Who Says You Can’t Go After Your Dream Job? Brian Grout was hired to lead the football program at Puyallup High School – high school sports news, scores, videos, rankings
Whoever was listening, and while he was in high school, Brian Grout was telling people around him that he wanted to be a football coach at Puyallup High School one day.
A pipe dream?
No more.
Grout, 36, an assistant coach to the Vikings for the past four seasons, including the last three years as offensive coordinator, was announced Tuesday as the new chief honcho at Puyallup, replacing Gary Jeffers, who retired after 11 seasons (66-42 record ). .
Under Grout, the Vikings’ offense averaged 422.1 yards and 39.0 points per game over the past three seasons.
“He grew up in the Puyallup system,” said Jeffers. “He played there. He trained there. He knows from an early age what the expectations of this job are. “
Grout is considered to be the first Viking alum to take on this head coaching position.
“To be honest, this has been a lifelong goal,” said Grout, who was an offensive lineman on the team and graduated from Puyallup in 2003. “As a teenager, I made a personal commitment to be the head coach.” At Puyallup.
“I am convinced of my experience and my relationship with the community and the children.”
And that was a message he brought out in his interview with the recruitment committee.
“I told them, ‘I know that you will be interested in really good football coaches in this job, but I don’t think any of the candidates have built their lives or professional careers, including relationships within this community, like me,'” said Grout. “My vision for football goes beyond winning and losing.”
After graduating from Central Washington University, he volunteered for a season at Puyallup to coach the offensive linemen, which included the NFL first-round draft pick for Joshua Garnett.
A year later, he joined former Vikings teammate Jared Gervais’ team at Auburn Mountainview and eventually became the offensive coordinator.
He returned to Puyallup in 2017 as an offensive line coach, then was promoted to chief playcaller – and was largely blamed for adding a run element (RPO) to the Vikings’ tight-fitting spread offensive.
When he received news last week that he was being hired, Grout called his wife, then his parents, and good friend Adam Schakel, the trainer at Emerald Ridge.
“They all said, ‘Wow, you did it!'” Said Grout.
