Douglas has had the pieces necessary to win. But it wasn’t until coach James Fitzgerald’s second season that the Bulldogs have been able to buff out the edges and make the pieces fit.
Fitzgerald took over the program in June 2017, ridiculously late in the summer for a football coach to meet his team for the first time. Fitzgerald decided to hold off on the changes he wanted to implement, and the team went winless in his first season.
“It didn’t feel good to go 0-10, that’s for sure,” Fitzgerald said. “But I think it definitely put a bigger chip on the players and myself’s shoulders to be better this year and prove them wrong. ‘Make them believe’ is our theme, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Given a full offseason to prepare, Douglas — and its 26-year-old coach — are starting to see results. The Bulldogs are 5-0 as they open the region portion of their schedule Friday at Pueblo.
Road to Douglas
Fitzgerald was a two-time first-team all-state defensive back at Chandler Valley Christian. He won a state championship as a senior.
Fitzgerald attended Cal Lutheran for one semester before transferring to Scottsdale Community College. From there, he moved on to the UA from where he graduated.
He didn’t play football, though it wasn’t for the lack of trying. Fitzgerald was involved in a car accident during the first year of junior college. The wreck was enough to take him out for about a month, during which he suffered back spasms.
Scottsdale coach Doug Madoski instead offered Fitzgerald an opportunity to expedite a career he always wanted: coaching. Fitzgerald became a student assistant at age 19, serving as the Artichokes’ safeties coach and video coordinator.
“I knew I wasn’t going to go to Division I football or go to the NFL or anything like that,” Fitzgerald said. “I knew my passion was coaching and that’s where my future was.”
Fitzgerald has since served as an assistant at Pusch Ridge Christian (2013-15), a graduate assistant at Northern Arizona (2015-16) and the tight ends coach, running backs coach and recruiting coordinator at Scottsdale Community College (2016-17).
During his travels, “I really worked on developing relationships with good other coaches and learning a lot from them, and kind of taking the best from each coach that I learned from and kind of mashing it together into kind of developing my own philosophy as a coach,” Fitzgerald said. “I always wanted to get into coaching, and it’s awesome. I feel like I’ve never had to work a day.”
Man in charge
Fitzgerald’s first head coaching job came with a caveat — he had just six weeks before the start of the season. It was tough, the coach admits now.
“When you have only six weeks, you’re just trying to teach them the basics — how to tackle, how to line up,” Fitzgerald said. “We definitely took our lumps last year and really emphasized attending the weight room in the offseason, coming to spring football, learning the plays — that way when we get to the summer, it’s about perfecting that type of stuff and not learning it for the first time, weeks before a game.”
Offensive lineman Andres Moreno said the team could have turned it around sooner had Fitzgerald started right after the 2016 season. After the winless year in 2017, the Bulldogs focused on getting bigger and better. Fitzgerald would show up in the weight room to help.
“That’s what we did. We just hit the weight room, hit the field — everything,” Moreno said. “We played the offseason like it was during the season.”
The Bulldogs’ best start since the 1981 season has come with some offensive superlatives. They tied a school record for most rushing yards in a game two weeks ago, when they routed Catalina 65-8.
Douglas has outscored its opponents 223-50 this season.
“It shows the kids that their hard work pays off when all those hundreds of hours and thousands of hours they spent working out translated to success,” Fitzgerald said. “It shows them you have to put in the work. I always tell them, ‘Grind silently and let your play do the talking.’”
Toward the end of Wednesday’s practice, a Douglas player asked Fitzgerald how he comes up with plays.
“Is it just common sense?”
Fitzgerald laughed as he answered. “No, it’s not common sense.”
“Well,” the player asked, “is it common sense for you?”
Fitzgerald has a knack for understanding and creating plays. He credits film study, which he says “can be a real advantage.”
“I learned from some really great coaches what to look for, and over the years of practicing and practicing, at this point I can watch one play and tell you what all 22 guys did,” he said. “I know, I’m a nerd. I’m a football nerd.”
His players know, too.
When asked what trait he likes best about his coach, linebacker Kevin Chavez’s answer was simple.
“The intelligence.”
Winning time
Fitzgerald wants to ratchet up the intensity in the second half of the season. It doesn’t matter that the Bulldogs are 5-0; it’s region wins that will get them into the playoffs, Fitzgerald said.
Along the way, Fitzgerald and the Bulldogs are dealing with a new kind of pressure. Last year, fans wanted Fitzgerald to win one game. Now, it’s every game.
“It’s all about how you deal with it,” Fitzgerald said. “The players aren’t getting overconfident and aren’t getting cocky — they’re humble and they understand hard work’s what got us here and hard work is what’s going to take us to the next level.”
Douglas isn’t taking Pueblo lightly, even at 1-4. The Warriors have been without some of their key players, including Ruben Rivera III, for the last few weeks, but are healthy this week.
The Bulldogs have other motivation, too.
“We just want to show them we’re not the same team,” Chavez said. “We want to shut them out.”
