 3 playoffs by going 2-1 in district play.

The new coach will be Perryville's fourth this decade. The previous three have posted a combined record of 26-66 since 2000.

"Don't have any indication yet of who is going to be the coach," Perryville athletic director Jeff Steffens said. "We opened up the job and people can get onto our school website and fill out the information and apply for the job."

Steffens estimated about four or five people as of Friday already had applied for the position on the school's website.

"I'm really not aware of any time that has been set [on when a coach will hired]," Steffens said. "I'm sure we would like to have someone hired by or have someone appointed by our next school board meeting, which will be in April, early April."

Steffens said the school is not upset May decided to leave after just one year with the program. It was May's first high school head coaching position after coming from Chaffee High School, where he was an assistant football coach. Perryville hired May in February 2008.

"[We[']re] not really upset with him -- no," Steffens said. "I know it's an opportunity that he really couldn't pass up as he's going back to his alma mater to coach. I'm just disappointed that he's leaving because of the job that he did here with the kids. He did everything. All the expectations were filled that we asked him to do. He worked hard. His coaching staff seemed to work well together, and he got along well with the kids. And he seemed to care about the kids where he was getting kids out to play next year that may not have otherwise if he didn't help them along the way and push them a little bit."

Steffens said nobody, except May, has spoken with the players about the situation, but he added that the players are not discouraged.

"We have not talked to the kids about that, but we hear them talking through the hallways and they are not upset that he's leaving," Steffens said. "I mean, he talked to a few of them about that and they are just upset that he is leaving because of what kind of person he was."

Rival Ste. Genevieve beat the Pirates 50-20 in the first round of the state playoffs this past fall. District wins over Kennett and Dexter, along with the new, friendly playoff format that qualifies two teams per district instead of one, helped Perryville make the playoffs under May's leadership.

Perryville will be losing some important skill players to graduation. They include running back/quarterback Josh Perreault, who carried 225 times for 1,359 yards last fall, along with running back Brent Roth, who carried 115 times for 520 yards and caught 29 passes for 508 yards.

"You always like stability in your program," said Steffens when asked if the school would stress to potential hires that it wants a coach who is committed to sticking around long-term. "The longer you have coaches stick around, the more that the kids get used to him and he can bring his ideas, his philosophies to the program, which is always beneficial to the team if it's working out for the school district."