Hilbert’s Head football coach Ted Egger was hired in December of 2022 after a winless inaugural season for the Hawks which saw the departure of former Head Coach Jim Kubiak. When asked how he would turn the program around he mentioned it started with the basics. 

“My vision for everything is about the work,” Egger said. “Starts with just being on time, being in class, being on the field. All those little details. Our guys are in the middle of learning that now and as a coaching staff were not going to change our message.”  

Before coming to Hilbert, Egger was at Hocking College where he said they “had a strict everything.” 

“I enjoyed the process of building up a program,” he said. “Three years of guys buying into what we were doing from the weights, conditioning, and the classroom and we went from not a lot of success to a lot of success.” 

Coach Egger went 13-9 during his tenure at Hocking, including finishing 4^th ranked in the country in his final year at the college in 2022. 

Before the previous two Head Coaching stints, Egger spent some time bouncing around to other teams, mainly as a defensive assistant, and being able to coach some notable big-name players who went on to play professionally. 

“I just been lucky to coach a lot of really good football players that had a lot of big dreams and aspirations and worked hard to achieve their goals,” he said. “At Pearl River Community College we had Darell Luter Jr. who just got drafted to the San Francisco 49ers; at Adam State we had Cariel Brooks who played a few years with the Arizona Cardinals.”  

Egger talked about some of the goals he wishes to accomplish in the near future at Hilbert. 

“Our goal is to make sure our young guys are here as juniors and seniors and graduating, not only that but be in the weight room and getting bigger, faster, stronger, being great students, understanding all of our schemes, and continuing that consistency,” he said. 

Taivaughn Roach, a junior linebacker who leads the team in solo tackles, said coach Egger helped improved his game by trusting him. 

“With his belief in me, everything became easier.” 

Even though the wins were not there the team improved as the season went on and the loss margins got smaller as time passed.  

“As the season went on, we paid more attention to the small details. The athleticism from the team was always there but we lacked discipline and trust in each other. Understanding to trust the game plan because coach is putting us in the correct position.” said Roach. 

The Hilbert College football program finished the 2023 season this past Saturday losing to Lyon College 27-43, finishing 0-8 on the season.