He seems to have a knack of turning around a football program. Karl McGee, who has been head football coach at McPherson, Kan., for the past seven season, will try to turn around the fortunes of that sport at Montezuma-Cortez High School.

He has been officially named head coach at Montezuma-Cortez High School to replace Dick Geddes who resigned after a seven-year stint. The Re-1 Board of Education selected McPherson, who was recommended by an interview committee, to be the top man. McGee emerged from a list of seven applicants which was then whittled down to five, according to MCHS Athletic Director Brad Jones.

"We interviewed five people (longtime assistant and defensive coordinator Bob Archibeque, Pat Newton from Nederland, McGee, David Morgan from Colorado Springs, and Dolores head coach Bill Kralicek, who recently turned his resignation as football coach from that school)," Jones said. "They were all five quality candidates. After the interviews were over we returned a couple days later and sat down to discuss their strong points and weak points. We sat down and decided how we would arrive at a recommendation to the board. We all unanimously agreed he was our top candidate."

McGee, 34, was in town this past week visiting the area and laying some ground work for what lies ahead. The Panthers will compete as a Class 3A team in football and will be member of the Western Slope League for the 2000-01 cycle.

"This is a much better situation here than when I took over as head coach at McPherson," McGee said. "They (MCHS) were 4-5 last year and 6-4 the year before. They went to the quarterfinals (when in Class 3A) in 1994. He (Geddes) did a nice job here and I want to build upon what he has done. When I stepped into the head job at McPherson it had one of the worst football programs in Kansas."

He happened to read Scott Stocker’s column in The Rocky Mountain News that Cortez was looking for a head football coach and to call Brad Jones. McGee did that and started the application process going. McGee came out March 10 for an interview.

McGee grew up and attended Nucla High School where he was graduated in 1984. He was a three-sport letterman where was chosen All-Conference (San Juan League) and All-State in basketball and football. He went to Bethany College in Kansas and played football there for two years. He reported he learned a lot under one of the winningest active coach in National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics history in Dr. Ted Kessinger. He transferred to Fort Hays State where he completed his college education.

Following graduation, he worked at three separate high schools in Wichita. He taught at West, Southwest and North high schools. He coached the defensive line while at Barry Sanders High School for four years.

His next stop was at McPherson where he was defensive coordinator for two seasons. At age 27, he became the head coach.

"At that point I thought I was on top of the world and I knew it all. When in fact, I didn’t know much at all. But in the past six years I really learned a lot," he said.

His best season there was 6-3. He posted the only two winning seasons in the 1990s during his term there. McPherson is a basketball powerhouse in Kansas (boys teams won seven state titles in the 90s) and football is the stepchild sport.

"It was a rough situation at first," he said. "The program had not won a game in two-and-half years and as head coach extended that another season without a win. We turned it around a little bit. My record as a head coach there was 20-34. We had some seasons we were not real pleased with and we had some good years. We had 28 kids out when I was defensive coordinator and we had 58 kids out last season. I felt like the whole program made some great gains considering we were in such a tough league that features schools from 6A to 4A in size. (McPherson was one the lower end of 4A in student size)."

Although he played on the defense side and has coaching experience on that side of the ball, McGee now prefers to run the offense. His teams will use multiple set attack using some 17 different formations with a lot of motion. He will use what he calls a bunch formation which several National Football League teams utilize. The running backs will work off zone steps by the line and the backs will then cut back into holes.

"We will add plays as we go along. We will use some package script sets to see how the defense will react our first series and then go from there. We will try to scheme week to week with our quick-attack offense We will do some deliberate things early and then make adjustments as the game progresses," he explained.

Defensively, he will use many different looks depending on the situation. However, he mainly uses four-man fronts with three linebackers. We will try to utilize our speed and put some of them on the corners.

"A lot of what we will do depends on who we will face. I have not had a chance to look a past tapes of Delta, Durango, Montrose, of some of the other teams we will face. As the season progresses we will know more about game plans. We will try to overload one side at times. We want to utilize a quick outside linebacker, much like what Kansas State has been doing lately," McGee noted.

He will teach some science and weightlifting at MCHS. McGee said he is a strong believer of not only off-season weight training but in-season weightlifting as well.