New Fruitdale coach Lane Brown, a former Pirates player, wants his players and the team’s fans to know he is dedicated to building the program for long-term success. (Call News photo)
Football coaches have come and gone through Fruitdale with the regularity of log trucks rumbling up and down U.S. 45, although more quietly.
In fact, when people other than relatives haphazardly stop in the tiny Washington County settlement — population 228 — it is usually for something at the ubiquitous Dollar General, or for the fried goods, coleslaw, pizza and sausage dogs from the Corner Store or some barbeque from Fatty Matty’s, the two establishments on either side of the highway that shudder when the big rigs roar past.
Traffic did stop about a month ago when the mail Jeep caught fire at the Corner Store, which caused a temporary buzz before being quickly extinguished, thereupon returning life to the reliably tranquil pace expected and prized by its citizens. Even the mosquitoes seem to take their time going for blood, preferring to glide in, not dive, as if asking for permission to land.
But a half mile off the main blacktop, at Fruitdale High — average daily enrollment 75 — Lane Brown, the newest coach, wants to create a permanent flame, some excitement that will endure, a bunch of players willing to shed their blood, who emit scarier vibes than the skull and crossbones on their jerseys and are as enjoyable to play as a swarm of dirt daubers at a dinner on the grounds.
In a place that sprouted from an apple orchard planted by an outsider, the native son wants to raise a fruitful football program from the ground up and have the longest and most prosperous stay in school history by making the Pirates competitive.
How to do it? Brown distilled it to the most obvious facet.
“You have to make sure a kid knows you’re going to be there and I’ve said it until I’m blue in the face,” said Brown, 28, a former three-sport Fruitdale athlete who graduated in 2014 and just accepted his first head coaching job. “I’ve got a boy about to start pre-K and a 2-year-old at home and I want them to graduate from Fruitdale, so I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got 20 to 25 years here. I want to get things turned around where it never gets back down.”
It’s been more down than up. In fact, no coach in school history has ever left with a winning overall record. Among the 21 men who have pulled on a purple cap, the average stay has been less than three years, including one who was there barely long enough to find out where the bathroom was.
Barry Sharpe holds the FHS record for longevity, a modest eight years in all, and went 25-7 in one stretch between 1995 and 1997, including one of the school’s two playoff victories. But he still lost more than he won, which is true of every coach in school history except for Johnny Carpenter, who managed a 16-16 draw in three years before abruptly departing for Washington County High School in Chatom just before the 2022 season started.
On the other hand, the nearly invisible Rodney Dollar — one of the six coaches the school has had in the last nine years — set the FHS record for brevity, officially timed at slightly longer than an ice cube lasts on a hot tin roof. Dollar was a good coach but also an apple that fell off the tree and kept rolling, materializing so briefly after Carpenter left that he was widely believed to be an apparition, or an itinerant preacher, although there were pictures of him in the newspaper to prove he had been there.
In a local kerfuffle, Dollar cashed in after a week, hitting U.S. 45 with no explanation and without calling a play — although in his first team meeting, he said he had overcome cancer and a stroke on the 50-yard line, which he didn’t seem all that concerned about when he took the job.
“I’m an old man. Realistically, I’m supposed to be dead but I’m still coaching,” Dollar informed his astonished players, telling them he was there to win games before deciding a few days later he wouldn’t be there at all.
You can bet your bottom Dollar that is an extreme case, even for Fruitdale, but Brown is on the other end of the life and coaching spectrums, full of ideals, plans and energy. He played at Fruitdale under another former player, Jacob Webb, who in 2014 gave the Pirates the best season in school history (9-3) and their last playoff win — a fact which gives Fruitdale hope that Brown will have similar success.
“I think it takes someone who wore the jersey and walked the halls to understand the Fruitdale way of life,” Brown said.
It’s been a hard way. In three of those post-Webb seasons, the Pirates were outscored 90 to 395, 90 to 356 and 69 to 432.
There must be a new way and Brown says it involves following a well-worn but trusty map. He wants to reroute the program’s trajectory by emulating his mentor.
“One of the things coach Webb brought to the table was his enthusiasm and how much he cared for the kids,” Brown said. “He also has an offensive mind. Everything I know, I give him credit for.”
Brown will be given the chance to succeed, to grow into the job, for there is no other way. It’s going to be a long-term project but he’s got two things going for him — he’s a Fruitdale man and he’s a young man who wants to be there and will dedicate every conscious moment to make the football so good that people will turn off U.S. 45 and stop to see a game.
