Hoover High School alum Theo Evans looks to rebuild football program as new head coach

Hoover football’s Theo Evans has a voice built for a head coach.

As he runs through drills with a new-look Huskies squad, Evans’ voice carries across the practice field to the parking lot of the public pool – even with mid-2000s pop music blaring through the pool’s speakers.

His voice commands the attention of the Hoover football players, all 40 of them. It’s 91 degrees with just a few clouds in the sky. There is nowhere to hide from Evans’ corrections and suggestions or the sun.

But the sounds of whistles and coaches’ critiques and bodies slamming into padded practice equipment are welcome on the grass field behind Des Moines Hoover High School. Athletes and coaches alike accept the sweat dripping down their face and the constant water breaks interrupting practice.

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Because less than six months ago, Hoover didn’t even plan to field a football team.

Hoover High School went from no football team to a new team

At the end of January, news broke that Hoover would not field a football team in the 2022-23 season, citing concerns over participation and student safety, among other reasons.

Less than a week later, the school released a statement saying they “had second thoughts and have changed our minds” and that Hoover would play football in the fall.

One month after that announcement, Hoover announced that it had named Evans the new head coach of the football program.

Now in charge of the football team, Evans made one thing clear: That situation was the old Hoover.

“If someone comes and asks us, ‘Why weren’t you guys gonna play?’” Evans told the Des Moines Register. “You know, that wasn’t us. That wasn’t our coaching staff. That wasn’t these kids. That was old Hoover.”

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Evans has worked hard to create a new culture for his team, one that centers around the program’s success and getting kids invested in Hoover football long before they step on the field or wear a Huskies jersey.

But those are long-term goals, one that he started working toward this spring. It will take time to achieve.

For now, Evans is focused on just putting something on the field come Friday.

To do that, he’s had to rebuild the program from scratch.

About a quarter of Hoover’s roster this season has never played a football game. Players like senior Gabe Swanson – who wasn’t on the football team before this year – are trying something new before they graduate.

Evans recruited athletes from Hoover’s other varsity teams. Ben Musengo – a star on the Huskies’ soccer team – is on the football roster this fall. No surprise here: Musengo is slated to be the team’s kicker, and is the only player at that position listed on the roster.

Evans has also seen buy-in from previous players. When Hoover announced there would be no football team, Evans said about eight players transferred to other schools where they could play football. Six of those athletes have come back to Hoover.

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And then there are players like senior Ben Grear, who has not only been on the team since his freshman year, but also grew up in the Hoover football system since attending Meredith Middle School.

“It’s a new Hoover,” Grear said. “(Other schools) don’t respect us. They don’t look at us as competition. But hopefully this year things change. We’ve been working hard. We’ve been in the weight room every day, all summer. We’ve been working, trying to get ready for August 26.”

Grear wants something more out of his senior season, but he’s also just happy to play football.

“I’ve never seen a season get cancelled, and I was down,” Grear said. “But when (activities director Jacob Burke) told us we were gonna have a new coach, I just stayed to see who the new coach was and we got a great one.”

Theo Evans returns to his roots with Hoover football

Evans is a Husky through-and-through.

A 2011 alumnus, he played on Hoover’s football team during his time in high school. He knows how hard it is to stick with a sport when the team isn’t winning. The Huskies pulled off just one win between 2008-10.

He stayed in-state to play two years of football at Iowa Central before returning to the Des Moines metro to help coach at Des Moines North. But Hoover has always been home.

Evans and his wife’s first home was on 50th St., about a block from Hoover. The couple recently purchased their second home – still on 50th St., about three houses down.

Evans wanted to get back to where he came from.

“I had some really influential people at the school – coaches, adults, teachers – that really helped me be successful and be where I’m at in life,” Evans said. “It’s always been a goal of mine to get back here and give back the same way those people did to me.”

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While the pause of Hoover’s football program – albeit brief – was a negative moment for the Huskies athletic department, it was the opening Evans needed to return to his alma mater. The day Hoover announced there would be no football in the fall, Evans reached out to Burke, the activities director.

Said Evans: “I actually talked to the AD that day and said, ‘Hire me. Let me get this thing back on the straight and narrow. I have coaches with me that will come, and we can get this thing rolling.' That started everything.”

Evans said he was hired about a week after Hoover announced that it would field a football team this season. Once he landed the job he wanted, he had had less than six months to turn it around before the start of the season.

A new vision for Hoover football

“I had a checklist of about 200 things we had to get done,” said Evans, a physical education teacher.

Step one: Put together a coaching staff.

Step two: Find players.

That first step was far easier than the second. Evans knew coaches from previous jobs that he trusted who would have his back in his new endeavor. But finding players to give Hoover the numbers it needed to compete not only this season but for years to come? Well, that required a little more work.

“Twelve of us divided up every boy’s name from third through eighth grade in this district, and we called all of them,” Evans said. “That was over 1,000 phone calls that we all divvied up. We left voicemails, we talked, we texted, we did whatever we could to get into that home and let them know we’re back.”

With Evans at the lead, Hoover hosted seven youth camps this summer, averaging about 78 kids at each camp and a high of 120 at one. Even in the middle of summer practices, Evans and his team went door-to-door to promote the upcoming season.

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He slowly started to see his hard work pay off.

“Our first day in the weight room, we had two kids in there,” Evans said. “I think this first day of summer camp, we had 42.”

Come Friday, when Hoover faces Des Moines North in the Huskies' season opener, Evans will see if his hard work the past few months has paid off. He and his team have big goals of winning this season, of proving wrong the people who think that Hoover will go 0-9.

But regardless of Friday's outcome, Evans can take pride in salvaging the Huskies football season and rebuilding a team that wasn't even expected to play football.

“Our kids, especially the kids that stayed here through the hard times, they’re just tough as nails.”

Alyssa Hertel is the college sports recruiting reporter for the Des Moines Register. Contact Alyssa at ahertel@dmreg.com or on Twitter @AlyssaHertel.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: How Hoover High School football coach plans to rebuild program