Mark Sanford is stepping down as the head coach at William Monroe.
After five seasons leading the Dragons, Sanford is moving on to pursue other opportunities, though he’ll remain at Monroe until the end of the school year. He met with the team today to inform them of his decision.
“The timing of it, I can’t say whether it’s bad, because you never really know,” said Monroe athletic director Brian Collier. “You could learn in November and not have a teaching job available so it wouldn’t matter. We want to have the teaching job available because we want the coach in the building. We think that’s a good thing to have.”
Sanford took over what had become perhaps Central Virginia’s most hapless program as the Dragons hadn’t posted a winning record in the 10 years before Sanford got the job. Monroe hadn’t even qualified for the playoffs since 1991.
With a major facility upgrade that started shortly after Sanford arrived and eventually included a new weight room, field house, playing surface and bleachers along a fortuitous move down to Group A under the old VHSL alignment, the program got a major jumpstart. Sanford and the Dragons capitalized and seemed to have things headed in the right direction in 2011 when the Dragons qualified for the playoffs after posting a 7-3 record in the regular season. The Dragons hosted Manassas Park in the opening round and lost, but it seemed clear that Monroe’s program had some momentum.
The Dragons bottomed out again in 2012 with a 1-9 record in their last year in Group A, Division 2, in part due to a mass exodus of seniors that were multi-sport standouts. With some more experience on their hands — instead of sophomore starters, the Dragons leaned on a number of juniors —Monroe managed to improve to 3-8 this season and qualify for the playoffs in the 3A East where they lost to Loudoun Valley.
The facility upgrade and a lot of returning talent in the senior class should bring a solid pool of candidates for Monroe’s administration to pick from.
“I think it’s an attractive position,” Collier said. “The facilities are new and we’ve got a good full group of kids coming back. So I think this is a good spot to step into for anybody.”
In the mean time, Monroe will go to work on getting the process started.
“We have to post it and see who applies and go from there,” Collier said. “We don’t have a timeline set (to fill the job), but obviously the sooner the better for the kids and the program. Now, we do also have to find a quality person too.”
