Filbeck to be Head Football Coach of Augusta

After 10 seasons of coaching football at East, art teacher and assistant head football coach Jason Filbeck will be leaving at the end of the school year. On Feb. 14, he accepted a job as head football coach at Augusta High School, in the town of Augusta, Kan., a two and a half hour drive from Kansas City.

Filbeck applied for the job after hearing about the opening from East head football coach Dustin Delaney, who previously lived in the nearby Wichita area. It caught Filbeck’s interest, so he applied for the position. The same day he interviewed, he got a call asking if he wanted the job.

“They said that they weren’t going to mess with a second round of interviews, they asked me if i wanted it,” Filbeck said. “I weighed my options, whether I wanted to stay here or take the leap of faith, so I went for it.”

Having spent most of his professional time at East after graduating from college, moving to the small town of Augusta will bring a lot of change for Filbeck. One of the biggest changes is that he will not be teaching art anymore; he will be teaching weights instead. Filbeck will also have to adjust to the environment of the small town.

“[Another big change will be] making new friendships and working relationships with people,” Filbeck said. “I’m leaving a ton of friends behind here so that’ll be a weird deal. It’s a much smaller town; it’s not in the city like we are here, so there’s all those dynamics too.”

Filbeck expects to be busy and focused on football most of the time. He has already met some of the players and seen footage of them playing, and he sees some changes to be made.

“They were not very good last year, I think they won two games, but I don’t have any reason to expect that we won’t be good right away,” Filbeck said. “They have a lot of athletes that I think are misused or underused, so I think [after making some changes] we could be pretty good.”

His main goal for the team is to get better and win more games. Doing this, he says, will give the players the opportunity to play at the next level if they want. It will also give them an environment that allows them to enjoy the sport more.

Filbeck will leave for Augusta immediately after this school year to coach summer weights and football conditioning.

What a great day meeting so many people in Augusta. Summer can't get here far enough. #oriolefootball #newhome

— Jason Filbeck (@jfilbeck3) February 27, 2014

 

Filbeck drew caricatures for seniors Christian Blessen, Will Mitchell, Mitchell Tyler and David Spivak as gifts before he left. Check out the drawing Filbeck made for Tyler.