FSU Hires DeLane Fitzgerald as Head Football Coach

DeLane Fitzgerald has been hired to replace Tom Rogish as the head coach of the Frostburg State University Bobcat football team. Rogish retired at the end of the 2013 season. He coached the Bobcats for seven seasons.

Fitzgerald comes to FSU with 20 years of experience in coaching, including 15 at the college level. His most recent coaching stop was at Southern Virginia University (SVU), where he coached for eight years. For five of those years, he was the team’s head coach. As a head coach, he accumulated 24 wins and 30 losses. He capped his SVU career with a school record 8-2 season.

He is from Nelson County, VA, and he attended James Madison University. As a student, he studied Kinesiology with focuses in exercise science and coaching.

“If you can finish what you start, you can finish on the field,” said Coach Fitzgerald when talking to his new team. He continued, “We’re going to win more games in the future than we’ve won in the past.”

He plans on being very competitive in the fall with the team and expects the team to line up week in and week out. His goal for the team is to go to make it to playoffs and win a championship. He thinks the Bobcats have a good chance on winning a lot more games now with him as their coach. He added that winning will also be up to the coaching staff.

Head Coach Fitzgerald wants his players to strive for success on and off the field.

Coach Fitzgerald has met with the team several times, and he always stresses that he wants them to learn how to finish everything they start. He advises his players to drop excuses, and to be punctual for everything. He urges his players to take accountability for their actions, learn how to have a competitive spirit, and most important, he wants them all to raise their grades.

He cares about football just as much as the team does, but he cares more about their grades. This message is already clear in the locker room, as the Bobcats did land a record six players on the Empire 8 President’s list in the fall.

The FSU football program has not seen success in recent years, but that could change this season. There is a “clean slate” and a fresh start, as he stated in a meeting with the players.

In his address to the team, the coach said, “How you finish is always more important than how you start. And I thought tonight was a great start!”

Coach Fitzgerald is getting off to a fantastic start with the Bobcat football team, and hopefully, the team will have an even better finish.