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For Melvin Mitchell, it’s about laying a strong foundation. That’s how Mitchell, the new varsity football coach at Prince Edward County High, sees this season. Just like any house, if you want the building to be strong, you have to start with a good foundation. 

“It’s about building a mindset, developing or encouraging the competitiveness,” Mitchell said. “One of the things is we do competition in practice. We’ve incorporated that. It could be tug of war, sprints, racing or relays.” 

Mitchell sees the mental aspect of the game as important as the physical, especially when you’re just getting started. He joined the team late, taking over as the previous coach had to step aside due to health concerns. As a result, the Eagles haven’t had a full off-season to get his offensive and defensive schemes installed. And that’s ok. Mitchell isn’t looking for them to be perfect right off the bat. What he wants instead is that desire to win, that focus on getting better every day in practice. 

Growing up as a San Francisco 49ers fan, Mitchell remembers seeing players like Ronnie Lott explode off the tv screen. If there’s an example he wants the Eagles to follow, it’s that one, playing with passion and never quitting until the whistle blows. He wants both the players to work hard and for opponents to dread when they see that trip to Farmville coming up on the schedule, because of how much effort his team puts in. 

And he sets the tone by example. During practice, you’ll see him and his coaches doing push-ups with the players. You’ll see them running alongside, offering both encouragement and urging team members to keep going. If the argument is that a team mirrors the nature of their coach, Mitchell wants to make it clear that this is a time for everyone to put in the work. 

Prince Edward sets the pace

It’s also not going to be team focused on numbers. Mitchell believes in an up tempo style. That factors in a spread offense, with a lot of run-pass options. That means plugging in the pistol offense at times. 

“It’s an up tempo offense with just as fast of a defense,” Mitchell says of his scheme. 

And he recognizes the challenges that come with taking over at Prince Edward. Mitchell is the third coach in less than a year at the school. Coach White officially retired at the end of the 2023 season. Delquan Bigelow took over, but he had to step down due to some health issues. And now Mitchell takes over a team that went 3-7 overall and 3-3 in James River District play, Mitchell knows the players struggled at times last season, especially on defense. The numbers weren’t the best. The Eagles gave up 460 points, surrendering an average of 46 per game. But there were positives too, including a two-game winning streak to end the season. 

Mitchell wants to build on that, to apply what he learned in 10 years of coaching in youth league and four years as commissioner. When he first started, there were roughly 40 to 50 kids showing up for games. By the end of his time as commissioner this past year, that number had spiked to 153. 

“I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people this year,” Mitchell said. “We don’t have large numbers, but the guys here, their attitudes and work ethic are in the right place. I look for us to compete.” 

Building a base 

But as we said before, part of building a successful program involves laying the foundation. Mitchell says that goes beyond the varsity team. Over the last few years, there haven’t really been enough players to successfully set up a junior varsity program. That’s part of what Mitchell wants to change. 

“Varsity is always the end goal, but we’re building our JV team strong,” Mitchell said. “Hopefully we can build our numbers up through JV and then that can feed into varsity. We need to start at the base, because I feel like for the last three to four years, they haven’t had a big JV team. And that kills the varsity because you have 8th, 9th and some 10th graders on JV. If they don’t get any playing time, if they just sit on the bench, then some don’t come back to the game. And that hurts the varsity, because they’re supposed to be suiting up against juniors and seniors in one or two years.” 

Beyond just maintaining that love of the game, Mitchell said it’s hard to get better at something if you just sit on a bench and don’t get any reps in. How’s a player just out of middle school supposed to be ready to take on a monster running back when they never practiced their tackling technique during a game? This year, the JV squad has also been traveling with the varsity to compete in scrimmages. 

“We’ve got about 15 guys right now for the JV program but all of them are athletes and awesome guys,” Mitchell said. “Their attitudes, their competitiveness is off the charts. Once we get this base going, we’re gonna have us a solid house.”  

Looking ahead 

The first game for Prince Edward is away on Friday, Aug. 30, going on the road to face Chatham High. The next week, Friday, Sept. 6, the Eagles will be at home to take on Parry McCluer High. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. in both games.