Whoever said you can't go home never met newly minted Greencastle High School head football coach David Stephens.

The former Owen County offensive coordinator is back with Greencastle, where he previously served as an assistant coach and is a 1997 Greencastle graduate. 

When he was hired, Stephens said he had to pinch himself when he thought about coaching the program where it all started for him.

"I grew up in the poorest part of Greencastle. Educators were invested in me and believed in me, giving me an opportunity to see that I had a future if I was willing to work for it. It is exciting and surreal," Stephens told The Putnam County Post. 

The excitement has carried over through the offseason, which Stephens said has gone "amazing up to this point."

"We have been recruiting our school hard and we are sitting at 70 players who are committed to playing football this fall and looking to add more to the roster," said Stephens, who inherits a team that finished 2022 with 38 players. "We have recently started spring football and the players are learning us and we are learning them. At this point, we want to be starting the foundations of building relationships with our new players and conveying how our standard operating procedures work." 

The fact that Stephens is a Tiger Cub has helped, as well, he said. 

"I have relationships in the community from my time as a high school student. I have relationships in the community from my time there as a teacher and a coach. This has helped immensely in my return and the community has been more supportive than I could have ever imagined," Stephens said. 

He added the major points of his first offseason are building relationships and earning the trust of parents and players. 

"We have a wonderful staff who are all aligned and committed to implementing a new culture at Greencastle High School," Stephens said. 

Strength coach Andrew Tirrotta has been putting the players through weight training and singled out the efforts of rising seniors Jackson Buis and Lamar Moore, and rising juniors Kaiden Toasino and Ian Williamson as players who have had outstanding offseasons, according to Stephens. 

As he continues to move closer to his season opener with Greencastle, Stephens admits there is a lot of excitement surrounding the program when it comes to the upcoming season. 

"We have an extremely challenging first quarter of the season with perpetual top ranked teams like Danville, Northview and South Putnam. We look forward to the competition and testing our mettle versus the top programs in our area. In the second half of the season, we have Owen Valley on the schedule and that game will have a pretty big emotional impact as we have multiple coaches who were part of the success at Owen Valley the past two seasons coaching against players that we love and want the best for for the Owen Valley sideline. It will be an eventful season for the Tiger Cubs, no doubt," Stephens said.