Wanted: Head coach for South Surrey secondary school football program<\/p>\n
Published 6:00 pm Friday, May 1, 2026<\/p>\n
A South Surrey high school football coach is hoping there\u2019s someone in the local community who will step up and take on the role.<\/p>\n
J.C. Abbott, Earl Marriott Secondary\u2019s head coach since 2023 and a former Mariner football player himself, regrets that he can no longer continue in the role, and is hopeful that someone with more time and flexibility with their schedule will be able to help interested athletes have a football season.<\/p>\n
\u201cLife is taking me in different directions and it\u2019s become more challenging with work,\u201d Abbott noted. \u201cI don\u2019t feel like I\u2019m doing the program justice because I\u2019m not always available in the school, like a teacher would be \u2026 I would very much like somebody else who can who can try and and salvage it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been challenging to run the school\u2019s football program ever since the COVID pandemic and the opening of Grandview Heights Secondary in September of 2021, Abbott said, as the new school\u2019s catchment effectively cut the numbers of potential EMS football athletes in half.<\/p>\n
But there are still students who are keen on playing football this year, he continued, and he is hopeful they can still have that chance.<\/p>\n
Although he has reached out to some people and had some conversations, he\u2019s had no luck finding a replacement, Abbott said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith high school football, the reality is, it\u2019s a five-day a week commitment. It is after school every day, so it has to be somebody who has the flexibility to either be retired or to leave work and be there at 3 p.m. every day or before, then to set up and go until 5 p.m. Fridays games can sometimes be as early as 12:30 or 1 p.m. \u2026 so you have to be able to put in that time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abbott is hoping \u201csomebody who is willing to go the extra mile\u201d and do some of the things he hasn\u2019t been able to do, such as recruiting, organizing new programs and potentially outreach with flag football.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf somebody like that has the time, that would be very attractive. Certainly, (they would need) football experience. This isn\u2019t a role that you can come into with no knowledge of the game,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to have some football background, some football knowledge, and a rampant passion to to make this a significant part of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n
If they don\u2019t find someone within the next couple of weeks, some hard decisions might have to be made, said Abbott.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we don\u2019t find somebody \u2026 then we\u2019ll have to make the decision to just put the program on hiatus for now and send what players we do have over to community football with the White Rock Titans. But that would be a shame, because this program has been around for 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anyone interested in applying for the head coach position can email Abbott at<\/p>\n
coachjc.abbottabbottt@gmail.com or contact the school\u2019s head office. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wanted: Head coach for South Surrey secondary school football program Published 6:00 pm Friday, May 1, 2026 A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,163792,87674],"class_list":["post-645408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lower-mainland","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}