Boca Raton head football coach David Angell steps down

Boca Raton football head coach David Angell announced Thursday he will be stepping away from the Bobcats' program to spend more time with family.

Angell's letter to his players and their families was shared on the team's Twitter page.

"We have done an amazing job here at Boca High of building a lasting family," Angell said, simultaneously acknowledging that after three years in sunny South Florida, it was time to put his off-the-field family first.

Assistant Alex Savakinas is expected to take over as Boca Raton football's head coach.

The announcement comes less than a week after Palm Beach County's first coaching change of the season at Olympic Heights, which parted ways with Brandon Knight.

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Who's the new coach?

Angell told players, parents and staff that the Bobcats were in "wonderful hands" under Savakinas and the team will "benefit tremendously from his leadership."

Angell's journey, from family to football, began in Ohio. Prior to being hired by Boca Raton High in February 2020, Angell was the defensive backs coach at Division III Kenyon College.

Between the five coaching positions he held throughout the Buckeye State, Angell made a few connections he trusted to be on his first coaching staff in the Wild West that is Florida. One of them was Savakinas, now the county's youngest head coach at just 26.

He knows the role isn't an opportunity that a lot of 26-year-old coaches get. Especially in the hotbed of Florida.

"He recommended me to be the next head coach and had some conversations with Dr. [Suzanne] King and she came to me the other day and they wanted me to take over the program," Savakinas said.

"Obviously, I said yes," Savakinas said. "We do this for the kids and I absolutely love the kids that we have at Boca. They're great guys and they're turning into young men and I like being a part of that journey with them."

Savakinas has been with the program since Angell arrived three years ago but was recently appointed athletic director after Boca's initial hire to replace Brandon Walker, now head football coach at Park Vista, fell through.

"I work in the school during the day so it was just a good transition and Dr. King has put a lot of faith in me and so, again, I can't thank her enough for the opportunities that I've been given," Savakinas said.

Aiming to fully turn his focus towards football in 2023, Savakinas is anticipating relinquishing his duties as athletic director after this school year.

What's the plan?

Boca is losing 19 seniors who saw the Bobcats go 20-10 in the years since Angell took over ahead of a pandemic-modified 2020 season.

Fortunately for Savakinas, he's been around the kids long enough to know that he's in good hands, too, and Boca's case will be more of a reload than a rebuild.

"I feel like it's going to be a pretty smooth transition for us at Boca and I think that's one of the good things about coach Angell bringing me down here and now me being able to take over the program is that they're going to continue to hear the same things," Savakinas said.

"We're still going to continue to preach 1-0 and the things that we do, but now we just need to find a way to be more consistent in those games we're not supposed to win and our week-to-week," Savakinas said, reminding that there were almost as many impact underclassmen on the field as there were seniors.

Highlighting freshman quarterback Chance Routson and returning linemen like sophomore Brody Costolo, Savakinas said it'll be on those big contributors to "step up" and make sure the Bobcats are "doing what they need to do in the offseason to get themselves right" so that Boca can have a more successful season.

What went down before

Although a 6-5 record this season was the program's worst since 2018, when the Bobcats finished 5-5, the Bobcats still came out in the win column, missed clinching the district title by one point and making their second straight playoff appearance in the FHSAA state series.

"Over the last three years, we've had a lot of success. We've built that tradition of winning," Savakinas said. "This past season, we had a hard time winning the games that we weren't necessarily supposed to win and I think that's the next big step for us at Boca."

That fateful October night when a top-ranked Santaluces claimed the district championship was one of those games.

"We've got to find a way to win," Savakinas said. "We're not getting ourselves in the right situations so we need to create that consistency week to week and if we can do that, I feel like we'll be able to get over that hump and get that playoff win we've been chasing."

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Boca Raton football head coach David Angell steps down after 3 seasons