Northfield names Julian Banks coach of its developing football program
Julian Banks has been hired by Northfield to take over its developing football program.
Banks was previously the coach at Adams City for the past two seasons. Before that, he was the Eagles’ defensive coordinator, where he helped end a 58-game losing streak.
Banks’ teams had consecutive 3-7 teams playing in Class 4A under his tenure.
“Our decision was driven primarily by trying to build continuity within the program,” Northfield athletic director Micah Porter said on Thursday. “He is a young coach that lives in the area who is very excited about investing in what’s going in.”
Banks takes over for James Hutchins, who started the junior varsity program last season. Northfield will again be a JV team this fall — the program is going through what Porter calls a “thoughtful rollout” towards varsity in 2018.
“Everything over there that they’re building, all the new facilities, the community around it, all the involvement that I was seeing from last year is great,” Banks said on Thursday. “I had communication with coach Hutchins, and he was letting me know about all the positive things that were happening over at Northfield. When I saw that he had stepped down, I said, ‘Man, that’s really something that I have to be a part of.'”
Banks’ history at Adams City was of particular interest, Porter said.
“He really turned that program around from a struggling program into a competitive team,” Porter said.
Banks, who played college football at Northern Colorado, said that experience will help as he tries to build Northfield’s program into a varsity team.
“I learned a lot on how to build things, and things you look for as a coach and a head coach, how to set the expectations for the weight room, for the practice field,” Banks said. “That helps me going forward with Northfield and starting from scratch: hitting the hallways, hitting the pavement, trying to recruit kids in our school to come out to the football field.”
He added that the fact the Nighthawks will play a JV schedule in 2017 will only help in preparation for the varsity move.
“One of the things I really loved doing was teaching the fundamentals of the game,” Banks said. “We get to scale back and not have to put the pressure on the kids of having that varsity schedule, playing that varsity season.
“Yes, we want to win, we want to be competitive, but we also want to be sure we’re teaching the fundamentals, so when we do step up to the varsity stage, our kids are ready to go, we have our fundamentals down, and we’re ready to compete right out of the gates.”
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