Saguaro High School announced the promotion of defensive backs and wide receivers coach Darius Kelly to be its next head football coach.
The move comes just over a month after former coach Zach Hill left for ALA Gilbert North before becoming an assistant coach with the Seattle Seahawks.
“I am pleased to announce that Darius Kelly will be the next head football coach of the Saguaro SaberCats,” Saguaro Athletic Director Matt Harris said in a press release Tuesday night. “Darius is passionate about soccer and developing players who can excel on and off the field.”
Kelly was a standout football player at Buena High School in southern Arizona and then played at Pima Community College in Tucson. After he graduated from junior college, he earned a scholarship to play at Syracuse.
After his playing career, he returned to Buena to become an assistant coach and was then hired as an assistant at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire. He returned to Tucson and was named head coach of Catalina Foothills, a program that had about 40 players on its roster when he arrived for the transfer.
Kelly quickly rebuilt the program in two seasons, coaching the Tucson Sidewinders as a junior college reserve for one season before being hired as the Saguaro defensive backs and wide receivers coach under Hill.
Kelly will be Saguaro's third head coach in recent years, following long-term coaches John Saunders and Jason Mohns until the 2023 season.
Hill was hired to replace Mohns, and even though the regular season was down on Saguaro's terms, the Sabercats caught fire at the right time and won the 6A conference championship. Just two months after winning the championship, Hill accepted the role of associate athletic director at ALA Gilbert North, coaching under Ty Detmer, who at the time had just been reappointed to the Gilbert campus from ALA Queen Creek. announced that he would serve.
The ink on Hill's contract wasn't dry, and the Seahawks called and sent him for hire as an analyst.
But instead of Saguaro's uncertainty, Harris and the recruiting committee believe they found the right coach for the job.
“We look forward to his elite leadership and guidance to our student-athletes in our state championship football program and know he will have an immediate and long-lasting positive impact on our school and community. ,” Harris wrote. “Coach Kelly will meet with returning players and staff tomorrow morning to share his vision and core values as we continue to build on the tradition of Saguaro football.”
