Saints begin spring football with coaching staff additions

As the St. Helena High football team begins its first day of spring practice today, the goals are business as usual for head coach Brandon Farrell, who enters his tenth season at the helm, during which time the Saints have gone 76-30.

Farrell is the all-time leader in school history in coaching victories, surpassing Charley Toogood in 2015. With spring sports concluded, the Saints will likely have a solid amount of players participating in spring football practices, which run this week and next.

I remember when Farrell arrived in 2008 when I was a sports reporter on the Upvalley beat. I liked the hire then and the Saints subsequent success in his tenure has confirmed such. I had a chance to catch up with Farrell via phone after work this past week.

“For us, the goals of spring football haven’t really changed since you were here reporting,” Farrell quipped. “We’re still using it as a chance to get as many kids out for the sport as possible. We’re trying to give them a snapshot of what it will be like to set the tone for the upcoming season.”

As successful as St. Helena has been in recent seasons, 2016 did not end well as the Saints lost their final three contests of the season, including the CIF North Coast Section Div. V playoffs, 27-9 to Ferndale to finish 6-5. Though eight months and change will separate that contest to St. Helena’s 2017 opener on Sept. 3 at Sir Francis Drake (San Anselmo), the hope is that the finish of 2016 was an aberration not a trend.

The 2017 season will also feature a couple of new faces to the coaching staff to go along with some familiar ones that have been with Farrell since coming to St. Helena from West Carroll High (Savanna, Ill.). Farrell’s presence as the football head coach has given St. Helena much-needed stability. The program went through 13 coaching changes in 28 seasons before Farrell arrived.

The familiar faces to the staff that remain are Sam Licina, Matt Cia, and Will Densberger. The new faces will be Steve Vargus and Richard Hoppe. Vargus, who is a 1977 Calistoga High graduate, will be the Saints defensive coordinator. Vargus is very highly regarded having spent 16 seasons at Justin-Siena as defensive coordinator under former head coach Rich Cotruvo. Vargus’ 3-4 defenses were huge reasons why the Braves won six NCS titles in 14 seasons. Vargus has also coached at Vanden, Vintage and Terra Linda. Hoppe is a 2013 St. Helena High graduate who recently graduated from Boise State, is the Saints record setting quarterback who went on to play baseball for the Broncos.

“We’ll have some new schemes to learn that may trip up the timing in how far we can get,” Farrell said. “I’m pretty confident we’re going to go in the right direction. We have some really talented coaches aboard. Bringing Steve Vargus along will be great for our program and keeping Matt involved will be great as well. We view any change we have gone through in the last month as a positive. It’s an opportunity to retool and mesh ideas.”

While Farrell has had an outstanding staff for the entire decade of his tenure in St. Helena, he added that the opportunity to bring Vargus to the staff was simply too good relent.

“We realized that if there is a chance to grab a great coach or a great football mind then by all means let’s get better,” Vargus said. “You could not have drawn it up any better. It will be a challenging summer to adjust but adding coach Vargus is just what we were looking for to improve our staff.”

The common narrative one hears is that a head coach is only as good as the band of assistants at his disposal. There’s ample merit to that on the local level when looking at Larry Singer’s staff at American Canyon along with the staffs that Troy Mott had for several seasons at Napa and that Cotruvo had at Justin. With Vargus, the Saints are getting a high school version of Wade Phillips as defensive coordinator in terms of how he is received by peers. Adding Hoppe is also a significant move. Hoppe is young but far enough removed from high school. I remember Hoppe’s gym-rat mentality as a student-athlete like it was yesterday. Hoppe was as diligent as you’ll find when it comes to film study and preparation.

During the summer, the Saints will have weight-room conditioning along with 7-on-7 matchups with fellow Napa Valley schools Justin, Vintage, Napa and American Canyon.

“We have a program run by Sam Licina,” Farrell said. “He does a great job. He gets the kids to work to the maximum level. They always come out of the summer feeling better and more confident. We’re not producing He-men but we are producing some quality athletes.”

Besides Drake, the Saints other nonleague opponent will be Winters, which competes in the Northern Section. This year will mark the second time in as many seasons the Saints will have played Drake. St. Helena has played Winters every season since 2014.  

“It’s a chance to put together the team of 2017,” Farrell said. “It’s about the kids believing in themselves and being able to claim it as their own team. We’re big on the kids taking over their responsibility of what it takes to be a good team.”