It’s official. Steve Spavital is the new head football coach at Broken Arrow High School. The Broken Arrow Board of Education formally approved of the transition plan that elevated Spavital from assistant head coach to head coach replacing Ron Lancaster, who retired at the end of the 2009 season. This transition plan has been publicly promoted since Lancaster and Spavital were first named to oversee the BAHS football program in January, 2007.

“I am excited and thrilled to be the head coach of the Broken Arrow Tigers!” Spavital exclaimed. “It’s been a pleasure to work with Ron for the past three seasons, and I look forward to continuing our efforts to push our program to the place that we all want for Broken Arrow football and that’s a state championship.”

For the past three seasons, Spavital has served as BAHS defensive coordinator, linebacker coach, and special teams coordinator for Tiger teams that have advanced to the state playoffs each year including the 2009 season when BAHS made it to the state semi-finals.

Prior to joining BAHS, Spavital served as Union High School defensive coordinator for the entire 14 seasons of Bill Blankenship’s tenure as Redskin head coach. Spavital’s defenses helped Union win state championships in three of his last five seasons on the Union staff.

Coaching is literally in his blood as his father Jim was an Oklahoma State assistant as well as a head coach in the Canadian and World Football Leagues while both of Steve’s sons are also involved in collegiate coaching.

“I could not be more pleased to make this announcement,” Broken Arrow Athletic Director Ken Ellett said. “In addition to seeing his stellar work on the football field for our program for the past three years, I have also had the pleasure to see his leadership, work ethic, organizational skills, and communication abilities displayed daily with students, staff, and parents. Steve is a consummate professional, and we are lucky to have him as our head coach.”

In addition to his great success as an assistant coach at BAHS and Union (he was named the 2005 National High School Assistant Coach of the Year), Spavital has also served as an assistant coach on high school coaching staffs in Edmond, Seminole and Glenpool and was the head coach at Sapulpa High School in the mid-eighties.

He is also well-known and highly regarded by area college coaches.

“Coach Spavital does a great job teaching those kids defense and concepts,” OU Defensive Coordinator Brent Venables told the Tulsa World before the start of the 2005 season. “Their structure is very similar to ours.”

Known affectionately as “Spav”, Spavital will also continue to serve as Broken Arrow’s Assistant Athletic Director (as he has since 2007).