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Highlands Today

Jason Holden Named New Lake Placid Coach

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By MARK PINSON Highlands Today

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 6, 2008

LAKE PLACID - The Lake Placid High School football team has a new leader.

Jason Holden was named Tuesday afternoon by Lake Placid first-year principal Mike Haley as the Green Dragon head coach.

Holden, who coached the Lake Placid Middle School football team last year, replaces Tim Grant, who resigned last month for personal reasons.

"This is a great opportunity for me and something I've been working toward since I started coaching," said the 38-year-old Holden. "I started coaching when I was 22 and throughout the years I've been an assistant coach at the high school and the head coach at the middle school.

"I'm excited about the coming season and look forward to getting on the practice field with the team."

The Green Dragons begin fall football practice on Monday and Holden's appointment was one that Principal Haley was comfortable with.

"I really liked Jason's background in football and also his ties with the community," said Haley. "He has worked with the team before and the players know who he is.

"It's been a long summer and I'm glad to have filled the coaching position with a quality person like Jason."

Holden, who played on the football team and graduated from Lake Placid in 1988, is looking forward to restoring the pride in the Green Dragons football team.

"I wish I had more time to prepare," said Holden. "But this is what we've got and we're working on building positive attitudes in the players. "We also want to get the entire student body excited about the team.

"Hopefully, we can make the transition pretty quickly because we're going to run the same offense and defense that we worked on over the summer."

Holden, who has coached physical education at Lake Placid Middle School for the last six years, isn't sure if he will teach the same subject at the high school.

"We haven't figured that out just yet," the Green Dragon coach said.

With the kickoff classic against Liberty High School just 23 days away, Holden knows time is not on his side.

"We don't have time to throw a bunch of new stuff at the kids," said Holden. "I'm a firm believer in it's not what you run, but how well you run it.

"We just need to execute and stay focused and we'll be fine."

Mark Pinson can be reached at 863-386-5837 or mpinson@highlandstoday.com

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