Eastern asst. football coach will become head coach in Ohio

By Bob Sutton

Special to The Alamance News

Torrance Carle, an assistant football coach at Eastern Alamance for nearly a decade and previously at Graham, has been hired as head coach at Sandy Valley in Magnolia, Ohio.

“It has been a good experience, and I’ve worked with a lot of good coaches,” Carle said.

Carle first worked in Alamance County at Graham, where he was a teacher and assistant football coach for three years under coach Anthony Timmons. When Timmons left for a coaching job at Knightdale, Carle went along.

After one season, he decided the commute from Alamance County was too much, so he joined the Eastern staff and spent nine years with the Eagles. Becoming a head coach was a goal.

“It definitely has been for me,” Carle said. “Learned as much as I can.”

Eastern coach John Kirby said Carle filled many roles with the Eagles.

“He would do pretty much anything we wanted him to do,” Kirby said. “He was one of those guys who wanted as much given to him as possible.”

Carle’s roles on Eastern’s staff included associate head coach, co-offensive coordinator, special teams coordinator, and offensive line coach. He worked on the defensive side on Timmons’ staffs.

Carle also began a social media presence for the Eastern program and has handled the logistics associated with that.

“He took a lot off of me,” Kirby said. “He did a lot.”

Carle, 36, was hired by Sandy Valley in February. He’ll remain at Eastern, where he also teaches a physical education class along with being an English teacher, for most of the rest of the school year.

He previously had other coaching roles, including with the junior varsity baseball team and a season of boys’ tennis at Graham. He was Eastern’s boys’ track and field coach.

Sandy Valley is coming off a 0-10 season in the last of Brian Gamble’s nine years as coach. Gamble resigned in December.

Carle is a graduate of Minerva High School in Ohio. There’s no formal spring football workouts in Ohio, so he won’t miss out on that. He’s spending this week at Sandy Valley during Eastern’s spring break. He’ll also work in the English department at Sandy Valley in the next school year.

High school football in Ohio generates lots of interest in most communities. Sandy Valley’s home stadium has artificial turf and a video scoreboard, Carle said.