VIRGINIA BEACH, VA (WTKR)- Salem is used to winning. The SunDevils are shooting for their 14th straight winning season and have made the playoffs every year since 2010. Now last year's interim head coach looks to keep it going in his first full season with the permanent gig.
Mark Hall III was named the team's interim head coach just three games into the 2022 campaign. It was a sudden promotion after then-head coach Marcus Johnson-Williams departed for the athletic director job at Denbigh, but it's an opportunity of which Hall would make the most.
"As the games progressed, as the days went on and the weeks went on, after we kept winning... we lost a couple, but we kept winning, the kids started to believe in me as the head coach," Hall said of last season.
Now Hall has that permanent job. He's embraced the role of having the head whistle and is leading a young and talented team into the upcoming campaign.
"Everything is set in stone," Hall pointed out. "We have the culture here now set up so the kids are following behind it."
"Not only is he just football, football, football, he's also like laid back, chill," junior offensive tackle Jaylen Gilchrist said of his head coach. "He just tells it like it is and that's how I like it."
"He pushes all our kids, even on a personal level," added junior quarterback Jason Williams. "He can relate to all of us because he went through the same thing we did so he just understands what we're going through and the way to get there."
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Salem advanced to the Region 5A semifinals last season, narrowly falling to eventual region champion Green Run, 21-13. That defeat leaves a chip on the SunDevils' shoulders entering 2023.
"We've got to play every game like it's our last," said senior running back Zacari Rogers. "Stay on top, win games, stay focused."
"We took there losses that we shouldn't have [taken] last year," Gilchrist added. "Everybody that made us suffer, we're going to make you all suffer."
The stage is set and the excitement is bubbling for the SunDevils, featuring a head coach that's fully ready for the challenge and a team that's hungry for those Beach District battles.
"That last game turned a lot of heads," Hall noted. "They're excited, they're hungry. We're looking forward to having that same mentality coming in and just winning every game that we can."
"Everybody's got to be on the same page and have that same why," said Gilchrist. "That L we took back in November versus Green Run, everybody's got to feel that."
Salem kicks off its season next Thursday, August 24, at home against Bayside.
