When Toby Vallas took over the football program at Farmington High School prior to the 2014 season, roughly one-tenth of the student body played the sport. That’s good news for schools with north of 500 students, but it’s not ideal for one that only has 350 kids enrolled.
A decade later, nearly 100 of Farmington’s 350 students are out for the sport, and a few things have followed.
One is victories, as Vallas, a 1998 graduate of Monmouth College, has gone 92-22 over the past 10 seasons, including a Class 2A semi-final appearance last fall.
But the players who Vallas and his staff coach have also made huge strides in leadership skills, and the victories they’re achieving when it comes to teamwork and character are going to pay huge dividends for them down the road, long after their football cleats are collecting dust.
‘Internal Leadership’
Vallas returned to his alma mater Jan. 29 to speak to Fighting Scot athletes and share some of his coaching philosophies and successes at Farmington. Prior to his talk, he also discussed his background as a minority student in the Knoxville school district and the highlights of his time at Monmouth.
Titled “Internal Leadership,” his talk focused on the importance of relationships within the team dynamic. In particular, he said, “When I let the kids write their own story, the team became powerful. When kids began to help each other, the individuals became powerful.”
He encouraged Monmouth’s athletes to embrace and understand their teammates, such as returning players thinking of ways to help a new teammate. “Be relationship-centered,” he said. “Ease their worries.”
Vallas speaks from experience on what that type of positivity – or, in his case, the opposite – can mean.
“I was the only non-white in the school,” he said of his Chinese ancestry, “and I remember what the other kids used to say about me. I dwelled on it.” He also felt a sense of abandonment, as he lived with a great aunt, rather than his parents. “I remember thinking, ‘You left me here, different than everybody else.'”
Having that perspective has shaped the empathy Vallas carries with him today for his players.
“I am really reluctant to remove kids from the team,” he said. “My assistants would say too reluctant. If we remove them, they are welcome back the next year. The door is never closed.”
Another of his takeaways was that “players control the team’s success … most of this has been led by the athletes,” he said of Farmington’s turnaround from 38 to 96 students out for the sport.
Starting in 1999, the Farmers won just nine times in seven years. Former coach Casey Martin got the turnaround started in 2006, but it was Vallas and the new mindset he brought to the program that kicked off the Farmers’ current string of nine consecutive playoff appearances (not counting the season half-lost to COVID – when the team still managed a perfect 4-0 record).
One of his PowerPoint slides featured a photo of NBA great Dennis Rodman, but it was the player beside him, Jack Haley, who Vallas praised, calling the former San Antonio and Chicago player Rodman’s “comfort person.”
“And that’s important,” he said. “Some of the biggest studs on teams have their comfort person. When I’m coaching, and our quarterback turns the ball over, I can you tell you which player he’s going to go stand by and talk to when he gets to the sideline.”
The influential coaches of an influential coach
Vallas would eventually become a standout relay runner at Monmouth, running on the school-record 4×200 squad and regularly making the Midwest Conference All-Academic team. He didn’t play football for the Scots, but he did for his hometown Blue Bullets.
“As a freshman, I wasn’t worth a darn as a player,” said Vallas. “But my sophomore coach, Tim Engebretson, had high expectations of me as a player. They were higher than I thought of for myself. He was like, ‘C’mon, I believe in you.'”
Engebretson soon graduated to a varsity coach when he took over the football program at Warren High School, just outside Monmouth. After his 11th year there, Warren consolidated, and Engebretson led the new United High School to the 2004 state title.
Vallas – who was also thankful for the “father-son” relationship he formed at Knoxville with 1966 Monmouth grad Dave Whiteman – nearly has a state title under his belt, too. He led Farmington’s girls to a runner-up finish at the Class A state track meet in 2018. One of his standout sprinters, Jordan Peckham, then came to Monmouth – crediting Vallas for playing a major role in that decision – and enjoyed a stellar collegiate career.
Vallas, too, thrived as a Monmouth athlete. He was well aware of the school’s status as a track powerhouse.
“Right next to the article about me qualifying for the state meet in high school was an article about (Scots hurdler) Charles Burton winning a national championship,” said Vallas. “That always stuck with me.”
Engebretson unlocked some of his prep potential. At Monmouth, that task fell to legendary Fighting Scots coach Roger Haynes, now the college’s athletic director, who arranged for Vallas’s campus talk.
“Coach Haynes was a heckuva coach when I graduated in 1998,” said Vallas. “But by 2005, he was an even better coach, not doing many of the things he did with our team. And by 2010, he was an even better coach, not doing many of those things from 2005. He never feared change, which I think is fairly unique to the coaching world. He embraced change.”
Haynes, of course, did more than just coach techniques and tactics. He was also an exceptional motivator.
“Coach Haynes understood that young people screw up sometimes,” said Vallas. “You’ve got to be there for them. Every kid deserves someone to support them.”
Of course, said Vallas, Haynes had a gruff side, too.
“He always shot me straight,” he said. “When he was recruiting me, he told me he thought I was the best in the area. But he said if I didn’t come to Monmouth and went somewhere else, ‘We’ll kick your ass.'”
And Haynes was right. Monmouth’s teams dominated that time period, winning all eight indoor and outdoor conference championships from 1995-98, despite a relative lack of All-American star power.
“One of the highlights for me was just how good our team got,” said Vallas. “The women’s team had some real standouts at the time (including his classmate, All-American Heather Furrow Herchenroder). But the men, it was just the whole team. I’m kind of proud of that.”
Not only on Haynes’ track teams, but on campus, in general, Vallas appreciated “what a family Monmouth College was to me. The professors looked out for you. And even the coaches who weren’t my coach looked out for me. Some coaches, if you do something like tear your ACL, they’ll just step over you and forget you. The coaches at Monmouth weren’t like that at all.”
Vallas, who said, “I always knew I wanted to be a teacher,” majored in special education and history. He taught social studies for nearly two decades but has been an administrator at Farmington since 2018, serving as director of student services, charged with areas such as organizational health, teacher recruitment and retention, and transportation.
And also charged with coaching a football team that is finding high levels of success by empowering its players.
***Courtesy of Barry McNamara, Monmouth College***