By Marty Gordon
Blacksburg High School has appointed former Bruin runner Stephen Howard as its new cross-country head coach. Howard replaces Brandon Bear, who stepped down at the end of the spring track season.
Howard is a Blacksburg native and a former manager of the local RunAbout Sports store, which is owned by his former BHS coach James DeMarco.
While pursuing a degree at Virginia Tech, Howard gained coaching experience as one of DeMarco’s BHS assistants. For the past few years, he has coached at Christiansburg Middle School where he also teaches science.
Howard calls the new opportunity a dream come true. In 2006, he graduated from Virginia Tech with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and then added a Master’s in science curriculum and instruction.
After graduating from Tech, Howard moved to Korea where he taught English to students K-6. When he returned to the states, he served as a zookeeper at the Virginia Aquarium in Virginia Beach.
He spent four years at Christiansburg Middle School and was named the school’s teacher of the year this past year.
Howard does not expect any major changes in the routine at BHS and says his coaching style mirrors that of his former coach, who had a lot of success at the school.
The new coach will have some big shoes to fill.
Bear coached seven state championship teams and 43 individual and relay state champions. Two athletes broke Virginia state records across all classifications in the 2000m steeplechase (2017, Ben Fleming) and the one-mile race walk (2019, Oscar Coddington).
Two BHS athletes currently hold 4A state Records in the indoor 3200m (Kaitlynn Wolfe) and the indoor 55m (Cole Beck). The girls’ cross-country team qualified for the Nike Cross National Championships in Portland, Ore., every year Bear was head coach except for the most recent one in 2019.
Howard and his team will host the Blacksburg Relays on August 28 and the Metro Championships on October 20.