By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
New Eastern Alamance football coach Mitch Mitchener’s connections to one rival team in the county are clear and well-defined.
But the Western Alamance alum is familiar with several programs around Alamance County.
Mitchener was selected to replace retired John Kirby at Eastern, where the football program rose to contend for state championships and win conference titles.
Kirby spent more than three decades leading his alma mater’s team in a distinguished career. Now Mitchener is tasked with trying to keep that trend going.
Mitchener not only was a Western linebacker, but he later was the defensive coordinator. Then after stops on coaching staffs at Topsail and Eastern Guilford, he returned last year and was an assistant again for the Warriors.
So his roots are deepest with Western, where he’s familiar with veteran coach Jeff Snuffer. The Eagles and Warriors collide September 27 for the Eagles’ Central 3-A Conference opener at Western.
But there’s more, for sure. Mitchener was on the coaching staff at Eastern Guilford under Tony Aguilar, who has since become the first head coach at Southeast Alamance.
Years before that, Mitchener did his student teaching in the fall of 2009 at Eastern. He recalled times when there were breaks in the day and he would go into Stokes’ classroom at Eastern and chat about football strategy. Stokes now is the coach at Williams.
For followers of the Eagles, they’re used to these intertwined coaching storylines. Aguilar and Stokes were longtime Eastern assistants before leaving to become head coaches elsewhere, showing up on the opposing sidelines.
Other Eastern assistants, now at Southeast and Williams, who formerly served under now-retired coach John Kirby:
