Simpson College’s athletic department is welcoming three new coaches to its roster this semester. Reed Hoskins, Anfernee Roberts and Quincy Griffith are taking over the football department and working with the players as they prepare for their spring practices.

Hoskins was announced as the head football coach back on Dec. 13 with a press conference that formally introduced him to the community, but his drive to be a part of Simpson started right when the position became available.

“When the job came open, I actually reached out to Marty Bell right away,” Hoskins said. “Over the course of your career, you’re always kind of thinking about what’s next and I knew about three, four years ago that I wanted to be a head coach.”

At the time, Hoskins was in a good spot with his career and his family liked where they were at. So, he had the ability to be selective about the type of place that he chose.

“I reached out right away because I knew the reputation of Simpson,” Hoskins said. “I was recruited here out of high school 20 years ago, myself, so I’m familiar from that standpoint. And I know the football tradition. I mean, there’s been football here for over 125 years and that type of traditional program where there’s some roots to it is important to me.”

The community was also a draw for Hoskins, somewhere he could feel comfortable moving his family to for an extended period of time.

“The people around here, getting to know them really sold me on it,” he said. “Just knowing that this is a great community to move my family to and a place to set up shop for a long time. So, we feel really good about that piece.”

After the announcement of his position, winter break started, leaving Hoskins to settle into his new office and start looking for new assistant coaches.

“We basically have four jobs,” Hoskins said. “So, we posted these out on a variety of different sites and different venues to get a chance to bring in a lot of different perspectives and a lot of different candidates.”

The first two hires are Anfernee Roberts as the special teams coordinator and Quincy Griffith as the offensive coordinator and offensive line coach.

“I will be designing the plays we run and calling the plays we run and then coaching the five guys up front. Mainly, at my position, coach left tackle, left guard, center, right guard, right tackle,” Griffith said.

He added with a laugh, “The guys that don’t get to touch the ball.”

Roberts was not in the office to comment since he has been in and out getting things prepared for his move.

Both Roberts and Griffith have previously worked with Hoskins at Illinois Wesleyan, where he was the offensive coordinator for seven years before making the move to Simpson.

“I graduated from Wartburg, plus, I’m local, I’m from Ankeny,” Griffith said. “So, I’m aware of Simpson and the community and that kind of stuff, too.”

“It’s great to have a guy with a previous connection,” Hoskins said. “That way, we’re on the same page.”

Hoskins is a Wartburg graduate and Iowa native, as well.

“I grew up in the Tama-Toledo [Iowa] area and then went to high school in Grinnell,” he said. “I played [football] all through high school. Played four sports in high school, which in small town Iowa you can do, right? And then I did my undergrad at Wartburg College and played football there for four years.”

Reed Hoskins has been coaching for 17 years, but this is his first job as a head coach and he is ready to bring change to Storm football.

Coming off a 1-9 season in the fall, winning is one of the goals moving forward, but that’s not Hoskins’ main objective.

“That’s certainly part of it,” he said. “They’ve only won two games the last two years here. So, that’s a big piece but more than that [we want] our guys being excited, having some energy and really be prideful over the type of product that we’re going to put out there on the field on Saturdays.”

The football coaches are working on recruiting in the next couple of months and the players are working on off-season workouts.

“From everything I understand, they’ve been doing a great job with that,” Hoskins said. “After spring break is when we’ll have our spring practices. That last week of March right up until you guys [students] have finals. So that’s what we’re working towards.”

The coaches are located in the Coach Williams Football Suite and are looking forward to getting to know Simpson.

“Ready to get started,” Griffith said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, but the more work you put in the sweeter the success. It’ll be tough, but if it was easy, then I wouldn’t be doing it.”

“There’s so much to do between now and then that it’s hard to take the time to actually be like, alright, I can feel excited about this and enjoy it,” Hoskins said. “But really looking forward to it. I’ve been getting together with our players and had meetings. All those guys have been kind of trickling in as we go and that’s one of my favorite things about this. The relationships and just helping the guys that come here because we can help them in ways that can help themselves. Whether it’s football or academically or otherwise.”