Aug. 23—VALLEY CITY, N.D. — For the first time in years, Valley City’s football program is right where it needs to be.
“A few years ago when I was the offensive coordinator we had a pretty good program,” said newly appointed head coach Chad Smith. “We beat Jamestown for the first time in 15 or 20 years and yeah, we were pretty dang good but we were also playing against the Fargo schools.
“That wasn’t always the best thing for Valley City,” he said. “In the last few years Valley City’s enrollment has gone down a little bit.”
The North Dakota High School Activities Association has noticed the decline — and they did something about it.
The Hi-Liners will be playing at the Class A level this season against schools like Oakes, Harvey/Wells County, Velva-Drake-Anamoose and Mayville-Portland-C-G.
“Playing against like-sized schools will help continue to grow interest and talent here in Valley City,” Smith said.
Smith was named the new head coach of the football squad in February. He replaces Scott Engram, who coached the team for two seasons.
“I am very excited about it,” Smith said. “We’ve got a really good group of kids. The kids who are seniors now would have been freshmen when I was their offensive coordinator, so it’s pretty cool to see some of those guys mature and grow up from when I coached them last.”
Smith has been coaching football at some level for the past 15 years. He has held jobs at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana, Williston High School, University of Mary, Valley City State University and North Dakota State University. He was also the offensive coordinator for the Hi-Liners during the 2022 season.
“I kind of have to transition my brain from the college world where you spend the offseason recruiting and doing the in-depth pre-work,” Smith said. “For me, this offseason is about getting to know our roster again and who’s playing football and who is not then going out and watching them play baseball or run track.
“You just slowly work at building relationships with those guys, then find the guys who you want to be a part of your staff and slowly work to build the playbook,” he said. “Nothing had to be rushed which was nice. Sometimes it felt like I was really far behind, but I had parents reach out and tell me they appreciated the way I was communicating. That’s exciting to think I am doing things in the right way. I guess we will find out if I am when we suit up and go play a game, but until it’s always nice to hear the positiveness that is growing.”
As of July 29, Smith said he is expecting 30 to 35 kids out for football this season.
“I think we have a pretty strong senior class,” Smith said. “I think everybody’s going to talk about Tre McPartland — he’s the NDSU preferred walk-on kid that we have on our team. He’s had a pretty good summer for us.”
Seniors Corbyn Powell and Jacksyn Thornton are expected to be back for a final outing with the Hi-Liners. Smith said Powell will likely see time at linebacker and running back while Thornton has the chance to be the starting quarterback.
That’s not all.
“It’s kind of weird to say but this might be the biggest o-line I may have ever coached in the high school world,” Smith said. “I have three kids who are 6-foot-5 and taller. Jack Dieterle is 6-7 and may have the opportunity to play at the college level if he develops a little bit of toughness.
“Tre is 6-foot-5 and 285 (pounds) and has a preferred walk-on spot at NDSU and then we have a sophomore — Owen Hunt — who is 6-foot-5, 285 and he’s going to be pretty talented for us in the future,” he said. “We’re big. I don’t know if we are very deep or not but we’re big which is awesome.”
Valley City began practices on Aug. 7 and will open the year with a tilt against defending state champions Velva/Drake-Anamoose on Aug. 22.
“We’re just going to be as fundamentally as sound as we can be and continue to grow,” Smith said. “We’re not going to be a well-oiled machine week one, but against the defending state champions we are going to find out if we can at least be competitive and play the right way.”