By Ryan Tipps
D3sports.com

Rome wasn’t built in a day -- and neither are most football programs.

For some, creating a competitive and championship team means starting from scratch and letting the coach assemble the pieces as he sees fit. For others, it’s more about taking what’s there and twisting it into something more efficient, something more positive.

A couple of years after the installation of a new coach, the players he recruited into the program mature and become the leaders on the team. His goals and visions begin to take shape. The program he’s running isn’t the remnants of his predecessor; it’s his ball club, and it’s his responsibility.

That’s the scenario Pedro Arruza at Randolph-Macon and Don Montgomery at Emory and Henry find themselves in this season.

Arruza, a Wheaton graduate and former assistant at Washington University in St. Louis, is in his fourth year at the helm of the Yellow Jackets, having inherited a flawed program that struggled for several years to finish with a winning season. 

Randolph-Macon has taken a gigantic step forward under Pedro Arruza this fall. Photo by Pat Coleman, D3sports.com

When he came to Ashland, Va., he was forced to face the prospect that, on paper, things were likely to get worse before they got better.

Things for Montgomery were equally gloomy when he replaced legendary Wasps coach Lou Wacker. E&H was a power school through the 1990s and has more Old Dominion championships than any other college in the conference. But Wacker’s last few years were marred by four- and five-win campaigns. Montgomery, who spent nearly three decades as an assistant coach at his alma mater, Mount Union, was expected to change things and energize football in Southwest Virginia.

For any coach to choose to come into a program, the decision even to move is a monumental one. And relocating from as far away as the Midwest, as both Arruza and Montgomery did, compounds that decision.

“I finally just sat down and looked at myself in the mirror, and basically prayed about it, as I do about everything,” Montgomery told me. “I realized that if I want to be a head football coach, I needed to step outside my comfort zone.”

That kind of attitude is truly what’s needed when approaching the task of reinvigorating a team that is in many ways unfamiliar.

“What drew me out here was the challenge of rebuilding the football program,” Arruza said. “I knew that Randolph-Macon had a great tradition. And I knew this had the potential to be one of the better jobs in Division III.”

Furthermore, Randolph-Macon is “a great school academically, had a great tradition, and there was tremendous enthusiasm for the football program,” he said.

It was something that he could build off of.

And Arruza’s patience and optimism is paying off. He has more wins in 2007 than in his first three seasons combined and is the best candidate for coach of the year in the ODAC -- and maybe even beyond.

R-M doesn’t have any blockbuster stats this year. But it’s the basis on which the Yellow Jackets approach every game that has helped them so much. They never come out flat. Their run game clicks as much as their pass defense does. They take advantage of turnovers. They keep their penalties in check.

Getting to that level meant climbing more mountains that hills.

“The biggest challenge was just changing the culture here,” Arruza said. “And I know that’s kind of a broad statement, but it was just creating a culture of discipline, creating a culture of excellence. And not just in football, but in terms of academics; in terms of how these guys carry themselves off the field. I think the guys who were here when I got here had a really tough time buying into that.”

Montgomery, too, emphasizes building the player both on and off the field and that that is the gateway to a better team and a better person.

Emory and Henry's turnaround under Don Montgomery has been slower than anticipated. Photo by Ryan Tipps, D3sports.com

“I want to bring the Emory and Henry football program to the prominence it once held,” he said. “I want to do that in the way that I learned how to do it, in terms of recruiting quality student-athletes, men that display sportsmanship, are emotionally strong, spiritually strong, (and who) play with great unity. And that they would be taught and understand that there’s something much bigger than the game of football. Football is a great teacher of life’s principles.”

Montgomery had some visible growing pains at E&H. He debuted with just a 1-9 record, but then pulled together a 6-4 effort in his second season, which included a surprising win against Bridgewater.

However, the term “near-miss” has in many ways has defined Montgomery’s season this year. While his record may not show it, the Wasps are standing as tall as -- or taller than -- they were last season. The team has five losses by a combined 23 points, and three of those were 3-point games.

“It been a little frustrating,” he explained, “because it’s hard not to measure myself compared to where I was at (Mount Union). And you can take a look at the record and say I’m failing here at doing what I think is right. But that’s not right. That’s not a really good way of looking at it.”

Montgomery can measure success by closely looking at where the team came from. The year before he took over, E&H was outscored 349 points to 311. His first year saw a wrenching slide, as opponents scored on average more than three times as much as the Wasps. And, that year, the team lost by an average of almost 30 points a game. Last year, though, that margin of loss was reduced to about nine points a game; this year, E&H’s losses are averaging only about five points a game.

“We haven’t not played. ... The players have put it on the line,” Montgomery said. “They have played extremely hard. We’ve lost some really close games to some really good teams.”

And that, in the end, is the goal for most coaches. Losses hurt, but holding back or giving up hurts more.

The relationships on a team can help define a program and can help the group surmount the hurdles that occur in the first years under new leadership. 

“There have been some positive things that I thought -- you know we were a 2-8 football team last year -- but I thought there were a lot of positive things happening in our football program and amongst our players,” Arruza noted. “And I think the biggest thing is that we didn’t get discouraged, we stuck with our plan, and knew eventually there would be a breakthrough.”

Zak Thornton has averaged more than 160 yards per game for the Yello Jackets. Photo by Pat Coleman, D3sports.com

Trust, faith and a connection between coaches and players are some of the earliest things new coaches try to foster in a team. They work toward living up to the long-established traditions, and they cultivate new standards for the team. And for Arruza and Montgomery, their fervent dedication to their programs, after just a couple of years, shows.

“I think all of the kids know that I love them,” Montgomery said, “and there isn’t any question in my mind that there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for them. ... What I expect is for them to do some things for themselves. My form of developing kids is that I got to get them to believe in themselves so that they can perform” on the football field and in life.