A familiar face and a newer face are taking some new roles for two Durango fall sports this upcoming season.
Ryan Woolverton was named as the interim head coach of the Durango football team in late May. Michael Fadil was officially named the Durango cross country coach on Thursday.
Former football head coach Matt Burton resigned in late May after one season as the team’s head coach. The Demons went 9-2 and made it to the second round of the 3A state playoffs.
Burton and his wife just had their third child over the summer. Burton moved back to Texas to raise his family in a more affordable area. He is currently a coach at Gregory-Portland High School in Portland, Texas.
He said it was an amazing group of kids to coach and work with and it was a very hard goodbye.
“I’m going to really miss the kids, the support from the parents and the support from the community for the program,” Burton said. “The program is a really good program with absolutely phenomenal kids and they should enjoy a ton of success.”
Woolverton was quickly named the interim head coach after Burton resigned. He’s been a member of the Demons coaching staff for more than 10 years on two separate stints. His son was Jordon was the quarterback on the state championship-winning Durango team in 2020. Wolverton was the offensive coordinator on that team and was the offensive coordinator last season.
Since he’s been a part of the Demons program for so long, Woolverton said he’s been involved with all aspects of the program including the summer programs. Therefore, it wasn’t a difficult transition for Woolverton.
It also was a big help that all the assistant coaches bought into continuing to push the Durango program.
One area Woolverton has been focusing on in the offseason has been intensity and urgency. Woolverton said recent offseasons haven’t been as intense as they were in the past.
“That's the big thing we've been trying to preach and push and get back in these kids how important it is in the offseason,” Woolverton said. “That's when they're going to win or lose a lot of these football games.”
Woolverton also said another focus has been playing hard but playing with class. He wants his players to keep their mouths shut while they’re on the field.
Schematically, the Demons won’t look too different from years past since Woolverton was on staff as the offensive coordinator.
“I would argue he's the most consistently knowledgeable coach we have on staff,” Durango Athletic Director Ryan Knorr said. “He's been an offensive coordinator, he's been a defensive coordinator, so we've seen both sides of the ball, which makes him incredibly valuable and trustworthy in terms of leading the entire team. He's been an advocate for what's best for students since I've been here, in terms of making decisions that are student-focused and team-focused. He's a man of high moral character within our community.”
Following the 2024 season, Knorr and the Durango Athletic Department will search nationwide for a head coach. Knorr said Woolverton is welcome to apply. Knorr wrote in a letter to parents that he understands the Demons have had three head coaches in three years, but that the majority of the coaching staff has been with the upperclassmen for their high school careers.
Fadil is a newcomer to the Durango community. He attended Liverpool High School in Liverpool, New York, outside Syracuse and was the New York State High School 3200 meter champion in 1981. He ran cross country, indoor and outdoor track at Dartmouth College. He still has the Dartmouth College 3000 m steeplechase record he set in 1985 and the 3000 m Ivy League Championship record he set in 1985. Fadil was a Division I All-American.
After college, Fadil competed in the 1988 U.S. Olympic trials and was ranked in the top 10 in the U.S. in the 3000 m steeplechase for a few years. He represented the U.S. on a few national teams around the world.
Before Durango, Fadil coached a youth club in Rhode Island and also at a post-collegiate club.
Fadil has family in Durango and he wanted to get closer to them so he moved to Durango about two years ago. He wanted to continue coaching and was most recently the track coach at Miller Middle School along with helping out with the high school team.
“He's new to the community and immediately was involved in distance running and running within our community to where it's his passion,” Knorr said about Fadil. “His daughter is involved and incredibly gifted. But he's also jumped head into our community and said, ‘I want to help young runners.’ That really struck me in terms of his commitment to that passion and knowledge around distance running.”
Longtime cross country coach Ron Keller resigned in mid-June. Knorr said Keller wanted someone to take over who was more mobile and could participate more in workouts.
Knorr said he learned a lot of lessons about coaching, being competitive and having high expectations.
Keller gave Knorr his endorsement of Fadil taking over the program and had very positive things to say about Fadil.
Before Keller stepped down, he made arrangements for Durango to host a new cross country meet at Durango Mesa Park.
Keller was unable to be reached for comment.
Fadil’s daughter, Zia, is a top middle school runner nationally at 13 years old.
Knorr said seeing how well Zia has done running also showed him that Fadil’s coaching methods work and Knorr could see how the Demons cross country teams would buy into Fadil’s philosophies.
Fadil said one of his biggest coaching philosophies he got from Mark Coogan, who was an accomplished runner who is now the coach of Team New Balance Boston which has numerous athletes competing in the Olympics in Paris.
“One of the things I always embraced is he'd rather have lots of consistency, a couple B+ workouts a week and just have kids stay healthy,” Fadil said. “That builds on it, week after week, month after month, year after year. I'm a big believer in those types of workouts, as opposed to what people call it different things, see-God workouts, or run until you vomit workouts. I’m just not a huge fan of that.”
Fadil wants the kids to finish the workouts at the same pace they started them at so the effort will get harder. He said anyone can run a mile of a 5-kilometer race but the race really starts at the 2-mile mark. Fadil said his workouts will prepare the kids to be where they want to be at the 2-mile mark.
“I like to give the kids the balance of the structure of the program and giving them some sense of agency,” Fadil said. “These are high school kids and you learn from making mistakes. You need to trust the kids to have good judgment and decision-making. So there's a fine balance there with regard to giving them guidance.”
Fadil also said it’s his job to get the team and each runner individually where they want to go. Fadil recognizes some kids are doing it to get in shape for another sport. Others may just want to get in better shape. Some kids may want to improve their times and others want to be competitive and perform on a high level. Fadil said there’s space for all of those kids.
“I want them to hold themselves accountable to each other, versus me riding them and being a taskmaster,” Fadil said. “The world really does work more that way. It's a more powerful incentive for the kids that they not want to let their teammates down, versus they're doing this because their coach is riding them.”
bkelly@durangoherald.com
