Perkins takes over as Mikes football coach
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As an assistant football coach at Carmicheals, Ken Perkins had plenty of different jobs.
Now he’s ready to take on the leading role.
Perkins, a longtime Carmichaels assistant, was hired as the program’s next head coach at the Carmichaels Area School District board meeting on Feb. 19.
The vote was 8-1.
Perkins joins a select group, becoming the 10th head coach at Carmichaels in the last 101 years.
He takes over for Ryan Krull, who resigned in January to spend more time with his family. Krull went 48-50 over two different stints at Carmichaels over 10 years.
Perkins was an assistant for Krull over those seven years and had four others when Ron Gallagher was at the helm.
He has coached the offensive and defensive lines, running backs and was a defensive coordinator in his 11 years as an assistant coach with the Mikes.
When he learned Krull was stepping down, it felt like the right time to make the jump to head coach.
“I’ve been with Ryan a long time and have put in a lot of time and effort with him to build a program to try to make our players the best people they can be,” Perkins said. “I’ve learned so much from Ryan and I felt that I could take the program and continue to build on the things he created.”
Perkins enjoyed his time as an assistant coach under Krull and really had no desire to coach anywhere else. So, when the head coaching job became available at Carmichaels it really became the perfect situation to take the next step.
“When Ryan resigned, it sparked something in me,” Perkins said. “I would’ve continued to be an assistant under him as long as he wanted to coach, but he wanted to put his family first, which I totally back him on. It was something that just came to me and something I wanted to pursue after I found out.”
Perkins is an Albert Gallatin graduate, who went on to play center in college at Washington & Jefferson. He’s a 7th grade science teacher in the Carmichaels Area School District.
Making the move to head coach is a transition that should be eased because of the familiarity he has with the players.
He has a decent amount of returning players from a team that finished 4-5 last season, including on the offensive and defensive lines, which give him a base to build on.
“I have a great relationship with our players and it’s an amazing group,” Perkins said. “That helped make the decision pretty easy as well as the fact that most of the coaching staff is coming back that was with Coach Krull.
“We have a lot of guys coming back that played meaningful snaps on defense and on offense as well. It’ll be tough to replace (quarterback) Cannon Bupka and some of the other seniors we had, but we’ll do our best.”
Naturally, Perkins will bring some new ideas with him, but it’s very important to keep the pillars that were installed by Krull.
“We want to build on what Coach Krull put in place,” Perkins said. “He wanted to build good football players, but also great human beings. I want to continue to keep that going.”