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Shinn takes over Central Cabarrus' football program
Photo by James Nix
Central Cabarrus head coach Chris Shinn watches his players during practice last week.
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Published: August 16, 2009
CONCORD - Don't forget about Chris Shinn.
There are three new head football coaches at Cabarrus County high schools this year.
The high-profile change is Glen Padgett taking over at Concord, replacing E.Z. Smith III, who coached the Spiders for 29 years.
Then there's Greg Neuendorf, the first head coach in Cox Mill Chargers history as that brand-new school opens its doors.
But there's also Shinn, who is trying to make a difference at his alma mater, Central Cabarrus. From motivating to remodeling, Shinn has jumped into his new position.
"I like it," he said. "I approach any job that I've done like it's the greatest job on earth. There's just more to do, but it doesn't change the intensity of how I do things. It's just more on the to-do list, more responsibility, but I enjoy it."
Shinn takes over at Central after experience as an assistant football coach at the school.
"I've had some ideas about what we need to do here and what needs to be done to make this a better program," he said.
"I finally got an opportunity to do that. That's exciting."
The Vikings went 1-10 last year, feeling the brunt of the loss of students to Hickory Ridge. The lone Central win was a forfeit.
Shinn was named head coach in January, replacing Glen Cook, who resigned.
"We've had a young class in the past and they're all seniors and juniors now and they're bringing some of those younger kids with them," Shinn said.
"We started spring workouts pretty much right away. We had a parent-player meeting at the end of spring semester. We brought our college compliance officer in to talk about college recruiting and what you have to do. We're trying to motivate them to get their grades up and do this and do that."
That's not all.
"I went into the middle schools," Shinn said. "We had our middle school weight training program. I met with a lot of kids at our two feeder schools who were interested and talked to them about playing.
We made a concerted effort to go out and find these kids and try to bring them into the program."
For the high schoolers, "We had an extensive summer program," Shinn said. "We went about four days a week. That culminated in a mini-camp for the varsity the last week of the summer."
One of the messages being drilled into players is discipline.
"The big thing is they've got to understand their role on the team and their responsibility to the team," Shinn said.
"We're stressing attendance at practice, stressing being in the right place at the right time, knowing your assignments. There's a lot of discipline. They've got to be disciplined.
"We're going to do a study hall this year. We're trying to keep everybody eligible.
"We've established a scale; they earn points for doing this and doing that. If your GPA's a 4.0, you earn a certain amount of points. If it's a 2, you earn less. It goes into academics, it goes into discipline, it goes into on-the-field performance, it's comprehensive. They're going to be held accountable."
Shinn said Central is fortunate to have a fieldhouse, but that it was time for a facelift.
"It just got to the point where it needed some work done," he said. "The coaches pitched in. We spent about a whole week working about ten hours a day before practice in the summer.
"We tore out all the carpet and re-painted all the walls. We tore out all the lockers. We're trying to give them something to be proud of. We're trying to do some things for them to get them to buy into what we're trying to build.
"We want them to take ownership of the team and be proud of the team, and that goes a long way."
Football season starts Friday for all members of the South Piedmont Conference except Jay M. Robinson, which has an open date.
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