Frank Parks named new football coach at Danville High School

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Frank Parks wants to "re-vitalize" the Danville High School football program. (Keith Taylor Photo)

It was a no-brainer for Frank Parks to want to be the head football coach at Danville High School.

“Danville has a great history, great tradition,” said Parks, 45. “It is a program with 11 state championships. Some great coaches have done great things with the program along with the players who wore the Admiral jersey.

“Not many opportunities come up with a program that has won multiple championships in a community who loves their football.”

Parks was introduced as Danville’s new coach today at a ceremony at the high school. He succeeds Mark Peach, who was 5-7 in 2022 and 8-5 in 2021. Previous coach Clay Clevenger led Danville to the Class AA title game in 2016 and Danville won the state title in 2017 under Clevenger. However, he was not rehired after Danville went 4-3 in the 2020 COVID season.

Parks was head coach at Berea the last two years and his teams went a combined 8-14. He was ahead coach at Bryan Station in Lexington from 2012-19 and had a 35-55 record before not being retained after a 3-8 finish in 2019. He spent the 2020 season as an assistant coach at Madison Central.

Parks started his coaching career in 2001 at East Jessamine and had coached at Madison Central for seven seasons before going to Bryan Station as defensive coordinator under head coach Craig Yeast for two seasons before becoming head coach. He played at Madison Central and went to Georgetown College where he earned All-American honors in 1999. He had nine interceptions at Georgetown in his career and  returned four for touchdowns.

Brown knows he will need to be able to “rally the community” around the program again to benefit the student-athletes.

“At the end of the day you do this for the greater good of kids in the program,” Parks said. “This is what I would touch on to get everyone back on the same page.

“I really don’t know a whole lot about the returning players. I know (Demauriah) Brown was one of the leading rushers in the state as a sophomore but I really have not had the opportunity to look into all the returning players yet. This all happened kind of quickly. I hope there might be some other kids interested in coming out and contributing to the program who have not played so we can increase our numbers to compete at the highest level.”

He thinks his experiences at Bryan Station and Berea will help him at Danville. He says experiences at two very different schools will help him adapt to different players easier.

“I have called both offense and defense as a head coach,” he said. “My philosophy is to use formations to get the numbers game on our side and scheme things to get the numbers in our favor. We also want to play smart and disciplined football. You don’t get to recruit your players in high school, so you have to be able to adapt to players you have to use them in the best way.”

He feels he needs to “re-energize” the Danville program more than rebuild anything because of Danville’s history.

“You have to get the community bought into your program. I want former players and fans excited about Danville football. My staff and I have to revitalize the program to those invested in it,” Parks said. “I want to show the community I appreciate them and want them involved to help our kids.”

He has reached out to a “couple of guys” about being on his staff and will start doing more that he’s officially the head coach.

“I want to get some people who have played there on staff. I definitely want people who know Danville football and what it means on the staff,” he said.

He also appreciates the Title Town rivalry with Boyle County, which just won its third straight state title and now also has 11 state championships.

“That success should bring out more in our program. We should feed off the success they are having to want to be better,” the new Danville coach said. “Their success should bring out the best in me and our staff and players.

“Danville had that success early before Boyle did. It’s a reason why this is called Title Town. We want to get back to that and do our part. Iron sharpens iron and I am looking forward to the rivalry.

“This is a great opportunity and Danville is a great place to coach. Jobs like this do not open too often. It’s an honor to coach at Danville. It was only five years ago that Danville won a state title. That’s not ancient history and we want to get back to that.”

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