Lucas Gibson is hoping to bring success back to Van-Far football.

Gibson was announced three weeks ago as the Indians’ third head coach in as many seasons following a 0-10 season – the program’s first winless season since 2011.

For much of his career, Gibson’s roots have been dug into the Van-Far program and community, tracing back to his playing days when he was an all-state linebacker for the Indians. He has been coaching for about 11 years, getting his start in Mexico’s Optimist league – a youth sports organization – before working in Van-Far’s youth program. Gibson was a junior high coach for three years leading up to him becoming an assistant coach with the high school squad last season.

Because of his long history, Gibson said he has known some of the current Indians since they were in third grade and hopes he can help establish a winning culture starting with them this year.

“I’m very excited,” Gibson said. “I’ve worked with these boys, some of them, since they were in third grade and all the way up.”

Athletic director Kelly Borchert said Gibson was “definitely the best fit” for the position after seeing the departures of Blake Logan and Joe Drebes. He was the best candidate because of his ties to the community.

“His heart and dedication is a big part of it,” Borchert said. “The fact that he had big ties to our community and wants to see the kids succeed. Lucas sees the potential that the kids have, and he’s willing to stick around through any of the ups and downs and make sure that the program comes out on top.”

Gibson said he does see some potential in the group he has going into this season, inheriting reigning all-Eastern Missouri Conference players such as senior Brandon Eoff, Gage Gibson and Nikos Connaway. Eoff was first team offense as a fullback and second team defense as a linebacker while Gibson was second offense as a receiver and Connaway was second team defense as a defensive back.

This group can make up a good core of leadership for the Indians’ upcoming freshman class of 12 or 13, Gibson said. Eventually, Gibson said he’d like for Van-Far to play to their first non-losing season since 2004, win its first playoff game since 2014 and earn its first district title since 2000, when he was still playing, but the program has to take an important first step in a rebuilding process.

“Hopefully we can get a few wins this year and change the mentality,” Gibson said. “There are four or five kids on here that have been starting since they were freshman at the varsity level. They’ve got a lot of experience.”

Finding ways to get more wins will help the program grow stronger, Gibson said, as he’d also like to see more kids play football and they will once the Indians show some promise on the field.

On the field, Gibson said he likes being able to bring some key weapons like an almost 1,000-yard rusher in Eoff and all-conference receiver in Gibson but would also like to see some consistency on the offensive end. Van-Far is also coming a year when they allowed 50.6 points per game, despite having Connaway pull down eight interceptions in the secondary.

“I’d like to bring more consistency, especially to the offense and try to eliminate mistakes,” Gibson said. “We want to change the culture and build off of that.”

Borchert said Gibson will have a new coaching staff to help him do that in Cale Utterback and Steve Gschwender, whose brother Jeff led Hannibal to a 13-1 record and second-place finish in Class 4 in his first season as the Pirates’ head coach last year, after the two coached for the junior high team a year ago.

Utterback is from Van-Far as Gibson is, Borchert said, so she is hopeful the men leading the Indians now can bring new kids into the program.

“We haven’t had a lot of success and I wouldn’t say it’s because of our coaching by any means. I would say it’s a lack of participation,” Borchert said. “I think, with the coaches that we do have this year, I think they see that and kind of know how to get more kids involved and get kids to buy into the program.”