Since the end of last school year, six new head coaches have joined the Huntington North High School athletic department, along with 17 new assistant coaches.

Michael Gasaway, Huntington North athletic director, says he is just happy to be past the hiring stage and have everybody in place.

"The month of April, my therapist says I will recover soon, from all the interviews and stuff that I went through," says Gasaway. "April and May (were) just crazy."

Career advancement was the most common reason behind the departure of the previous coaches, says Gasaway.

Such was the case with former football coach Rief Gilg, who attained his administrator license and is now the athletic director at East Noble, says Gasaway.

Replacing Gilg is Trent Fine, who spent the past two years at Monroe Central, starting the football program and leading it to its first wins in school history.

"A great opportunity there," says Fine of Monroe Central. "An opportunity for me to learn everything about a football program pretty quickly ... mowing my own football field, painting the field and everything. So, I learned what it takes to actually run a program."

Fine looks to continue Gilg's winning ways and has a positive outlook for the program.

"Got a really good senior class and a good group of guys that have been leading us well so far," says Fine.

Jessica Fuller assumes control of the volleyball program from Jami Craft, who is stepping away to become Huntington North's dean of students, says Gasaway.

Fuller spent a year each at both Southern Wells and Wayne as the volleyball coach and played volleyball for four years at Indiana Tech. Her goals for the program are high.

"Ultimately, I'm hoping to get to state, or really reaching toward semi-state," says Fuller.

The new coach of the girls' golf team, Lisa Geller, spent time with that program from 2006 to 2008 as an assistant.

Though this is a return to coaching for Geller, she emphasizes that it is not a return to golf, a sport she has played since she was 6. At Purdue University, she played under a full ride golf scholarship.

Geller hopes to build the program for the future.

"This is really kind of a rebuilding year for us," she says. "Currently we only have six players. One freshman and one senior. So we are kind of looking to rebuild and make golf fun again and hopefully we will have a lot more girls interested in playing next year."

As the new boys' basketball coach, Rob Irwin brings years of experience to Huntington North. Irwin was the boys' basketball coach at Carroll for 10 years and spent the last seven years in that same role at Whitko, where he also served as athletic director.

Irwin's mandate for the program is simply to "get back to establishing that we're going to be tough and guard people and find ways to grind out wins."

While Irwin may be a new face to Huntington North, Scott Bower, the new boys' track coach is not.

An assistant on the boys' track staff since 2001, it was "a no-brainer," says Gasaway, for Bower to take over the program.

With a couple of conference champions graduated, but a young team in place, Bower sees the program as having plenty of room to grow.

"We want to keep improving and build off the youth that we have," says Bower. "We just want to keep building on what's been going on. Coach Chambers did a good job for a long time here."

Also a new coach at Huntington North, but not necessarily a new face, is Kyle Daugherty.

An assistant coach on the varsity baseball team for the last nine years, Daugherty replaces outgoing baseball coach Russ Degitz, who left Huntington North to become the principal at Lancaster Elementary.

Daugherty sees good work ethic as being the key to continuing the success the program enjoyed under coach Degitz.

"We just want to instill in kids that hard work is going to pay off ... and we have to do that early," says Daugherty. "(The work) has to start in January and February."

Overall, Gasaway is satisfied with how the new coaches have fit in.

"It's been a smooth transition. I'm really happy with how things have been. A lot of people can sit there and go, ‘Man, they've had so much coaching turnover. What's going on?' Well, when you sit down and really dissect what the coaching changes are, you realize that it's just been a year where, it is a lot, but at the same time it's all good moves," he says.