New Canton football coach provides stability amidst swirling changes

It was business as usual Tuesday afternoon during the last pre-season summer camp for Canton’s football team — remarkable considering the tumultuous three-year ride the Team Formerly Known As The Chiefs has been on.

Much of the credit for the renewed steadiness goes to first-year head coach Eric Newton — the program’s third head coach in the past three seasons — and his staff of highly-regarded assistant coaches, who have been steadfast in squashing excuses in favor of finding solutions to challenges that crop up.

Freshmen coaches Richard Mui and Scott Wetmore are the only returners from last year’s Canton staff of assistants.

Newton has not let potential distractions get in the way of building stability for a team in dire need of just that.

“I like where we’re at,” said Newton, a longtime successful assistant coach in southeast Michigan and California (and former standout player at Redford Union and Wayne State University), as he operated the controls of an airborne drone that was recording the action that unfolded on the Plymouth-Canton Educational Park’s east turf field.

“We’re going to be able to field teams at all three levels (varsity, JV and freshmen) — we had some concerns for a while if we’d have enough players for JV — and the guys are buying in to what we’re trying to build.”

(To learn more about Eric Newton’s impressive background, click here.)

Building trust

The most noteworthy challenge facing Newton since he was hired in March was securing trust in a senior class that has had to adjust to new leadership each of their three years in high school.

Newton also learned the Cobras will be practicing three days a week this fall at Liberty Middle School — not on the program’s longtime practice field just east of the high school, which has been turned into a construction zone for the Plymouth-Canton Educational Park’s third stadium.

“There’s a giant hole where our practice field is supposed to be,” Newton said with an it-is-what-it-is smile.

Last, but not least, the mascot transition has created a level of havoc regarding ordering new uniforms to replace the ones with “Chiefs” on the front of the jerseys — and Newton hasn’t had an athletic director to work with throughout the summer after former A.D. Kristen Farkas resigned in mid-June.

It appears the Cobras’ helmets will be adorned with a block “C” for the second consecutive season since a Cobra logo has not yet been approved. But that is just an aesthetic blip on the radar compared to the bigger changes the program has experienced.

Consistency is vital

A major ingredient in Newton’s transition sauce has been consistency.

“Immediately after I was hired, I’ve been present at everything,” said Newton, a former special-education teacher at Plymouth High School who has since secured a similar job at Canton. “I used my sixth-hour prep time to get over to Canton’s football tech class — not necessarily to talk football, but to get to know the guys and let them know what I’m about.”

Newton said the team’s summer workouts have gone incredibly well.

“We’ve been working out four days a week at Xplosive Performance Academy in Plymouth; freshmen and JV players worked out from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. with varsity coming in from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.,” Newton said. “We had 22 to 32 varsity players showing up regularly. By the time they’re done their one-hour session, they’re gassed, so our fitness level is going to be great.”

Key factors

Newton said an emphasis on communication and efficiency have been keys to the smooth transition.

“We encourage the players to ask questions about things they’re not sure about,” Newton said. “Now, if a player asks the same question over and over, that might create the necessity for a one-on-one conversation.”

He chuckled.

“I like my practices to be efficient. Instead of standing around and talking 10 minutes about something that just happened, we keep moving. Everything is taped (by the drone), so we can go over mistakes that were made after practice.

“And I’ve told the guys over and over, if they bust their butts and are running all over the field during practice, there will be no need for conditioning (i.e. sprints) at the end of practice.”

Newton said the Cobras have been “competitive” during their summer 7-on-7 games, a reflection of the chemistry that is already building at Canton.

Canton opens its 2024 season Aug. 30 at Temperance Bedford — the first of many opening nights Newton and his staff will oversee as they lay a foundation for stability in a program that has been lacking in that department for the past couple of years.

Ed Wright can be reached at 734-664-4657 or edwright@socialhousenews.com.