KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — When Knoxville Catholic football head coach Dean Cokinos stepped down before preseason after being unable to find housing, the program felt that two heads would be better than one.
The Fighting Irish turned to former head coach Steve Matthews and longtime high school coach Philip Shadowens, who were both already on the staff, to be co-head coaches for the 2023 season. When the idea was presented to the two, they went right along with it.
"I got a phone call saying here's what we're going to do," Matthews said. "I just said yes sir let's go about it and so far it's been seamless."
"We really didn't spend time talking about how this was going to work, because we knew it wouldn't be a problem," Shadowens said.
The two men have known each other for over 20 years and have plenty of experience being around the sport. They said that veteran mentality allows them to have a different perspective sharing the head coaching responsibilities.
"There's no ego, you can't have an ego when it comes to coaching," Shadowens said. "We talk a lot. I trust him and he trusts me, and that's why this is so easy."
Matthews will handle the offense for the team, while Shadowens will focus on defense. It didn't take long for the co-head coaches to realize that, if anything, the new dynamic has made things easier on them.
"You don't have all the tasks yourself," Shadowens said. "You have somebody who helps you with a lot of that."
"There's a saying among high school coaches that 90% of your job is off-the-field stuff," Matthews said. "Now with us doing that together, it's really freeing me up to do more football and I feel like I'm a much better coach now."