It was nearly seven years ago to the day Dusty Raper was hired to be Pauls Valley’s head football coach.
After returning from the recent holiday break Raper announced he will be stepping down from his coaching duties.
Superintendent Brett Knight said the word is already out as a number of coaches have expressed an interest in being the next Panther coach.
“Coach Raper submitted the resignation over the holiday break, but we haven’t released anything because he wanted to tell the kids himself,” Knight said.
“We have opened the position,” he said on January 7.
“We’ve already got a stack of applications. We have more than 20 applications.”
Raper, who has been Pauls Valley’s head coach for the last seven seasons, plans to continue his teaching duties in PV through the current school year before heading back to his home turf of Davis, which is where he attended high school and played football.
His first coaching job came when former Pauls Valley superintendent Mike Martin, then a principal at Dickson, hired him as a young teacher and offensive line coach for the football team.
From there Raper joined the staff of Matt Weber at Marlow, where he coached the offensive line and linebackers for the 2007 season.
After a year both went to Ada to lead the iconic Cougar football program for seven years. Raper coached defensive ends for the first three years with the remaining time spent as defensive coordinator.
Raper first came to Pauls Valley when Weber was hired to be PV’s head coach. Three years later Raper took the top job when Weber left to be the coach in Marlow.
“We’re trying to set up interviews (this) week,” Knight said.
“We don’t want to move too quickly and get the wrong person, but we don’t want to move too slow and miss the right candidate.
“We want to get the best fit for our program. Hopefully, the right person is out there to lead this program.”
Applications for the coaching position are being submitted to PV’s athletic director, Gary Chaffin.
Also taking part in the process of finding a new head football coach is Knight, Chad Chronister, who is both the assistant high school principal and assistant athletic director, PVHS principal Kirk Moore, and junior high principal Martha Graham.
“All will be involved in the interview process. We want to make sure we get the right coach for our kids and the future of the program.”
The PV football program also lost assistant coach Bobby Ward, who is set to leave to be the next head football coach at Chouteau, which is near Tulsa.
