2026 High School Football

Coaching changes for 2026 Southern Arizona football bring many familiar faces to new places

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The term “new coach” is applicable to Southern Arizona high school football programs that made changes because the coach is new at that position at that particular school.

But many of them are not new to coaching in this area.

Chris Determan is the new head coach at Buena with 19 years of head coaching experience at Benson.

The coach he replaced, Joe Thomas, is new to Casa Grande, bringing with him 11 years of head coaching experience at Buena and three at his alma mater Tombstone.

Greg McKinstry II is new at the head coaching position at Empire, but he is familiar with the program as the defensive coordinator last year. He also has served as head coach at Catalina and Catalina Foothills.

Zach Davila is taking over the program at Desert Christian after coaching under Corey Noble at Walden Grove. The former Cienega standout lineman, who went on to Utah, also was Rio Rico’s head coach from 2016 to 2018.

Many of the new head coaches in Southern Arizona have a background of being assistant coaches in Southern Arizona.

Most noticeable among them is Cam Gaddis returning to his alma mater Santa Rita to try to coach the Eagles back to prominence to when he played in the defensive secondary there 17 to 20 years ago. Gaddis, one of the more popular Tucson Sugar Skulls players in the franchise’s infancy years, has served as an assistant coach at Walden Grove, Cienega, and Tucson High, and he directs his successful Gaddis Gainz Elite (GGE) training program and 7-on-7 organization.

Keith Edwards is the new head coach at Catalina High School, where he has served on the previous staffs led by McKinstry, Andy Fetsis and Virgil Henderson.

Brian Brindley is a head coach for the first time, leading his alma mater Flowing Wells. He has a lengthy background at the school. He played for Mark Brunenkant and Brian Hook with the Caballeros and also coached under Hook last season before becoming the head coach after Hook’s retirement following last season.

Anthony Ciccariello is going only 16 miles down highway US-80 from St. David to Tombstone to be the new head coach of the Yellow Jackets. He has served as an assistant coach the last three years at St. David under highly successful coach Braden Davis.

Steven Ward has been involved with Willcox’s football program on and off for nearly the last decade, including the past five as head coach of the junior varsity team. Ward, who played at Willcox from 1991 to 1994, was elevated to head coach after Jeston Lotts stepped down following last season.

David Nunez, the new head coach at Rincon/University, is young at only 30 years old and does not have experience coaching in Southern Arizona. He has served as an assistant at Phoenix Tolleson and Yuma Kofa, his alma mater.

FLAG FOOTBALL DEVELOPMENTS

Cienega will play it first season of flag football this fall as a 5A independent. The Bobcats are coached by former Mica Mountain and Cienega assistant softball coach Katrina Myers. Myers is coaching Cienega in the Victory Sports Foundation 7-on-7 event this week at Kino South, an important opportunity for her to get more experience with her team on the field.

Myers quote to note: “My expectations are we’re going to hit the ground running. We have some great athletes. We’re just going to give everything we can. … We have great competitors. We have great athletes all around, so it’s going to be a great year. It’s a beginning of a legacy.”

George Romero is shifting from being a tackle football assistant coach at Tanque Verde under Jeff Bollnow to taking over the Desert View flag football coaching position. Romero is not a stranger to the Sunnyside Unified School District having served the last few years as a long-term substitute teacher at Desert View and special education teacher intern in the district when he was studying for his certification. Romero’s assistant at Desert View is Tony Baca, father of former Walden Grove softball standout Taylor Baca, who is a sophomore with New Mexico State’s softball program. She is helping mentor and coach the Jaguars this summer.

Romero quote to note: “Especially in this sport, how it’s expanding, I really took that to heart when I came here and took the position. I really love the opportunity that’s here at Desert View. The men’s side (tackle football team) is blowing up (with a spot in the 5A quarterfinals last year). I think the women’s side hopefully will follow. Women’s flag is taking off as a sport as a whole. I hope we’re on the cutting edge of it. That’s the reason why I took this position. I felt like it was something new, something different, but also something that keeps me really close to football.”

