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Nevada High School hires new head football coach
By Eric Wade
Nevada Daily Mail
Nevada High School's search for a new head football coach is over. Just six weeks after it was made public that former Tigers coach Wes Beachler was moving on to coach at Republic, NHS athletic director Kevin McKinley announced that his replacement has been found.
Erik Yoakam spent the past year as an assistant on head coach Bob Campbell's Fort Scott Tigers football staff and has never been a head coach before. When the head coaching position opened up at Nevada, Yoakam jumped at the chance to put his name on the list for consideration.
"I have heard many good things about the Nevada community and athletics. I knew that it would be a great opportunity, so I jumped on it," Yoakam said.
"I grew up in Pittsburg and this was a great opportunity for me to stay around this area. I have always had aspirations of being a head coach and knew that Nevada would be a great place to do that."
Yoakam is a 2005 graduate from Pittsburg State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Education degree with a major in physical education and a minor in special education. He said that during the four years he spent playing for the Gorillas football team, former Nevada High School head football coach and Pittsburg State linebackers coach Larry Hurst was a significant influence in his life and "used to always say great things about the community."
Yoakam spent two years as assistant coach at St. Mary's Colgan High School in Pittsburg, before moving on to become a defensive coordinator at Leavenworth High School. He spent six years on that staff before moving back to Fort Scott to join Campbell's team.
When he was offered the job at Nevada, excited may have been an understatement when describing his reaction to the newest development in his still young coaching career.
"I was very excited," he said. "I knew that if I was offered the job, it would be an excellent opportunity, not only for me, but for my family and I to become a part of a great community."
Yoakam will take over the weight training teaching duties at Nevada High School in addition to his football coaching duties, starting in the 2013-14 school year. He said his main goal for the future of the program is to simply build and maintain a successful program.
"I want to produce good, hard-working young student athletes," he said. "I want each player to be positively impacted and have pride in the program and their hometown."
In order to accomplish his goal of maintaining a successful program, Yoakam will have some very big shoes to fill. Over the past two seasons, Beachler has done what he spent the first 20 years of his career doing everywhere he went -- turning a struggling program into a true playoff contender.
Before Beachler's enlistment, the Tigers spent three seasons struggling to win games under former head coach Jay Fleeman and went 0-10 in his final season. In Beachler's first season, the Tigers improved that mark to 6-4 and got even better in his second year, finishing 8-3 and coming up just one game short of playing for a district championship in the program's best season in recent memory.
Living up to those high standards set by his predecessor could be a daunting task, but thanks to the success he has seen in other programs for which he has worked, Yoakam remains unfazed.
"I have had a great opportunity to be a part of several successful programs, both playing and coaching," he said "I know what it takes and know what success looks like."