By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph Central High School promoted from within as they sought a successor for now former head football coach Regi Trotter.
Sheldon Farrell, a 2009 Central alum and offensive coordinator for the Indians, was named as the 31st head coach in program history Tuesday.
Farrell has served as offensive coordinator under coach Trotter for each of the last five seasons. Taking over as the head coach is a dream that was born more than 14 years ago back when Farrell himself was the Indians' quarterback.
"It started with coach Tony Dudik," Farrell said. "He was an amazing mentor, a loving father figure. He kind of built my desire to want to come back and give back to Central. This is where my heart is. This is where it's always been."
Farrell brings plenty of playing and coaching experience to the table. He played quarterback at Central under coach Dudik. He spent two years playing college ball at Buena Vista University and two more at Baker University.
Before coming back to Central, Farrell spent two seasons as an assistant at Bonner Springs High School and two more as offensive coordinator at Leavenworth - both in Kansas.
Through all of those stops, Farrell knew he wanted to ultimately come back home one day.
"The last 24 hours, I've thought about the people who have impacted me here," he said. "Coaches, teachers, former players. It's all kind of coming back full circle and it's kind of cool."
Farrell takes over after Trotter announced his resignation in November as Central's head football coach after six seasons.
Trotter and Farrell both helped lead the Indians to a 7-3 record this fall - the first winning season for Central football since 2013 and the program's most regular season wins since 1989.
"I feel like we put Central football back into the limelight a little bit," Farrell said about the 2023 season. "Teams are respecting us and they know it's going to be a hard fought game. Just continue to build on that and take it even farther than we already have."
Seeing the Indians set a handful of offensive school records over the last couple of years, Lau is confident that Central picked the right man for the job.
"We have kind of been grooming Sheldon for the last couple of years under Regi," Lau said. "Knowing Coach Trotter was going to be moving on to his family (in Minnesota). This was opened internally."
"Knowing what he's done with the offensive coordinator position here and with our offense setting some new school records the last few years, to us there was no question who our next head football coach needed to be."
Press conference audio
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