From 1998-2001, Dave Carruthers led Urbana High School football to four consecutive state championships and 50 consecutive wins.
Of all the championship banners that have been hung in Urbana High School, some of the most noticeable include the four state football championships between 1998 and 2001. One constant with all those teams was head coach Dave Carruthers, who was a very experienced coach and led Urbana and Linganore many successful seasons.
Carruthers began his coaching career at Damascus High School with the junior varsity team at a new Damascus program. Shortly after being let go, he coached the Damascus youth football team.
Coaching this team gave Carruthers valuable experience in developing a team. His team was very inexperienced and according to Carruthers, “I had only one player who had ever played football.” He coached this team similar to a high school team, and he lost the youth super bowl that year by one point
Carruthers then went to a newly opened Seneca Valley High School as a health teacher and asked the head coach if he could be an assistant varsity coach. According to Carruthers they won 2-3 state championships during his time as an assistant.
After moving to Mount Airy, Carruthers daughter went to Linganore High School and during that time the head football coach got fired. Carruthers then applied and got accepted for the job in May of 1979.
One of Carruthers biggest coaching philosophies was the importance of the weight room and other forms of strength training. Carruthers implemented this at Linganore by using the weight room when it was open and would do pushups on cadence in the stadium.
The current athletic director of Urbana, Mitchell Rubin worked at Linganore while Carruthers was coaching there.
Rubin said that he modeled parts of his coaching style off of Carruthers, which led him to a boys soccer state championship and a girls soccer state championship.
While at Linganore, Carruthers would give motivational speeches to the physical education classes every Friday. Rubin even said that it would be great if Carruthers could come to Urbana for a day and give one of those speeches.
Besides offseason lifting, Carruthers also implemented in-season lifting from what he learned under Coach Al Thomas at Seneca Valley.
Carruthers coached a total of 16 years at Linganore leading them to four state championship appearances and two state championships.
Then the Principal at Linganore got a job at Urbana high school and personally invited Carruthers to be the first head coach there. “I had kids that played for me at Linganore, and I had their brothers play for me at Urbana”
During his first year at Urbana, Carruthers’ team consisted of only 9th graders and during that season they played a freshman and junior varsity schedule, which resulted in a one loss season.
Carruthers second year coaching consisted of only 10th and 9th graders with Urbana now playing a JV schedule and some smaller varsity teams.
The third year at Urbana was the first time Urbana had a varsity team with only 11th graders and younger led by sophomore Zack Mills who would eventually become a true freshman starter at Penn State University.
In 1998 during Urbana’s fourth year as a football program, they beat the Fort Hill Sentinels who had a football program since 1938 to win Urbana’s first state championship.
Urbana won the state championship the next year, then the next, then the next.
All four of these seasons consisted of an undefeated record and combined had a legendary 50 game winning streak.
During the fourth state championship game against Patuxent High School Urbana won 10-9, but not without a scare. A Patuxent field goal went wide in the final seconds and according to Carruthers the field goal would’ve been good at a high school stadium, but they were playing at a college stadium.
According to Carruthers, the main reason why his teams were so successful was because of players buying into the program and committing. A part of this was the year-round lifting that his players did as a team or in weight training classes.
During a game against Williamsport, which wasn’t a great program at the time, the strength of Carruthers team really showed. Towards the end of the game, Williamsport players were telling quarterback Kevin Roberts:
Carruthers not only won state championships, but he also let his players have a bit of fun on the field.
Despite criticism from the press, Carruthers would put himself aside for the fun of his players. An example of this was when kicker Josh Brown broke his brothers record for field goals in a career during a blowout win. This kick was seen by others as disrespectful, but Carruthers knew the importance of it for his players.
Carruthers also had a very unique policy as a coach where his players and coaches weren’t allowed to swear. This was an example of the standards he set for his players to follow while coaching
One of his beliefs as a coach, that all sports players should follow, is that you should always do something. He even said that “If you’re doing another sport, I don’t care as long as you’re doing something”.
Carruthers encouraged his players to play other sports because he believes that the best athletes play multiple sports. If his players weren’t playing another sport out of season then he required them to attend off-season lifting programs with the team.
The level of commitment that Carruthers players had was very unique as even Rubin admired that the teams Carruthers coached were completely bought into the program.
The commitment players had to the team was shown in mentality but also physically. As Rubin said that even the smallest players on the team weren’t small players.
A mindset that Carruthers also believes is that it’s important to commit in and out of season to any sports you want to play.
He said that a quote all players should follow is, “If you pay the price then you’re more apt to receive the price.”
In a sport like football with so many players and positions it’s difficult for a head coach to do the job on their own so assistant coaches are very important. Carruthers was very thankful for his assistant coaches which included Bill Henson, Rick Conner, and John Grim among others.
Carruthers had one of the most successful coaching careers in the history of Maryland high school sports. His legacy is not only seen in the many trophies that he won, but also in the expectations that Urbana Football has every year.
Carruthers certainly cemented his legacy as a coaching legend; what steps can others take to create their own legacy?
