This Saturday the Tyrone Golden Eagles will meet District X Champion Hickory Hornets in a PIAA quarterfinal rematch from 2011 that saw the Golden Eagles come out on top 40-28.

Unlike last week’s game vs. Mount Union that featured a clash of two young first year head coaches, this week’s opponent is led by a very experienced head coach.

Hickory’s Head Coach Bill Brest is in his 29^th year of coaching.  Brest has experience on both the high school and college level, coaching wide receivers and running backs at Thiel College for 12 seasons.  He was also an assistant coach on the 1989 Hickory state championship team.

Brest is in his fifth year as the head coach of the Hornets.  In 2011, Brest’s second year as head coach, the Hornets made it to the state quarterfinals, where they were defeated by Tyrone, the eventual state runner up.

Since then Brest’s team has won four consecutive District X titles.

We had the opportunity to interview Coach Brest by phone on Tuesday morning.  Here’s what he had to say:

Eagle Eye: Can you tell us a little bit about your coaching background?

Coach Brest: This is my 5th year as head coach at Hickory. Prior to this I coached for 13 years at Thiel College and before that I was an assistant coach at Hickory for 10 years. I also have taught English at Hickory High for the past 26 years.

EE: How does coaching at the collegiate level help you as a coach?

Brest: The three main things I took away from my time at Thiel were teaching fundamentals, understanding the dynamics of play calling, and motivating the players. You have to respect the time of the kids more in high school, we don’t have as much time for practice and analyzing film as players do in college. But our boys do a great job and work hard; their effort speaks for itself.

EE: Your team has reeled in four consecutive District 10 Titles, to what do you contribute your continued success?

Brest: We have set objectives throughout the year. We start small, focusing on our opener and taking it one game at a time. We put our full attention and set goals toward winning our division title, district championship and advance to the state championship.

We truly believe in our philosophy, we call it R.Y.F.P.: Reach Your Full Potential, where we focus on the process of daily improvement.  We don’t focus on what’s going on Saturday, we focus on each day of practice, we want to be better on Wednesday than we were on Tuesday.

Right now our philosophy is we are 0-0 right now.  Our goal is to be 1-0 by Saturday at 4:00.  Each game is a new season.

EE: What players in particular have had an impact on your teams success?

Brest: You’ve got to take a look at your young kids, your scout team players.  We ask so much of them and they do a great job.  Plus our senior leadership has been phenomenal this year.  This has been the best senior group I’ve had when it comes to leadership.

EE: What can you take away from your teams defeat against Tyrone in 2011 that has helped you prepare for now?

Brest: Tyrone had some great outstanding athletes, physical football players and their coaching staff exceled at using them in the right places throughout a football game. John Franco was a legend and ran a good program, but I think this 2014 Tyrone team really mirrors that 2011 team: great athletes, physical football players.

In 2011 I think our kids were a little “dear in the headlights” kind of look going down to Altoona at Mansion Park and we got behind early.  At the beginning we didn’t match Tyrone’s intensity.

We have to match their intensity this week, especially early in the game. So that’s one thing that we learned.

EE: Your team has managed to defeat two of the teams who you lost to in the regular season during your playoff run. What changed from then till now?

Brest: We lost both those games back to back weeks and it really caused some panic. My assistants and I had a meeting to sort things out.  My philosophy has always been that when we lose its all on me,  but when we win its all about the kids. That’s what I’ve grown up learning to do.

After we had that tough stretch, after that second loss I pulled the coaches in and we had a meeting and I laid it on the table, we were expecting different results by doing the same thing.

So we made a couple personnel changes and we had to teach some technique differently.  Those two things were the biggest things that have helped us to rebound and get to where we’re at today.  Without a doubt, that meeting really saved our season.  Also the seniors set the tone that week and we became closer and closer since then.

EE: Tyrone and Hickory are similar in that we’ve both played in and won a state championship in the past. What is Hickory Football all about and what really defines the culture for your team?

Brest: First of all, we focus on our players and our program, that’s the most important thing.  We have great community support. The kids don’t walk around cocky, they walk around with smiles on their face, they’re part of the student body.

But when it comes to a football game on Friday night we had to create a culture here.  Before I took over there was not much school spirit. Now we have the largest crowds in the history of Hickory football.

Our kids try to lead by example as well.  We are extremely proud of our kids, We preach character here.  And we preach academics.  Our teams have averaged a cumulative GPA over the past five years of 3.45, something we are very proud of.

EE: Thanks again Coach Brest, and good luck. We’re all looking forward to a great football game.

Brest: Same here, thanks for the interview, I thoroughly enjoyed it!