This is another edition of the Biz of Football’s “Five Questions With” series which interviews people from all parts of the world of football in order to get a perspective on the game from every angle.

Travis Everhart is starting his second year at Hiram College. He is the offensive coordinator of the Terriers and holds the position of the recruiting coordinator.

During practice, his focus is on the offensive line where he created a connection between the players like none other during the past season. 

Hiram College is a Division III school located in Northeast Ohio with an enrollment of about 1,100 students. The Terriers play in the North Coast Athletic Conference which consists of schools in Ohio and the surrounding states.

The Terriers have had a rough time on the field during the past couple seasons, but Everhart is optimistic that his team will improve next season.

Topics covered in the interview include recruiting at the Division III level; Everhart’s playing and coaching careers, his role on the team and discussion of how Hiram will do in the upcoming season.

Bill Jordan for the Biz of Football: What is your role on the team in terms of coaching?

Travis Everhart: At Hiram College my responsibilities include being the offensive coordinator and coaching the offensive line.  I am also the recruiting coordinator.  As the offensive coordinator I organize our offensive staff along with doing our game planning, practice planning, scouting report breakdowns on our opponents and evaluating our personnel.  The thing I like most about my position is getting to coach the offensive lineman, which is a position that I have held for most of my coaching career.   

BizBall: Could you talk a little bit more about what you do as the recruiting coordinator?

Everhart: As a recruiting coordinator, I work very closely with our head coach and admissions department in the recruitment of our new student athletes.  By coordinating this position, I have the responsibilities of splitting up our recruiting areas for our other assistant coaches, evaluating prospective student athletes and making sure we are going after our needs position wise for our incoming classes.    

BizBall: Why are you coaching at the Division III level and what are your career goals?

Everhart: I have always had a heart for Division III football.  I played at Capital University in the late 90’s and it was and always will be one of the most memorable experiences of my life.  I really enjoy that these young men are committing themselves to a school to carry on their playing careers and gain a valuable education even though you don’t have a football scholarship, a 150,000 seat stadium and all the T.V. publicity.  They just want to continue to play the greatest game ever invented.  I think it really speaks volumes about a guy, and really displays what kind of character they have when they can go to college for four years, play football, graduate with a degree and become a model citizen in our communities.

I'm going into my 10^th year of coaching and have held a number of positions at a few different schools, mainly at the Division II level; I have also been a head high school coach and have been a coordinator at a Junior College.  Being that I have had some great experiences in coaching I would have to say that one of my career goals would be to move up the coaching ladder one day become a head coach or to be at a higher level. 

BizBall: How do you feel about the upcoming season?

Everhart: As far as next year with our upcoming season, I am very excited.  We have a great pool of talent in our incoming class, which should be the largest class in Hiram College’s history; the 50 players we have returning will give us the largest roster in school history as well.  There is also a very positive buzz going on with our current players who have been working very hard in their preparation for the upcoming season through winter workouts and spring practice.  So with that combination and being that our players will be in their second year in our offensive and defensive systems I feel pretty good with some of the experience guys we have coming back.  We look at it as a “New Breed” of Terrier for the 2008 campaign.

BizBall: What's the most difficult part about recruiting at a Division III school?

Everhart: I would have to say the most difficult thing about recruiting at this level would be that we have to have something great to sell a prospective student athlete.  Since we can’t give them a football scholarship, we have to get creative in what we can offer to them and most small schools have the same problems when competing with the higher divisions.  When it is all about financial aid packages for us and a player likes the sound of getting a football scholarship from the Division I and Division II’s, makes it a little tougher.  You have to have something great to sell, whether it be certain majors, athletic facilities or locations of your school.  That is what makes it tough for a lot of us at this level.

BizBall: What is one glaring factor that held the team back last season and what do you believe Hiram needs to do to improve on the field?

Everhart: Offensively the one glaring thing that was a factor was our running game, third down percentage and our scoring percentage in the red-zone.  We broke a few school records last year which is a positive, we just have to get better at those three things and I think we could be pretty solid offensively.  Defensively we need to be able to stop the run and be a better tackling team.

BizBall: To you, what's the most important part of your job?

Everhart: Like in anything I think you have to be very prepared everyday to carry out the many tasks that being a coordinator and position coach has along with it.  I learned from an early age being a graduate assistant that you have to cross your t’s and dot your i’s and always double and triple check things and make sure you are always on your game.

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