Jamestown elevates interim coach, Gloucester hires former Nelson County assistant as football programs aim for revival
Two Peninsula-area football programs that struggled last season have stabilized their coaching situations in hope of future success.
Gloucester named Noah Crouch to replace head coach John Scalf, who led the Dukes to some of their most successful seasons before resigning after a one-win 2022 campaign.
Jamestown, which did not win a game in 2022, has removed the interim tag from Scott Lambin and promoted him to full-time head coach.
Crouch is the son of state coaching legend Mickey Crouch, who guided Amherst County to three state championship games and a state title. Noah Crouch was a player on the 1998 Amherst team that lost to Hampton 35-0 in a state title game.
“I learned from him that everything in coaching, and life, is about relationships,” Crouch said of his dad, who coached for 40 years. “He’s been retired nine years and his (former players) still call him.”
After high school, Crouch played on scholarship for four seasons at Liberty University, where he twice earned All-Big South honors at punter. He has has been a high school assistant coach for 12 seasons in four states.
His most recent stop was at Nelson County in the Lynchburg area. Crouch has served as a special teams coordinator, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator and junior-varsity head coach, and plans to employ the Wing-T offense and multiple defenses at Gloucester.
“Everything about Gloucester is appealing to me,” he said. “It’s a one-high-school county and both middle schools feed into it.
“The conference it is in (the Peninsula District) has a very rich tradition. Everyone in the state knows about the success of Phoebus and Hampton.
“As a kid, I saw (Bethel’s) Allen Iverson play against E.C. Glass in the state championship game in Lynchburg,” which Bethel won 27-0. “It’s one of the best districts in the state.”
At Jamestown, Lambin, an ex-Marine who worked in counterterrorism after serving in the military, became the Eagles’ interim coach in June after Terry Smith, now a Lafayette assistant, resigned after one season. The Eagles have won just 13 games in the past nine seasons and were 0-10 in 2022.
But school administration is happy with the progress Lambin is making, citing increased participation numbers in a letter to team parents. Lambin, the weight-room coordinator and former JV coach at Jamestown, says he ended last season with 62 players, a significant increase from 2021, and that he has 82 on his tentative roster for next season.
“I want to see these boys be proud of playing football here when they graduate and become a formidable force in the (Bay Rivers) district and region,” he said. “With the amount of raw talent we have back, we have the recipe to get that done.”
