By Thomas Jones, Sports Editor

With Westlake’s first spring football in 20 years less than a month away, the Chaps’ revamped coaching staff took a step toward completion with the arrival of four new assistants.

Ted Willmann, Matt Anastasio, Jeff Rhoads and Lee Rabe have joined new head football coach Darren Allman’s staff at Westlake. All but Rhoads worked with Allman at Odessa Permian last season, and Rhoads joined Permian’s staff in the off-season after coaching at Brownwood in 2008.

All of those coaches except for Rabe were contractually tied to Allman, which meant that those coaches’ contracts at Permian terminated when Allman resigned as Permian’s head coach.

The quartet of new coaches will replace four Westlake coaches from a year ago. Lane Grigg resigned after 11 years on Westlake’s coaching staff, including the past six as defensive coordinator. He will retain a teaching position in the district and will serve as an assistant coach on Westlake’s state-ranked boys golf team.

Mark Hurst will leave the football staff after 30 years but will remain as Westlake’s head boys track coach. Steve Ramsey, a finalist for the head-coaching job, will drop his coaching duties and remain at Westlake as an assistant principal. Jared Wingfield has accepted a spot as offensive coordinator at Port Neches-Groves High School and will leave Westlake next week.

Ironically, Wingfield will join the staff of new Port Neches-Groves head coach Brandon Faircloth, a former Westlake assistant who served as the offensive coordinator at Permian last year.

Allman said Monday that he has yet to determine all the job descriptions for his staff. However, the new assistants appear to have their duties in place. Willmann will serve as the assistant head coach and coach the offensive line, Anastasio will be the defensive coordinator and coach the inside linebackers, Rhoads will work as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, and Rabe will handle the defensive-line duties.

Five coaches will be retained from last season, including Sul Ross, Bob Abbott, Zach Brockman, Jeff Montgomery and Brian Vasek. Ross worked with Westlake’s quarterbacks and served as the offensive coordinator last year, Abbott coached the linebackers, Brockman coached the running backs, Montgomery coached the defensive line, and Vasek served as the offensive line coach.

Westlake will conduct spring football from May 1-22, according to Allman. Spring football includes a full-contact practice schedule and takes the place of the first week of two-a-day preseason workouts in August.