Five new coaches have taken over fall sports teams in the county.
There are three at Southmont and two at Crawfordsville.
Soccer has three of the new leaders, with one at golf and one at cross-county.
There is a qualifier however, as four of the five “new” coaches have been in the area in one way, shape or form anywhere from a couple years to nearly a lifetime.
No matter how short or long they have been around, their commonality is bettering the student-athletes they are in charge of.
They do have interesting stories.
Roger Azar/Crawfordsville Boys Soccer
While Roger Azar is the new boys soccer coach at Crawfordsville, he certainly isn’t a new face to the community.
After two years coaching the girls soccer team at Southmont, he made the move to coach the Athenians boys team.
“It was a great opportunity to enter the CHS program,” he said. “My two sons will pass through the CHS system; and I wanted to be a part of the action with them.”
He also is involved in coaching club soccer in Lafayette and indoor/outdoor league soccer at the Montgomery County Boys & Girls Club. “My passion is to make an impact in the lives of the youth that I coach,” he said.
His approach to coaching, whether high school or clubs, is straight-forward with no excuses. “The kids respect their coach when he tells them the truth about their abilities, techniques, attitudes on and off the pitch, and the way they carry themselves,” he noted. “I coach every kid, as if they were my son or daughter. Every kid has potential, at different levels and different positions. If they are willing to put the work in, I am willing to coach them through it.”
Azar was born in Liberia, West Africa, and moved to Lebanon as a pre-teen. He came to the USA when he was 19-years old and attended the University of Dayton, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a master’s degree in civil/environmental engineering.
He later completed his
When not coaching, Azar is busy running DES Civil and Environmental Engineering, his business, based in Crawfordsville, tending to clients in the local market and throughout the State of Indiana. His hobbies include fixing homes, hunting with his great friends, fishing in Sugar Creek, traveling with Erin, and spending time with his friends and family.
Erin Gilland/Crawfordsville Girls Golf
New to coaching, but hardly new to Crawfordsville High nor the area, Erin Gilland takes the reins of the girls’ golf team this fall.
A CHS graduate, she is a Kindergarten teacher at Hose Elementary.
“I have worked in the school system for over 15 years,” she noted. “I love Kindergarten and watching the kids grow throughout the year. My passion is to be a stepping stone in a child’s education and make them have a love for school.”
Her love for getting the kids to love school starts at home, as she and her husband Dave are raising their four children. Oldest daughter Cadence is a junior at Olivet, Tanner is a senior at CHS (and a member of the boys’ golf team), Bentley is in seventh grade at CMS and Koda is in kindergarten, probably watching mom closely.
“I graduated from CHS,” she added. “I’ll always be gold and blue!”
She takes over the girls’ golf team as she follows Tanner, the back-to-back Journal Review Golfer of the Year, who will also be team captain for the third-straight season next spring.
“I did not play golf in high school,” she said, “but I have loved watching my sons play and I’m starting to play now. And I am learning the game along with my new players.”
Teaching, coaching and being a fan takes plenty of time, but there is a minute or two left for the new coach.
“In my free time we hang out with the family,” she said “We watch movies, hang out with friends; I love to read and watch my kids in sports.
That balancing of time comes with help from that same family.
“I have to give a shoutout to my husband for supporting my new adventures and encouraging me to try something new. Thank you to my son Tanner and (Crawfordsville boys golf) Coach (Tom) Perkins for all their advice and answering my questions through the process. Thanks to all my kids for being understanding while I have been away more throughout the season, and my family for helping with the kids and my friends for being encouraging and rooting for me.”
Sounds like a all that help and support will make this first season of coaching an easy par.
Jared McMurry/Crawfordsville Cross Country
He’s a new coach, but the first-year mentor of the Crawfordsville cross country teams is a long run from a new guy in the area.
Jared McMurry is a native of Montgomery County, and has a notable accomplishments list already.
A North Montgomery grad in 2013, he had the running bug way back then, as a three year-member of the Chargers cross country teams and did a two-year stint with track.
He did leave the county for a short stretch of college time, but came back to graduate from IUPUI in 2017.
Among the many things on his schedule:
He owns McMurry Lawn Care, purchasing the business from Dave Janssen after working for him seven years.
He was once the sports editor of the Journal Review, and has come back to the sports department this fall in a part-time role.
He has been involved with broadcasting sports on WCVL-WIMC, including time as sports director for the stations. You will hear him on the occasional Friday night calling a game.
