State title-winning football coach headed to Caldwell. His plan to rebuild the Cougars
A veteran coach with a 5A state championship ring and a reputation for turning around struggling programs will take over the Caldwell football team next fall.
Caldwell High School announced Kip Crofts as its new football coach Thursday. Crofts led Meridian to a perfect season and a state title in 2007. More recently he engineered a turnaround at Payette, a program whose path mirrors Caldwell’s.
“People don’t like to use the word ‘rebuild,’ but we’re in the process of building a program, and Kip has a lot of experience building programs,” Caldwell Athletic Director Jon Hallock said. “He’s proven that, taking programs that were struggling and building them into more successful ones.”
His official hire still requires Caldwell school board approval; the board next meets on Feb. 13.
Crofts, 56, inherits a Caldwell program on a 34-game losing streak. The Cougars last made the playoffs in 2005, which is also the last year they finished at or above .500.
But Crofts said despite marquee openings at schools like Bishop Kelly, Capital, Owyhee and Skyview this offseason, only one school could lure him away from Payette.
“I didn’t even think about them,” Crofts said. “I wasn’t interested. It was Caldwell or nothing.
“If Caldwell wouldn’t have opened up, I would still be in Payette next year.”
Crofts entered a similar rebuilding situation at Payette in 2016. Years of losing led to a disastrous 2018 season, when the Pirates forfeited their entire 3A Snake River Valley schedule due to low turnout and academic issues. But he has since made Payette competitive, snapping a 22-game conference losing streak in 2020 and going 4-5 each of the past two seasons in one of the toughest 3A leagues in the state.
Crofts cautioned that a turnaround at Caldwell will require patience. He said he will focus on rebuilding the program from the ground up. That will require convincing high school students to join the team, engaging athletes at the middle school and lower levels, and changing the culture, he said.
“People always say Rome wasn’t built in a day. I completely understand that,” said Crofts, who went 14-46 at Payette and owns a career record of 42-75. “Where I’m at now, it took us a long time. But I think we’ve done a nice job developing a program that’s been consistent the last two, three years.
“We know the direction we want to go. It’s going to take a good two, three years to get this thing turned around.”
Caldwell will compete as an independent again next season, Hallock said. The format allows the Cougars time to reestablish their program by avoiding the 4A SIC’s traditional powers while giving up playoff eligibility.
Caldwell went 0-9 last fall in its first year as an independent, including a season-opening loss to Payette. But the Cougars haven’t always struggled. They made back-to-back trips to the 4A state semifinals two decades ago, in 2003 and ‘04.
“I want to be the guy to help them,” Crofts said. “I want to be the guy that pulls them back where they need to be, where they want to be, where they should be.”
This story was originally published February 2, 2023 at 5:47 PM.
