CRIDERSVILLE — Perry has chosen one of its own to coach the high school football team.
Luke Taviano, who graduated from Perry in 1997, was hired by the Perry Board of Education on Tuesday to take over the head coaching duties.
Taviano takes over for Herb Lane Jr. who was killed in an automobile accident in March. This is Tavanio’s first head coaching assignment. He has been an assistant coach at the college and high school level with a year stint as line coach for Perry in 2015 and as an assistant coach at Delphos Jefferson last season.
“I am a graduate of here so it has been a dream of mine my whole life to take over the program and make it successful and to just have fun with the kids,” Taviano said. “I want to build a winning program and look forward to it and am thankful for the opportunity.”
Taviano, who’s dad played at Perry, was a second generation Commodore football player. Taviano added that the prospect of coaching the Commodores always has been in the back of his head and that he wanted to come home and be the head coach.
Taviano added he admired and respected Lane and wants to build on what Lane has accomplished. The Commodores finished 3-7 overall last year and 2-5 in the Northwest Central Conference.
Taviano praised Lane for his work and his dedication to Perry and the student-athletes.
“He is a hard guy to replace just because the kids loved him and he loved them so much,” Taviano said. “Like I said I am not here to replace him, I am here to offer an alternative. We kind of shared the same vision. We wanted the program to be more successful than where it has been before but we have different routes of getting there.”
In addition to bringing in his own coaching staff, Taviano will be making changes on the offense and defense.
On offense, Taviano, who got an eyeful of Jefferson’s vaunted running attack last year, will be instilling the wing-T offense to the Commodores. Last year, the Perry squad ran the spread and were more pass oriented.
“We are going to tighten things up a little bit and go back to basic, technique, fundamental football like a lot of the schools that have been struggling like Spencerville did,” Taviano said.
Taviano joked that in telling some of the students of his switch to a run-oriented offense that he lost some of the wide receivers.
“We are not going to be completely devoted to the run,” Taviano said. “In order to be 100 percent successful we are going to have to evenly distribute but with the crop of talent we have as running backs this is the best bet for us and we are going to sprinkle in some triple option.”
Taviano will be installing the 4-4 swarm defense. The Commodores utilized the 3-5-3 defense last season.
“Week to week we are going to give alternative looks depending on who we are facing,” Taviano said. “We are going to focus on stopping the run.”
With all these changes, Taviano hopes they translate into victories and being competitive in the NWCC.
“It is a special time for us and we have a lot of great athletes and we can easily be a contender in the league and that is one of my goals year in and year out,” Taviano said. “I want to be right in the mix and I think we have great out of league contests to get that way.”
Taviano said he learned a tremendous amount of football last year at Delphos Jefferson from head coach Chris Sommers and assistant coach John Edinger, who previously was the head coach at Spencerville.
Despite not having an extensive coaching resume, Taviano takes away something Edinger told him.
“I can tell them all I want to about my playing days but they really don’t care what a 40-year-old did back then,” Taviano said. “I live by something coach Edinger told me, `they really don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.’”