He is also busy dad, raising daughter Quinn and son Jude, helping his wife Chase, who is a fourth-grade teacher at Hoover.
Why get into coaching?
“Coaching is my way to stay involved with high school athletics,” he said, “and give back to what gave me so much as a student athlete. And ultimately, help make my hometown a better place to live, work, and raise a family. With a growing business and family, the timing wasn’t how I thought it would go,” he continued, “but it has worked out well. I’ve got a tremendous group of runners, and I’m grateful of the opportunity to take over a program previously led by Megan Craig, who made Athenian runners one of the best distance programs in the area”.
Why Crawfordsville?
“As far as coaching at Crawfordsville — I feel just as much at home as an Athenian, as anywhere,” he continued, “and I think that’s a testament to an athletic director like Bryce Barton, and longtime coaches that I covered over the years like David Pierce, Kevin Hedrick, Sean Gerold, John Froedge and Kelly Johnson.”
So how does it feel to move from asking questions to getting questions asked?
“As the sports editor, I used to ask some pretty obscure questions to coaches,” he admitted. “Some to help me better understand why or how they were doing something, but also because I knew this day (coaching) would come eventually.”
From running to coaching. From writing to being quoted.
Just another duty for McMurry.
Ben Razo/Southmont Boys Soccer
Southmont’s new boys soccer coach has put in the time and miles as he takes over the Mounties program.
Ben Razo, a native of Guanajuato, Mexico, left his native country after high school to come to the United States for college.
He will earn his mechanical engineering degree from Rutgers this winter. He works for Acuity, who has had him in three states now, from Minnesota to Wisconsin and now Indiana. He currently works as a project engineer for Acuity.
He has been around soccer his entire life, played it as a youth and still plays in three Crawfordsville adult leagues, and has coached since his college days. “I even coached my nephew, who played professional soccer in Europe, and in a travel league,” Roza noted.
The coaching was both to help and for some profit.
“I had to pay for college, so I coached while I was in school,” he said. “But I love coaching kids and youth soccer.”
Razo, who lives in Carmel, was involved with a non-profit organization coaching youth soccer in Noblesville and Westfield. “I coached kids from 3/4 all the way up to 15/16,” he said.
He also got involved with the North Montgomery Youth Leagues.
It was work that led to the contact that got him to Southmont.
“My boss is Larry Meadows,” he said of the Southmont dad, “and he told me about the opening at Southmont.”
The Acuity connection goes a little farther, as all of his assistant coaches work with Roza at the facility and also play on his adult soccer league teams.
A coaching staff that literally works and plays together.
Angie Williams/Southmont Girls Soccer
It might be Angie Williams’ first season as the Southmont girls’ head varsity soccer coach, but it sure isn’t her first season coaching a Mounties’ squad.
“I’ve coached various Southmont Youth teams, ran the Southmont youth league, helped with MC United and coached the girls Junior High team for two years,” she said. “Last year I was the assistant varsity coach. I just want to continue to help the kids and the program.”
Williams, a three-sport athlete and graduate of West Lafayette High School, earned her college degree at Purdue, and has long family ties to the southern part of the county.
“I live on the family farm,” she noted. “I’ve been back here at New Market for 23 years.”
Her dad, Arch Alexander, even helped his daughter coach one season.
There was success with the younger soccer teams.
“We won the Junior High Sagamore Conference Tourney to be conference champs for the first time in school history,” she said. “I got interested in soccer when my kids started playing at a young age, and now I’ve had some of this year’s varsity players for a couple years and moved up with them.”
Away from coaching, Williams is a realtor/appraiser for F.C. Tucker. She and husband Matt have three children — daughter Alivia is a sophomore at IU, son Marlin is a freshman at Marian University, and will be wrestling there after a successful high school career at South. Daughter Molly is a sophomore at Southmont and is a member of the soccer team.
Matt is a hoops coach in the South system, and is at the junior high. Angie was an assistant to him in the past, helping coach grade school girls.
“I’ve gotten great advice over the years from guys like Jim Gray and Bobby Horton,” Williams said, “and of course from (last year’s coach) Roger Azar. These younger players have had some success, and we want to build on that.”
When not buying or selling houses, or coaching soccer, Williams and her family know the routes down Sugar Creek.
“We love to kayak,” she said. “We’ve been down Sugar Creek a bazillion times. We also like to go trail hiking, and we love family time.”
