The newly hired football coach at Newkirk has Ponca City ties.

Eddy Scott, who has been hired at Newkirk to replace former coach Graham Snelding, started his coaching career in Ponca City.

“I started as junior high football coach in Ponca City in 1997,” Scott said. “I also worked with wrestling, but was the junior high football coach. After that I bounced around some.”

He has been out of coaching for a year, but his most recent job in the profession was as head football coach at Woodland High School in Fairfax. He resigned that position to work in the oil fields, but economic conditions in the oil business necessitated him seeking a return to being a coach. He was hired as an assistant to Snelding in Newkirk, but Snelding recently took a similar position in Nowata, leaving Newkirk’s head job open.

“I applied and had the good fortune of being hired,” Scott said.

Afterhis beginning stint in Ponca City, he coached in Texas as a defensive coordinator. Moving back to Oklahoma he served as an assistant at Guthrie and then became head coach at Hulbert. After Hulbert he served as head coach at Pawhuska for seven years and then at Mannford and Woodland.

There are a lot of uncertainties with football programs in Oklahoma right now and Scott is starting his new job with that on his plate.

The governing body of high school athletics, the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association, had shut down all activities under its jurisdiction through the end of the 2019-2020 school year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The OSSAA staff had worked out a plan to reopen Oklahoma activities in phases over the summer, but that plan was rejected Friday by the agency’s board of directors. Because the plan was rejected, normal policies governing summer procedures are in effect. But individual school districts will determine how they want their sports programs to proceed.

“According to the OSSAA, we can start June 1 with Summer Pride and the rest of normal summer procedures,” Scott said. “But in Newkirk we will meet as coaches with the athletic director and the administration and we will do whatever they set out for us.”

“It is a different situation,” he said. “I haven’t met the kids yet. I am trying to get to know the kids and we want to get going, but we will do it in the way the school allows us to do it.”