TACKLE FOOTBALL COACHING CHANGES

During Gaddis’ last three years of his career at Santa Rita from 2007 to 2009, the Eagles were 34-6 with two state championship game appearances under Scurran. In the 16 years since, under nine different coaches, Santa Rita is 18-113. Gaddis understands the challenge that he faces this season, and if anybody had the right mindset to handle that, it is him. Santa Rita’s enrollment is approximately 350, largely because of the nearby Vail schools (Cienega, Empire and Mica Mountain) opening in the last two to three decades. When Gaddis graduated in 2010, the enrollment at Santa Rita was close to 1,700. Gaddis is preaching “Effort, Attitude and Toughness.” The acronym “EAT” is on the back of Santa Rita’s jerseys at the 7-on-7 tournament at Kino South. This is the first year Santa Rita has fielded a 7-on-7 team.

Gaddis quote to note: “I am blessed with the opportunity. The biggest challenge is the enrollment, the numbers. We don’t have the numbers as big as some of the other schools do. That’s the biggest thing for me is trying to get the enrollment, trying to get the kids to come to the school — the school’s a great school, education-wise, B+-rated school. Now, it’s the athletics. We have to get the athletics going. That’s the biggest thing. The good thing is our kids are young (mostly freshmen and sophomores), so we have a couple of years to build with them.”

Cam Gaddis will experience his first year as a head coach at his alma mater Santa Rita in the fall (Gilbert Alcaraz/AllSportsTucson.com)

Ciccariello is Tombstone’s fifth coach since 1998. Not a lot of turnover especially considering Mike Hayhurst’s 18 years leading the program. Thomas, Dominik Bonilla and Jerome Rhoades are the only other coaches to lead the Yellow Jacket program over the last 30 years. The continuity symbolizes the culture of the program being about family and close ties. Ciccariello experienced that with St. David’s program. Smith has been the head coach there the last 12 years and Davis’ brother Brett coached there the previous eight years.

Ciccariello quote to note: “Culture — that’s the biggest thing. I firmly believe that every program has to be built (and) the foundation is the culture. That’s what we’re trying to instill in the spring and the summer right now. … I took the job knowing it’s going to be a challenge, but I haven’t been disappointed. We’ve steadily had every bit of 20 to 27 kids every single day through the summer for our workouts. There’s a significant amount of commitment. They’ve seen the commitment the coaches have in them, and they’ve responded with the same type of commitment back to us, and what we’re trying to build.”

Thomas is completely moved from Sierra Vista to the Phoenix area, near his youngest son and daughter, and is 100 percent focused on restoring Casa Grande to the state championship level it showed only five years ago. A big plus in the transition leaving Buena for Casa Grande has been the presence of former Arizona cornerback great Randy Robbins, a legend from Casa Grande who is the school’s athletic director.

Thomas quote to note: “(Robbins is) a great guy, every step of the way. He’s supportive with anything that we want, anything that we need. He’s done it. He’s been there and done it at every level. He’s coached. So I’m excited to be under him and learn somethings from him, spend some time with him before he gets ready to retire.”

Brindley graduated from Flowing Wells in 2016 and returned last year to coach under Hook, his former offensive coordinator. He took the uncommon route of earning a journalism degree at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State before getting into coaching and teaching physical education at Flowing Wells. The community aspect of Flowing Wells being a neighborhood school drew him back to Tucson.

Brindley quote to note: “Flowing Wells, I bleed blue and gold; it’s my favorite place to be. I couldn’t be happier to be head coach. … We’re pretty small and we’re land-locked as a district, which some people may look at as a disadvantage but I look at it as that’s a way we can be a lot closer knit. We’re surrounded by everybody else. We’ve only got each other. … It brings the best out of them. It brings that toughness, that spirit, that energy, all that. It’s truly a special place.”

McKinstry has faced some steep challenges as a head coach in Tucson, taking on the daunting task at Catalina and then replacing the popular Daniel Sainz at Catalina Foothills after Sainz was making the Falcons competitive before having to step down due to his military commitments. George Kelly, the previous coach at Empire, provided McKinstry a landing spot with the Ravens as a defensive coordinator last season. When Kelly resigned following last season to focus more on his licensed professional counseling business, McKinstry was hired as head coach. He will try to build on what Kelly was trying to establish at Empire. The Ravens were 6-4 in 2023 and 2024 before falling to 3-7 last season.

McKinstry quote to note: “Last year, getting to know the players, I know what they’re capable of. I know their personalities. I know what motivates them and how to get them to play harder. There’s always that fine line of when do I push and when do I stop pushing them. I got the feel of all the players last year. I know their strengths are, what they’re capable of, so that will help me going into this year. Hopefully, we can get some new guys in to help us out.”

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