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E-mail This StoryR.L. Turner’s football team has their guy to lead the Lions into their first season in District 10-4A.
Tyrone Larkins, a Turner linebacker coach last season, has been named head coach of R.L. Turner’s football team, taking over for former coach Larry McBroom.
“We are very happy to have him on board,” said C-FB ISD interim athletic director Renee Putter. “He’s a great fit. He works well with the kids and he is a great motivator which is really what we need at Turner.”
Putter said Larkins was selected out of a pool of about 50 applicants.
Larkins, who attended high school in Haughton, La., moved on to play college football at Southern Arkansas before an injury ended his playing days.
Larkins is in his 14th year of coaching. He began his career coaching in Louisiana before coming to Texas as a defensive line coach at The Colony High School in 1999. Larkins was at The Colony for three years before accepting a defensive coordinator job at Bryan Adams High School in Dallas.
From there Larkins took a defensive coordinator job at Vivian Field Middle School in Farmers Branch. Larkins coached at Field for two years, before moving to Turner as a linebackers coach.
“At Field we had a good run where all four of our teams finished second, but I felt like I wanted to get back into high school,” Larkins said.
Larkins said he is looking forward to coaching some of the same players he coached while at Field. The middle school is one which feeds students into Turner.
“The future is bright. Some of the guys on the 6-2 team I coached at Fields will be sophomores now. We just want to continue what coach McBroom instituted. Continue working hard on fundamentals and in the weight room.”
Larkins added he is looking forward to coaching in the new District 10-4A, and while the team is rather young and inexperienced, they are returning some key players.
“We’re looking forward to the challenge of getting to play the Highland Parks and Rockwalls,” Larkins said. “The kids are excited, we just need to continue to work hard and improve.”
In addition to the change of district, fans can also anticipate slight changes in the Lions schemes.
“Defensively we are looking to get a more up-tempo, attacking style defense,” Larkins said. “Last year we primarily ran the 3-4, but we are going to mix in some 4-2-5 and 3-3-stack defenses. We want to make the defenses cater to us.”
Larkins added that on offense Turner was looking to utilize the skills of their players more.
“A lot of our players are skilled in soccer,” Larkins said. “So we want to get the ball to our players in the open field more where they can utilize their foot speed and skills.”
Fans interested in seeing the Lions can attend a six-team 7-on-7 football tournament Thursday at 3 p.m. at Standridge Stadium, including Carrollton schools Newman Smith and American Heritage among others.
