Larry Stroud has moved around a lot over his coaching career; but in a way, he hasn’t.
Like the running back he once was, he’s spent the last 19 years juking around the greater Triangle area to various assistant coaching jobs, at nine different schools within a 25-mile radius (including McDougle Middle School, East and Chapel Hill High School). This past July, however, Stroud got his first head coaching job, returning to East—where he previously served as defensive back coach during the 2004 season. As he takes the helm for the Wildcats, Stroud’s odyssey across local high school football has familiarized him with the task at hand: rebuilding a program.
It’s a program that has had little success lately. The East football team had—going into this season—won just five games since 2014, and failed to field a team twice during that span (most recently last season, which would have been played in the spring due to COVID-19).
“It’s awesome,” Stroud said of his new opportunity at East. “A lot of coaches, when they get into this field to try to become a head coach, they want [an already] winning program. They don’t want to do the work that it takes to build a program. I’m excited to actually come in and put my stamp on it and build a program from the bottom up. I know we haven’t had a football program in like two years, so I knew what I was getting into when I accepted the job.”
Growing up just a few miles away from East in Durham, Stroud started playing football at Chewning Junior High School, inspired by his father and uncles who had played the sport.
“I wanted to give it a try,” Stroud said. “I was one of the smallest guys out there, but I didn’t let that stop me from playing.”
Due to his stature, Stroud primarily played defensive back and running back throughout high school. He played his 10th and 11th grade seasons at Durham’s Riverside High School, before transferring to nearby Northern Durham, where he won a 4A state championship as a senior.
After graduating in 1994, Stroud headed off to Montgomery Junior College in Rockville, Md., where he played defensive back. He was named the school’s male athlete of the year in 1997-1998 after a season in which he notched 10 interceptions and was named an NJCAA First Team All-American.
After two years at Montgomery, Stroud transferred to Charleston Southern University in South Carolina.
“When I got down to Charleston, you know, enjoying that food down there, I ended up picking up a lot of weight,” Stroud joked. “So they moved me to running back.”
Following a successful two-year career at CSU, Stroud turned pro. He played one season for the Charleston Swamp Foxes of the AF2 Arena Football League, and later suited up for the semi-pro Charleston Firecats and Raleigh/Durham Wolverines.
This path led Stroud back to his hometown of Durham in 2001, and as his playing career ended, he shifted gears into coaching.
“I realized that I want to just basically make sure kids have been taught properly how to play,” Stroud said of his decision to become a coach. “Because for years I’ve been taught, you know, it’s all about being big, strong and fast. And then I started learning that there’s a better way to teach kids how to play.”
That mission set Stroud on a path that would take him to 10 different coaching positions over the next 19 years.
Some notable stops included Southern Durham, where the Spartans won a state title in 2013, as well as his stint at Jordan, when he helped rebuild the Falcons’ program as defensive coordinator alongside head coach and legendary former N.C. State running back Anthony Barbour. Stroud also served as the defensive back coach at Chapel Hill High, where he met East Athletic Director Randy Trumbower—then the quarterback coach for the Tigers.
“I always had a lot of respect for him,” Trumbower said of Stroud. “I think he is a very good football coach, but he’s a better person and a better man. I think what he brings to East is hope and patience. He also brings dedication to sport. He brings passion to kids. He’s a student-centered coach.”
Now, despite what has been a challenging first season as a head coach, Stroud knows what he wants to implement into the Wildcats program.
“The main thing is making sure that the kids understand that they’re loved and appreciated. Because I’ve coached with a lot of great athletes and I’ve been a part of teams that didn’t have a lot of great athletes, but what seems to be the most important is teaching kids that you don’t have to be a superstar to play football,” Stroud said. “You don’t have to be the biggest guy in the whole school to play, you just have to have the attitude that, ‘I want to play and I want to do something great.’ That’s what I’ve learned through my travels through other programs. And that’s what I’ve brought here to East.”
Photo by Linda Li/The ECHO
