New Liberty head football coach Dustin McGee is ready for his Falcons to fly

Dustin McGee has some big shoes to fill, but despite following in the footsteps of legendary head coach Eric Mahlum who stepped down after 15 years on the sidelines at Liberty High School, the first-year coach is ready, willing and excited to take the reins at the Hillsboro school.

“The support here has been unreal,” McGee said. “It’s just a great community of people who love Liberty and love Liberty football and want to see our kids have the best experience possible. How can I not be excited about that?”

Despite stemming from the South, this is McGee’s second stint on the sidelines in Oregon. The Arkansas native coached at Santiam Christian where he took the team from 2-7 in the season prior to his arrival to the 2A state title game three years later.

From there, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee to get closer to home and coached at Ezell-Harding High School for four seasons, taking a 2-8 team to a state championship in just his second season.

McGee then left Tennessee to get back to the Northwest region he and his wife very much loved, coaching a season at Centralia and one more at Meadowdale in Washington before agreeing to coach the Falcons last spring.

While his recent resume suggests something of a nomadic coaching experience, McGee said his last two moves were precipitated by a lack of teaching opportunities. Here, he’s got a position at South Meadows Middle School in Hillsboro and is once again eager to get back to teaching, in the classroom and of course on the gridiron in an area they’re excited to return to.

“My wife and I love Oregon, and we just could never find teaching stability in Washington,” he said. “Then Alan (Foster, Liberty’s athletic director) and I had a couple of conversations about the mission of what football means to Liberty, and how it’s about making a positive impact on kids, and that’s what I’m in it for.

“It’s not just about winning and losing, it’s about using the sport as a tool to change lives. Now, here I am.”

McGee has been working with and getting to know his team much of the summer via voluntary lifts and seven-on-seven drills, and by way of official and unofficial training camps throughout August.

He’s also familiarized himself with his new staff, much of which remained from Mahlum’s regime.

“This is probably the best football staff I’ve ever walked into, and they’ve been extremely helpful to me,” McGee said. “They’ve been a huge part of everything over the past couple of months and been pretty helpful, especially when it comes to building a relationship with the kids.”

The coach also said he’s used Mahlum as a resource.

“We’ve had many conversations,” McGee said. “He’s been really supportive and given me some insight into the people and traditions of the past.”

McGee said he plans to hang on to many of those traditions, while integrating his own style into the program.

He also plans to continue running the veer offense but with a touch of his own flavor, including possibly implementing more to the passing game.

In all, he doesn’t expect things to look all that different than they have in the past. His focus has always been and will continue to be on fundamentals, wherein the coach said lies the foundation of success.

“I just think playing sound fundamental defense and offense wins a lot of football games,” McGee said. “My philosophy has always been to try not to beat yourself. We train our kids to do the little things right and play with a lot of discipline and energy, and great things tend to happen when you do that.”

And what does he expect from his team in his initial campaign? One never knows, but McGee said he doesn’t fear expectations and will always aim for a high level of success.

“We’re never shy with the kids to talk about greatness,” the coach said. “We want to strive for greatness in everything we do, and we talk about that daily. And that doesn’t necessarily mean what the scoreboard says, but how we approach each day. We want to be our best and looking forward to hopefully having a successful year.”

Liberty kicks off the season against Barlow at 7 p.m. on Sept. 6, at Barlow High School.