Steve Arnold won almost 200 games in 10 seasons coaching the Warren Harding boys basketball team. On Friday night, he won his first game as the head coach of the school’s football team.

It is not unheard of for coaches at small schools to double up on duties or be asked to switch from one sport to another because of the lack of available coaches.

Arnold, though, is making the transition at a Division I school from one high-profile sport to another. The Raiders opened the season with a 24-10 loss to Austintown Fitch, then blanked Howland 34-0 in week two to present Arnold with his first football W.

Q. Talk about the difference between playing well and losing vs. playing well and getting the win. Are the kids more receptive to what the coaches are saying after they see a positive result?

A. Obviously it’s always good to win, that helps with the morale of the team. I thought we played fairly well against Fitch, we just didn’t make enough plays when we had the opportunity to make plays. The one thing that we have tried to instill in our kids is to just focus on one opponent at a time, don’t look ahead and just focus on the task at hand.

Q. Opponents aside, what was the biggest difference between Week 1 and Week 2?

A. In week one we probably had a little bit of those first-game jitters. We went through that experience and the next week it was game two as opposed to game one. Sometimes you look and you’re trying to make a huge improvement from week one to week two and I thought we did.

Q. What kind of team do you hope to have as the season progresses? What style of play do you hope to feature?

A. It’s hard to tell right now because we’re still trying to identify what our team is going to be. I think as the season progresses we’ll know more. Obviously we want to be fundamentally sound, we want to be tough, we want to be physical. We want to be able to run the football like we’ve done but still be able to strike with the big play.

From a defensive point of view we want to continue the Warren style of football we’ve exhibited in the past, sending guys to the football and being aggressive.

Q. You have three straight area rivalry games to open the season. How will those help down the road no matter what your record is in those three games?

A. I think these three games will prepare us for (Lake Erie) league play. Now we aren’t looking ahead to league play or to Maple Heights. We’ve stressed to the kids not to look ahead or the team that’s coming up will get you. Of course there is no way a Warren football team can overlook a Mooney team.

Q. Did you coach football earlier in your career before you took the basketball job?

A. Phil (Annarella) was the first coach to give me an opportunity to coach. I worked with Phil back in ’90, ’91, ’92, around there. I coached football for a while and then went on to basketball.

Q. When did you start thinking about who you might like on your football coaching staff?

A. When I was being considered for the job I started looking, talking to guys to see if they would be willing to come on. The staff is essential. You’ve got to have the right mixture on the staff, the experience, the energy, you try to be as complete as possible.

The staff I was able to assemble, I said it then and after working with them I still believe it, we have one of the best staffs in the area. Any time you can have four former head coaches, and several former coordinators serving as assistants, that’s a positive. I think as a head coach you can’t be afraid to hire former head coaches for your staff.

Q. In basketball you probably can have some kind of face-to-face contact with every player each day. Are you still able to do that in football?

A. We try to have some kind of personal contact with every kid during the course of the day. Once they come in from school in the locker room, before practice, during warm-ups, or even after practice in the locker room. It’s important that each kid know that you care about them. There are more numbers in football than there are in basketball obviously, but you still have to let the kids know that you care about them

Q. How have things gone so far behind the scenes and what has been your biggest challenge?

A. Thus far it’s been great, the kids have really been great. Obviously, there are more kids and the biggest challenge for me was coaching two-a-days. It was a challenge accounting for so many kids during two-a-days. But we were able to do some things we wanted and the two-a-days worked out really well. I pride myself on being organized and you have to be in order to run proficient practices in football.

Interview by Doug Chapin, Vindicator sports staff