Erie-Prophetstown’s Whitebread, Abbott swap coaching roles: ‘A perfect timing type of thing’

Timing is everything. Or so the saying goes. For Erie-Prophetstown football coaches Tyler Whitebread and Jesse Abbott, who essentially traded places on the coaching staff this offseason, those words ring true.

Abbott, who served as head coach of the Panthers for the past five seasons, will be an assistant coach this season. Whitebread, who served as a defensive assistant the past seven seasons, will be the head coach.

“This is a great opportunity for me,” Whitebread said. “This is something that I’ve always wanted; I just never really thought I was ready for it, but within the past few years, I felt I was getting closer to that, so I’m super excited.”

The coaching switch made perfect sense for both parties. Whitebread was interested in becoming a varsity football head coach. Abbott was looking to free up time for his family. By essentially swapping roles on the team, they killed two birds with one stone.

“I think it was kind of a perfect timing type of thing where I probably wasn’t too many years down the road from being done, and he expressed the desire to be a head coach,” Abbott said. “It just felt like now would be the best time: it keeps the staff together, we don’t have to find another person of Tyler’s quality. I don’t really see a lot of change from now. He’s very detailed, he’s dedicated, he’s really building relationships with the players, which is a good thing right now.”

Five years ago, Abbott accepted the head coach job with some reservations. Over time, he grew into it.

Now, he’s handing it off to his co-worker, hoping he can do the same.

“When I first took the head coach job, it was never my goal to be a head coach. I grew to love it, but I’ve got a daughter who’s a sophomore, and I had to miss a few of her things playing sports in the fall. I knew it came with the territory,” Abbott said. “At the end of the season, near the winter, Tyler expressed a desire to be a head coach and saw some opportunities, and I suggested him and I flipping roles and taking more of the assistant varsity role that he had, and he takes on the head coach mantra and steering the program in the direction he wants to take it.

“But I guess it really comes down to freeing up a little more time for me to see my family, and my eldest daughter playing high school sports, and my younger daughter who will be in middle school the following year.”

Whitebread brings 17 years of coaching experience to the Panthers. He spent the first five years coaching at Kirkland Hiawatha, then he moved on to Morrison, where he taught and coached for another five years. From there, he went to Erie.

He’s been there ever since.

At Morrison, Whitebread was a varsity girls basketball head coach. Now, he’s a first-time varsity football head coach for E-P.

All of those years of coaching have prepared Whitebread for this moment, but his time under Abbott was especially important.

“I think the biggest thing Jesse did for me is he allowed me to be myself. He allowed me to game-plan defensively, kind of whatever I thought was going to work, he was willing to try it. He gave me total control of it,” Whitebread said. “He kind of empowered me, and that’s what got me the confidence to direct an entire program, from him allowing me to do that. Jesse’s really good with organization, making sure we spend enough time on offense, defense and special teams, setting up the fundraisers. He’s a huge benefit to me and the program.”

As he adjusts to life as a head football coach, Whitebread will lean on his assistants as often as needed. Going into the new job, he knows he’ll never have all the answers, or always have the best solution to a problem. That humility and self-awareness should serve him well.

“I think I’m collaborative. I like to see how the other coaches can help,” Whitebread said. “I know I don’t have the answers to every situation, so I’m going to try to pick their brains and try to figure out what the best solution is.”

In his first year leading the team, Whitebread isn’t planning any radical changes. In fact, he expects much to remain the same – perhaps with an added emphasis on the defensive side of the ball.

“There’s some things I want to focus on in terms of how we play. I want to compete harder than any team we play – that’s one play at a time – and I really want us to focus on that,” Whitebread said. “I want the guys to be selfless, where it’s about the team, about each other, rather than the individual goals. Lastly, we’ve gotta be positive. Adversity is going to hit us at some point, so we have to embrace that rather than run from it.

“Being a defensive coach, I’m probably going to spend a little more time on defense, kind of what we’ve been doing. We run the ball, that’s kind of our style. Grind it out. Not letting any big plays beat us.”