Since it was announced Monday night that Scott Reed would be leaving El Dorado to take over the football coaching position at Cabot, El Dorado’s administrators have been busy formulating a plan to find a replacement.
El Dorado superintendent Jim Tucker spent Tuesday and Wednesday meeting with board members to discuss the process.
“I met with each board member individually over the past couple of days. We’ve talked through the process,” Tucker said on Thursday.
“Phillip (Lansdell) and I have been with Scott Reed today. With the help of Scott, we developed a list of really good coaches in the state that we’d like to pursue. Right now, we’re prioritizing that list, trying to get a little more information on some of them. Immediately after Christmas, we’re going to be setting up some unofficial meetings with some of them to kind of judge their interest, learn a little more about them. From there, we’ll narrow down the list a little more, start conducting some interviews.”
Tucker said he will join Lansdell, El Dorado’s athletic director, Melissa Powell, El Dorado’s Director of Human Resources, and State Representative Matthew Shepherd. Shepherd played quarterback for the Wildcats and his son Eli is a sophomore on the El Dorado football team.
“We will try to narrow it down to one or two,” said Tucker. “And then, we will pull in a couple other people for interviews and have a discussion with the school board.”
Tucker, predictably, said none of the names of the candidates will be released to the media during the process. As far as a timeline for hiring a new coach, there really isn’t one.
“Timeline really depends. If we prioritize these coaches and we reach out to our top pick and that person says, “yes, I want to be a Wildcat,’ then that timeline is short,” he said.
“You start moving down the list, the timeline gets longer. It kind of depends on the response.”
Tucker did say the coaches on the preliminary list of candidates have expressed interest in the job. He said he doesn’t expect much more activity until after Christmas. As for the timing of the coaching search being so close to the holidays, Tucker said it’s not that bad.
“It’s better now than March,” he said. “There’s a lot of really good candidates out there. We have a really good program. Our facilities are great. Our practice facility that we’re putting up, our multi-purpose facility is going to be an outstanding addition to our sports program.
“I think we’re going to have some really good candidates for this coaching position. I really appreciate Coach Reed’s help in developing a list of coaches to seek.”