Nick Sterling hired as head football coach at Hall, aims to bring back Red Devils tradition

SPRING VALLEY - Nick Sterling played in the golden era of Hall High School football, playing on three playoff teams in the mid-1990s, including one state champion team and a state runner-up team.

He turns his attention to getting the Red Devils back to the state championship level.

The former Red Devil has been named as the new Hall head coach, succeeding Logan Larson, who resigned after one season to become head coach at his hometown school, Pleasant Plains.

Sterling, who returned to the Hall program last season as an assistant coaching the linemen and JV team, wanted to take on the job for the betterment of the program and bring back the Red Devils tradition.

“It wasn’t about me. It was important that they got it right to rekindle that fire,” he said.

Sterling’s hire marks the fifth coaching change for Hall since 2019, including a second, two-year stint by Randy Tieman.

“That optic (the coaching changes) alone is not typically what you want for long term,” said Sterling, who is the 16th head football coach at Hall since 1928. “Long term is what we can do to get it back on track is really my only objective. We need to get things back to where they can be.

“It’s going to take a lot of hard work and dedication, for sure. It’s going to take buy-in from the kids, myself and the coaches.”

When it comes to Red Devils tradition, Sterling said he thinks of Friday nights under the lights, playoff football on Saturdays, filling Nesti Stadium every night and the famous pork chops.

“The pork chops. That’s tradition. I had one that first home game (last year) and it hadn’t changed. It was still just as good,” he said.

The Red Devils made the playoffs in 20 of 25 years under Hall of Fame coach Gary Vicini from 1984 to 2008 with two state championships, one runner-up finish, two semifinal appearances and six quarterfinals.

Hall made the playoffs seven times in 10 years under Randy Tieman in two stints as head coach from 2012 to 2023, advancing to the quarterfinals in 2A in 2015.

Having coached last year will help Sterling get a head start knowing his team and their capabilities, he said.

“I only had one year with them just learning who they are and what they can do as an athlete. It was my big learning curve and trying to adapt to Logan and his new philosophies he was trying to implement,” he said.

While playing under the legendary coach Vicini, Sterling said becoming the Red Devils head coach one day was never on his radar.

“Coaching was really never a goal,” he said. “It was never on the horizon nor a goal. It just slowly evolved into that. My intention last year was not to help. I was asked. (Athletic director) Eric (Bryant) said they could use an extra hand. And here we are.”

Adam Curran, a classmate and teammate of Sterling, was hired as an assistant coach for the Red Devils. He is the Spring Valley Chief of Police.

Sterling played on passing downs as a sophomore throughout the playoffs and state championship game in ’95 and was a starter on the 1996 state runner-up and 1998 quarterfinalist. “Stick,” as he was known in school, was also a 6-foot-7, 210-pound force on the Red Devils state runner-up basketball teams in 1996-97 and 1997-98.

He was recruited by Vanderbilt University to play football and transferred after a year and half to Western Illinois and played for the Leathernecks before a back injury forced him to retire.

Hall will be the third Bureau County school with a new head coach this fall with Pat Elder taking over at Bureau Valley and alum Jack Brady at St. Bede. Former St. Bede coach Jim Eustice left for Mendota.