Roland High School did not have to look far to find the successor for football coach Austin Cantrell, who played his high school football with the Rangers and left this summer to take a coaching job at Rogers (Ark.) Heritage High School. The Roland Public Schools Board of Education just promoted one of its assistant football coaches.
Roland assistant coach Greg Wise was promoted to be Cantrell’s successor.
“I’m pretty excited about it,” Wise said. It’s something I’m used to in a way, being a head coach before (at Arkoma, his only head coaching job). It’s going to be a lot easier this time around. Being a head coach is not necessarily Xs and Os, but it’s about the administration of the program, having our ducks in a row and managing the staff. I’ve done it before, so it’s nothing new — but it helps with the experience that I have stepping into this. It should be an easier transition.”
One thing that has aided Wise in this transition is the fact he’s been with the Rangers this entire decade, thus knowing the players very well.
“This will be my fourth year coaching Roland football,” he said. “The kids have known me. Some of these kids that are seniors now, I’ve had since they’ve been a freshman. The familiarity is there. They know how I operate. They know what makes me tick, and I know the same thing about them. I’m not coming in here and trying to learn a whole new system and a whole new set of kids. It’s all familiarity at this point. It makes the job a whole lot easier. Of course, there’s challenges. I was the offensive/ defensive line coach here at Roland. Learning the positions of the players and their positions is something I’m trying to pick up right now and how they do things at those spots. Other than that, it’s a good transition in terms of knowing the kids, the parents and the community. Teaching here, I know the teachers. It’s not as big a big deal as if I were coming in fresh (from a new school district).”
Another thing that is making the transition easy is the other two assistant coaches who were on staff last year, Dillon Corbeit and Rashawn Eubanks, will remain in that capacity for Wise.
“Those assistants play an integral role for us,” Wise said. “They’re good guys.”
The biggest issue Wise is dealing with is fitting his players into the right positions so the Rangers can have success in 2024, which was not the case in 2023 as they were 1-9 after beating archrival Muldrow 21-14 in the annual “Battle of 64” on Aug. 24 at Ranger Stadium and then losing the remaining nine games of the season — in which they were outscored 342-110.
“An issue we’re trying to work through right now is based on personnel, seeing what new kids we have coming in,” Wise said. “We lost some kids at graduation. We’re trying to fill spots that need to be filled. We’re taking a fresh set of eyes and looking at this. Our kids we’ve had playing at certain positions before I feel like can be a benefit to us at different spots. Right now, we’re just trying to get the pieces put together in terms of our personnel we’re going to have.
Right now, that’s the biggest challenge I’m coming across.”
Wise is anxious to return to being a head football coach.
“You know most every coach has the desire to become a head guy (coach) one day and run a program how they see that they need to run it,” he said. “It’s an exciting opportunity right now.”
