TFA football makes abrupt coaching change; others fill vacancies

The football head coaching carousel continues this summer for Orlando area high school programs.

The First Academy made an abrupt change early this week when it announced Arkansas native Jeff Conaway as its new head coach in a social media post.

The hire came just four days after long-time coach Leroy Kinard stepped down from that position following 16 seasons, which included 13 trips to the Florida High School Athletic Association playoffs and a 126-51 record.

Kinard, who resigned Friday, according to TFA athletic director Will Cohen, stated in a text reply to the Orlando Sentinel that he will “start looking into my next move when I get back in town.”

Cohen said the school will meet with Kinard next week “to determine what role he might still have at TFA in terms of his teaching position.”

Conaway moves to Orlando after leading Springdale’s Shiloh Christian to the state finals each of the past four seasons. He met with TFA players and administrators and UCF head coach Gus Malzahn on Tuesday.

Malzahn was a high school head coach at Shiloh Christian in the late 1990s.

Conaway, 42, later appeared on the Arkansas-based Coaches & The Mouth podcast to discuss the move.

“The head of school, Steve Whitaker, reached out to me a couple of weeks ago,” Conaway said. “It was really a, ‘We would love for you to give us some ideas on who the perfect candidate is for a private Christian school to prepare young men to be warriors on the field and gentlemen off the field.’

“I told him that I was not interested because I was at Shiloh, and Shiloh is a fantastic place to coach and to raise a family,” he said. “But he convinced me to hop on a plane and fly down and take a look. … When I began to investigate the program, the church, the administration, the players, I thought, ‘I can see myself here.’ ”

Conaway, who will also work as TFA’s associate director of athletics, won a state championship in 2020 and went 99-27 in nine seasons at Shiloh. He takes over a TFA program that finished 8-3 last season vs. a strength-of-schedule rated at -1.9, according to MaxPreps.

“It’s not all about football,” he said during the interview. “I left a really good football program for a football program that’s not great yet, but I believe is going to have a lot of great days ahead.”

Conaway went on to say that he aspires to one day coach at the collegiate level.

“I don’t know that taking this job hurts in that area,” Conaway said. “I think with all the universities that are in the state of Florida and all the athletes that are here, I feel like that could potentially be a resource for me and an opportunity for me to grow as a coach.”

The quick change at TFA comes as vacancies at Central Florida Christian Academy and Trinity Prep appear closer to being filled.

CFCA assistant athletic director Kevin Blackman stepped in as interim head coach in place of Jeremy Campbell, who is now an assistant at Windermere High.

Trinity Prep is expected to name its new head coach soon. The school said in a Monday email that it had secured a signed contract for that position, which opened when Mike Kruczek joined his son, Garrett Kruczek, as an assistant at The Master’s Academy.

Additional hires

Harmony removed the interim tag on an assistant coach last month and Cypress Creek hired a former player last week to fill other head coaching vacancies.

Nick Lippert was promoted to replace Don Simon at Harmony after stepping in to the head coaching role in April. Lippert had coached alongside Simon for nearly two decades, which included stops in Dade and Broward counties and North Carolina.

Simon is now the athletic director at Tohopekaliga in Kissimmee.

Cypress Creek turned to 2002 graduate Raul Gomez as its third head coach in as many years.

Gomez, who worked as offensive coordinator at West Orange last season after serving as head coach at Feltrim Academy in Haines City in 2021, was hired on June 5.

“Very honored and excited to be named the new head coach at Cypress Creek,” Gomez wrote in a social media post. “Those who know me personally know how much I wanted this to happen. Finally going back home where it all started.”

Gomez previously spent time as an assistant at Cypress Creek from 2006-08 before coaching at Ocoee (2009-10), Olympia (2011-12), Celebration (2013-15) and Lyman (2016-20).

This article originally appeared on OrlandoSentinel.com. Email J.C. Carnahan at jcarnahan@orlandosentinel.com.