William King looks to improve CU line

ATHENS — The Concord University football team has aspirations to win a national championship, sooner or later. One of their coaches has been there already.

New defensive line coach William King was an all-American at Marshall University and a member of the 1992 Thundering Herd team that won the national NCAA Division I-AA championship.

“It was a great run,” he said before a recent practice in Athens. “Winning a championship is beyond words.”

He wants that feeling to be shared by those he now teaches and prods on and off the field. “Since I’ve gotten into coaching, it’s been my goal to give these young men the experience I had at Marshall,” he said.

King, a native of Charleston, joined the Concord staff earlier this year after four years as the defensive coordinator for the West Virginia State Yellow Jackets.

He didn’t realize when the two schools competed last fall that his game plan and his team’s execution were part of an informal audition process.

Neither did his eventual new boss, head football coach Mike Kellar.

“I didn’t think of it that way at the time,” Kellar said. But when Brian Hill vacated the defensive coordinator job at Concord last winter to take a job at Furman, Kellar remembered how he had tried to ready his offense to get around King’s defense.

King became a finalist in the search for Hill’s replacement. Kellar said, “He could easily have been D.C. here.”

Ultimately, the job went to Chris Bowers, who was already on the Concord defensive staff, but King was offered the job of defensive line coach and recruiting coordinator, and readily accepted.

King said, “It was just a matter of personnel, is what it came down to ... but Coach Bowers was a great choice. He’s doing a great job. I have learned so much from him in the last month-and-a-half. It’s just been a great time thus far.

“I would’ve picked Coach Bowers for the D-coordinator job, if I was the one making the decision.”

King’s choice to come to Concord also solved two problems, one personal and one professional.

His wife Paula, a McDowell County native, was residing in Princeton and working in Mercer County. That meant countless commutes for King up and down the Turnpike.

For a football coach, Concord’s turnaround from an 0-11 season to 6-5 last fall was noteworthy.

“Concord seems to be a program that’s on the rise,” King said. “A new president, a new staff here — they’re doing some things to get this program going forward.”

He spoke of enjoying “the opportunity to be part of the university as well as a football program that’s doing things the right way ... .”

Last year’s Mountain Lions were “a totally different team” from what he saw prior to Kellar’s arrival.

King said, “The guys played hard for all four quarters, a little more disciplined than in the past. Offensively, they had a great plan, as compared to before ... . Coach Kellar and his staff did a great job. They really had those guys ready to play.

“That made this job even more attractive.”

When he met with the Concord defensive line, he said, “I found some guys who are really committed to football — hard-working guys. Football is really important to them.”

“They’ve bought into the new plan, the new scheme. It’s been a joy working with those guys thus far. They’ve accepted me ... and they’ve been working hard, and they’re listening to us, and they’re absorbing the knowledge that’s being presented to them.”

“I think we have a great defensive staff. We just try to go out and coach ’em hard, and make ’em work hard, and hopefully, good things will happen for us.”

The duties of recruiting coordinator are a new challenge.

“It’s time-consuming,” he said.

“It’s new. But again, I’m up for the challenge. And I look forward to accepting that role, getting going, and help to keep this ship rolling.

“We’ve got some good players now, and we’ll continue to recruit good players (and) good young men as well as good student-athletes. I think that’ll be the key to getting us over the hump.”

Thanks to his connections to Charleston, Huntington, and all points south, he said, “I’ve been getting a lot of calls ... . It all helps. It all goes hand-in-hand. I’m just glad they think enough of me to call.”

King has quietly built a stellar set of credentials. A first-team all-Southern Conference player in the 1992 and ’93 seasons, he was also Marshall’s defensive player of the year and a consensus all-American in 1993.

“I played my share of football there at Marshall, during the glory years, so to speak. I think they’re on their way back to that,” he said.

His coaching career took him to Morgan State University in Maryland, then to Elon, Tusculum College and James Madison University before joining the staff at West Virginia State.

In 2007, the Yellow Jackets defense allowed the fewest first downs in the West Virginia Conference. In 2008 and ’09, State allowed the fewest passing yards per game in the league.

He said, “I’ve seen my share of games, coached in a few, played in a few. It’s about these kids, now, getting these kids on the right track — getting them working, getting them competing.”

“Hopefully, they’ll do two things. They’ll take some of the lessons that we’re teaching them, and transfer them into their everyday life, to where they can leave here with a degree. And along the way, we’ll win some football games.”

“The championship is the destination,” King said.

“But it’s also the journey that’s important. It’s the blood, sweat and tears, the relationships you build. That is what you remember — your relationships with your coaches and players.

“It lasts forever.”

— Contact Tom Bone at

tbone@bdtonline.com

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