Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

On Friday, Springwood School announced the hire of Kurt Page to be the school’s new football coach and athletic director. On Monday, the Springwood community had a chance to listen to Page and his ideas for the future of Springwood athletics.

“We are very much looking forward to the future,” Head of School Lowrie McCown said. “We are looking forward to this school bursting at the seams in the years ahead, but we have to prepare a culture and make some changes that are going to help us grow the school in some ways. It is really essential that we have a substantial partner in athletics, but in Alabama football is God in some respects. It was really essential that we find someone to move us forward in our athletics.”

Recently, Page has been working with Faulkner University, working as an advisor until last week. Before his time at Faulkner, Page was working at Fort Dale Academy in Greenwood. Since finishing his playing career in the Canadian Football League, Page has been a coach, coaching in what he calls the “Footprint of the SEC,” which are the 10 states that have an SEC school.

“I have been in the footprint of the SEC all my life. God has prepared me to be here at this time and at this point,” Page said. “I have had the chance to be a leader of an athletics program in four of those states. It’s really been exciting for me to be a part of that footprint. I’ve seen Texas high school football, I’ve seen Georgia high school football, I’ve seen Tennessee high school football and I’ve seen Alabama high school football. There’s a lot going on there so I can compare a lot of that information with all of the other states, in terms of developing student-athletes.”

Page has coached and or been an athletic director for teams in Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and Alabama. Alongside his head coaching opportunities, he and his partner Craig Ladd run a SOAR, which stands for skills, opportunity, accountability and readiness.

SOAR is a program that works with third through eighth-grade students to develop younger athletes.

“I think that is the crucial time to get athletic and holistic development for any student-athletes,” Page said. “We look to bring that SOAR credibility to our campus down here at Springwood.”

Page played football at Vanderbilt in the early 1980s. In his junior season, Page threw for 3,178 yards, making him the first SEC quarterback to break 3,000 yards in a season.

Page plans to make a change at Springwood, moving the team that has run the wing-T the past three years into a spread offense that will have an up-tempo style of play.

“We’ll play a really simple style. We’ll base up in a 2-by-2 spread on offense and on defense we’ll play in a 4-2-5,” Page said. “It’s about us knowing what we’re supposed to do in our assignments. If we can learn our assignments and play fast and physical and have fun, we’ll let the results speak for themselves.”