One of the best defensive coordinators in Alabama gets his first head coaching job. Vestavia Hills High School hired Robert Evans to be their new head football coach. Evans was the defensive coordinator at Mountain Brook and did an unbelievable job with the Spartans.
Evans replaces Sean Calhoun, who left after one season at Vestavia Hills to be the head coach at Colquitt County High School in Georgia. Evans will be the third coach in three years at Vestavia Hills as he comes after Calhoun who replaced legendary coach Buddy Anderson after 43 successful years.
"I am honored to be here, but I didn't want to come back home," said Evans. "But through the course of your career, you realize what a special place this is. After 15 years of coaching, this doesn't really seem like coming home. I wanted to forge my own path but when the opportunity presented itself, this was just to good to pass up. There are only a handful of these jobs in the state. There is a pent up desire to be great here and we are putting up the resources that are needed and are putting the people in place to hopefully have a successful program not only in the short term but long term."
Evans has coached under some very successful coaches. "I think you take bits and pieces from everyone and shape them together and that is who you are," added Evans. "You take the best from Coach Yeager, Coach Niblett, Coach Raney, Coach Vincent, and my time with UAB with Watson Brown and Pat Sullivan. All the best qualities come together. We had to win with different styles at Mountain Brook compared to Hoover and Vestavia Hills is probably in the middle of the two schools."
Back in 1998, Evans played for Coach Anderson at Vestavia Hills and is ready to lead his alma mater. Evans was the defensive coordinator at Mountain Brook the last four years and led the best defense in Class 6A.
When Sean Calhoun left for a head coaching job in Georgia, Athletic Director Myra Miles had a plan all along in his replacement and knew one day she would be calling on Coach Evans. "I've know Rob for a long time as I hired him at Hoover," said Miles who was AD at Hoover from 2007-2014. "I have been so impressed by him as he is a heck of a coach. High character, great work ethic, passion for kids. I just knew it was time for him to be a head coach. I had a short list and he was always my number one. I wasn't going to give up till I got him. I was so grateful that he said that he would be our coach."
Miles played a big role with Evans leaving Mountain Brook for his new head coaching job with Vestavia Hills. "Without Myra, I wouldn't be here," said Evans. "She wouldn't let me say no because I was very comfortable where I was. Here leadership and her taking some things off my plate are going to be big for me. I will have my focus in on football, our coaches and players."
When Coach Calhoun came in, he made a drastic change to the Rebels offense in being more balanced and spreading teams out a little more. Coach Evans has his ideas for his offense. "One coach told me this, tell me what ingredients we have and I will tell you what we are making," added Evans. "Right now, I really don't know what we have. I do know in a very general sense, our offense is going to be predicated on the stuff that I've hated defending over the years. All the best stuff I think as a coach that stress me as a defensive coordinator will be our offense. We want to play with pace, tremendous pace. We want a multiple base. The teams that can do this with high tempo are the teams that are scoring points."
