Q: Why did you leave USA Academy?
Propst: āThere were enormous philosophical differences about how to build a football program. Thatās the main reason. There were others, but philosophical differences was No. 1, and No. 2, I did not feel comfortable about not having a physical plant secured.
āWeāre less than six months away from an Aug. 22 first game with a schedule (DeVaughn) put together. I didnāt put the schedule together. He put the schedule together. That was a problem, too. I donāt know a football coach in America ā do you know of one? ā who doesnāt control his schedule. In high school football, usually the head football coach does. Iāve never known of anyone who didnāt have control of their own schedule.
āWith that, you throw in (playing) IMG (Fla.) and St. Frances (Md.) and Good Counsel (Md.) and some of these schools, and you donāt even have a building to go to work in? Thatās tough sledding.
āThe other thing, Iāve been over there a couple of times. I didnāt have an office. I didnāt have a place to sit down and work. This thing went down Jan. 2 and here it was approaching March 2, last week, I didnāt see anything changing in two months.
āHereās the other thing, the month of January and the months of February, March and April are critical months in the development of a football program. Well, not a single kid was in, so thatās alarming to me. The other thing that was alarming to me was all these re-class kids.
āIām not saying itās right, wrong or indifferent, but I wasnāt sure about dealing with re-class kids. Theyāre older kids. Theyāve already completed their eligibility in high school and they re-class, and if they did not play on the varsity in a varsity game as a freshman, they could re-class and play in this private league. But nobody does that. The teams weāre playing donāt have re-class kids.
āI was OK with a few to get started, but I didnāt want to base our whole program on re-class kids. All of a sudden, these kids come in and six months later theyāre gone, and I didnāt see that as the right thing. Some of the teams we were playing were concerned with that ā really concerned with that ā and I would be, too. Youāre putting your kids who are 10th-graders or 11th-graders and youāre putting them up against kids who have already finished playing high school football.ā
Propst announced his departure last week, as the new private school plans to play a national-level schedule this fall
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