A few weeks ago, former Centreville Football Head Coach Jon Shields announced his replacement after his announced retirement at the end of the season, where after seven years at the helm of Wildcat Football, he brought back the school’s first trophy in 11 years with the Concorde District title in his last season.

In a closed-off conference on March 6th, he announced then-Defensive Coordinator and current Track and Field Head Coach Josh Culver as his replacement for this upcoming season.

Culver has previous experience both playing and coaching football. He had All-Conference honors at the high school level in which he played running back, defensive back, and safety. Despite some Division 2 offers, he instead accepted a Division 1 track-and-field scholarship at Western Michigan University, where he eventually became a walk-on for the Broncos’ Division 1-A football team. Following his college career, he has been coaching and teaching for the past 20 years here in Fairfax County, where he has coached all levels of high school football. He had previously spent 10 years at Langley, and now is currently under his 10th year in his association with Centreville, expected to start his 11th season at the helm of Centreville Football next school year.

This past Monday on the 23rd of March, we had the opportunity to sit down with Coach Culver in what was his first interview with any media outlet since the day he was named as Coach Shields’ replacement. Below is how our interview went.

How do you feel about getting the job?

I’m excited about getting the job. I’m excited for the players. I’m excited for the community. I’m excited for the school. I just want to be able to continue to build what’s being built here and continue to protect the brand, the center of the brand that’s here. So it’s been a transition, a very good one. But I have a lot of support not only from the players, but from my coaching staff. So it’s going to make it a little bit easier; not too difficult for me to start. But I’m really excited about it, and I can’t wait till August 3rd.

How will your coaching philosophy change now that you’ve been promoted to being head coach?

My philosophy doesn’t really change as much. I’m still a coach, I’m kind of a player’s coach. That’s what I look at. X’s and O’s, I believe they come secondary when it comes to high school athletes. I think my philosophy in building relationships and getting to know the players and understanding and trying to get on a level where they can buy into what I’m trying to preach and what I want to do here as a program. My philosophy is team first philosophy. My philosophy is I can, I will, I must philosophy. It’s built on loyalty. It’s built on determination, built on discipline. So I think all that’s kind of been established here. And I’m just going to keep putting a spin on it a little bit, throw my little bit of spin on it, and just keep building from there. 

Being an assistant coach before, how do you navigate the fact that you’re overseeing people who were once your fellow assistants?

So in the past, I’ve been a head coach for 13 years. I was a track and field head coach, so I’ve dealt with hiring and dealing with adults and dealing with the staff of women and men. So I have that experience. Football-wise, I think it’s pretty much the same. It’s just building a relationship with your coaching staff. letting them believe that they have a part in the program. They know they have a part in this program and they got an integral part in this program and they’re gonna grow and they’re gonna help. I can’t do this alone. So you gotta have your players and your people behind you and you gotta have good coaches that believe in the same philosophy that I believe in and I have assembled a staff that does that. So pretty much there’s a lot of the staff that’s coming back, so it definitely helps. overall of the team morale and everything. 

What changes are expected in training camp and game day routines?

There might be a little bit of changes, but not as much. Maybe a way we may practice a little bit differently, but for the most part, it’s going to be pretty much the same. I think our kids understand it. I don’t want to flip the table on our kids. I want our players to be able to come out and feel comfortable knowing that a lot of things are still in place from the year before, so they don’t have to come in and try to figure out how to do things all over again. So I’m going to put my little twist on certain things, but for the most part, it’s going to be pretty much the same. 

What is your approach to discipline and accountability?

I think discipline, I think it’s important for the players to understand how to grow, right? What mistake they made, give them a chance, let them understand where they can grow, how they can be better for the next time, and give them opportunities to show that they want growth, right? Obviously, if something, if the situation just continues and continues and continues to happen, then there are steps that need to be put in place that need to be handled, but for the most part, it’s all about learning, right? It’s all about learning and being better the next time, so that’s what we want to do. We want to teach. We want to be role models as coaches. We want to give our players an opportunity to be successful. So it’s not about discipline. It’s not about punishing an athlete. It’s about them learning from their mistakes and growing. 

Given the efflux of the senior class that defined much of the team’s success this past season, how do you feel going into next season with that squad’s remnants and also the current talent pool from the freshman and JV teams?

I think the senior class led the program in the direction that we wanna go. I think the underclassmen looked to them and saw what they did as upperclassmen and understood what it takes in the off season and what it takes to come together and to work together as a team in order to be successful. So I think it kind of rubbed off on the younger guys. Underclassmen are excited about coming back, and we have a pretty good class coming back. We’re excited about them, too, with a lot of experience. So this class coming as juniors that will be seniors next year, they have a lot of experience. And some of the sophomores that will be juniors next year have a lot of varsity experience. So we’re pretty excited about the talent that we got going back, coming back. 

What are your immediate goals for now and the long-term?

I think it’s just for the short term, I think it’s just creating a program standard, sticking to that standard. creating discipline, creating accountability for the players and the coaching staff, and just continue to do that throughout the season. Obviously, our goal is to have a winning season. I want our academics, I want an overall GPA of 3.0 or better on our team. That’s one of the major parts. And then being able to get to Thanksgiving, playing that regional championship and giving us a chance to play in the state semis. So that’s our goal. We want to have a winning season. We want to win the Concorde. We want to make the playoffs. We want to play on Thanksgiving, playing that regional championship game. And most of all, we want our kids to be academically successful here at Centreville High School. So that’s our ultimate goal at the end of the season. That’s what I want to see happen.

It will no doubt be a tough act to follow for Coach Culver after last season’s cardiac run with Coach Shields’ last season at the helm. But based on our conversation, he means business. He won’t change his philosophy a lot, the training camp process won’t change a lot, but he does have high ambitions for this new look of Wildcat Football, who look promising with their talent pool of players from all three levels. Now granted, time will eventually tell.

So here’s to a new era of Centreville Football: The Coach Culver Era.

Wildcat Nation, Let’s Ride.