PINEVILLE – The award for the American Football Coaches Association's Division III assistant coach of the year might have gone to Redlands offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Jeff Thomas, but longtime Louisiana College assistant Buck Buchanan, known to one and all at LC as “Coach Buck,” remains a winner in the eyes of his fellow coaches and players.

Buchanan, who currently serves as LC's defensive coordinator but has served as defensive line coach, offensive line coach and offensive coordinator in his decade with the team, was one of three finalists for the award, along with Thomas and Chris Rusiewicz of Ursinus.

“Buck is very deserving,” Louisiana College coach Dennis Dunn said. “He's a credit to the profession, not just Louisiana College. We're fortunate he's here.”

The AFCA assistant coach of the year award is awarded at all five levels of collegiate football competition (Football Bowl Subdivision, Football Championship Subdivision, NCAA Divisions II and III and the NAIA, and honors the coach who has been most exemplary in service to the community, participation in AFCA activities, participation in other professional organizations, impact on student athletes and on-field success.

Buchanan has measured up to all of the criteria.

His former players have gone onto successful professional careers in a variety of fields.
He is a frequent speaker at churches and civic group meetings both at home and abroad.

He even makes frequent trips to Sweden and Finland on mission trips.

And the on-field accomplishments of Buchanan's players, who know their coach as “the first to kick them in the butt when they do wrong and the first to hug them when they do right,” speak for themselves.
Buchanan's defenses have been at the top or among the leaders in virtually every defensive category in the American Southwest Conference.

“In a lot of ways, Buck is a throw back,” Dunn said. “He's got the drill sergeant haircut and looks like the type of guy who would have really fit in well in the 50's and 60's. But he also manages to mix that blue-collar intensity with a compassion for the lives of his players outside of football. It's tough to mix those two, but Buck is great at doing just that.”

Perhaps most telling of the award, each finalist must be nominated by a fellow coach.
In the case of Buchanan, it was Louisiana College offensive coordinator Sherard Poteete who pushed for Buchanan to be honored.

“When I came here to coach college football, I didn't know coaches mowed the field and fertilized and sprayed for fire ants and treated the grass for mole crickets and did the laundry,” Poteete said. “Buck's been doing that for years. He's a blue-collar guy, definitely not white collar, and that rubs off on the rest of the staff and on the players.

“If you look at the young men who have come through and played four years under Buck, they're all hard workers, good husbands and successful men. I think a lot of that is because of Buck.”

The 2009 honorees were as follows: Football Bowl Subdivision–Mike MacIntyre, Defensive Coordinator, Duke University; Football Championship Subdivision–Mark Speir, Defensive Ends Coach & Recruiting Coordinator, Appalachian State University; Division II–David Needs, Quarterbacks Coach, Carson-Newman College; Division III–Jeff Thomas, Offensive Coordinator & Quarterbacks Coach, University of Redlands; and NAIA–Josh Gehring, Offensive Coordinator, Morningside College.

“Once again, five outstanding assistant coaches have been selected for their dedication, not only to their teams, but to their communities,” AFCA Executive Director Grant Teaff said in a release. “Often times, the head coach receives much of the credit for his team's success, but any head coach is only as good as his assistants. Much of an assistant coach's work is done behind the scenes. It is our pleasure to bring it to the forefront.”

AFCA Assistant Coach of the Year Finalists for 2009
Football Bowl Subdivision: Mike MacIntyre, Duke; Tyrone Nix, Mississippi; Ed Warinner, Kansas
Football Championship Subdivision: Mark Hendrickson, Western Illinois; John Revere, Eastern Kentucky; Mark Speir, Appalachian State
Division II: Brenton Illum, Western State; Ralph Isernia, Charleston; David Needs, Carson-Newman
Division III: Buck Buchanan, Louisiana College; Chris Rusiewicz, Ursinus; Jeff Thomas, Redlands
NAIA: Josh Gehring, Morningside; Dewey Lusk, Virginia-Wise; Doug Schleeman, Montana Tech

The Winners
Football Bowl Subdivision
Mike MacIntyre, Defensive Coordinator, Duke: MacIntyre has been coaching football for 20 years, the last two at Duke ... He is involved with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, serving in various capacities over the years at both the boys camp and coaches camp ... MacIntyre has also spoken at various FCA events, and at rallies for Students Standing Strong ... He ran and worked a kids summer camp while as an assistant coach with the Dallas Cowboys ... He is also a Deacon in his church ... Mentored such as athletes as Von Hutchings, who was a third string receiver at Mississippi until MacIntyre asked him to move to defensive back, where he started three seasons and still plays in the NFL ... MacIntyre helped former Ole Miss wide receiver L.J. Taylor get his start as a high school coach ... He engages his student-athletes with “life lessons” before each film study, and challenges each of them to implement those lessons in their daily lives ... His success as a coach includes coaching in five bowl games, two NFL playoff appearances with the Dallas Cowboys, and coached numerous All-Conference and Pro Bowl players.

Football Championship Subdivision
Mark Speir, Defensive Ends Coach & Recruiting Coordinator, Appalachian State: Speir is in his 24th year of coaching and has spent the last seven years at Appalachian State ... He ran the Music City Marathon in 2008 and the Boston Marathon in 2009 to help raise over $27,000 for World Medical Mission, which is a branch of Samaritan's Purse Organization. The money was raised to rebuild Christian Mission Hospital in Bangladesh ... Speir also spent 10 days in Bangladesh, working at the hospital he helped raised money for and brought them medical equipment ... He helped raise over $45,000 for a local youth recreation league so they could build new athletic facilities, and also helped raise money for a local homeless shelter through Celebrity Serve ... Speir takes his players to local churches and youth organizations to speak ... Speir was a member of the AFCA Summer Manual Committee ... He has been a part of three straight national championships for Appalachian State (2005, 2006, 2007) and coached four All-American defensive linemen and 10 All-Southern Conference players.

Division II
David Needs, Quarterbacks Coach, Carson-Newman: Needs is in his 14th season at Carson-Newman and 17th overall as an assistant coach ... For the last six years, he has run a free, week-long camp at Manley Weekday Day Care for school age children, teaching them how to run and play football ... Needs is an advisor for Mortar Board Senior Honor Society at Carson-Newman, and has helped with many service projects such as teddy bears for sick children, visiting senior homes and shut-ins and reading to children at various elementary schools ... He leads and sponsors the “Cereal Bowl,” a charity flag football game between redshirt football players and faculty which has raised thousands of dollars and thousands of boxes of cereal for needy families ... Needs is also a FCA One Way to Play spokesperson/organizer since 1996, where he takes student-athletes to area schools to warn the children about the dangers in using drugs and alcohol ... He has been a member of the AFCA Summer Manual Committee ... Twenty-five of his former position players are involved in teaching or coaching ... Needs has also been the head track coach at Carson-Newman since 1997 and has coached in three national title games and been a part of 10 conference titles in football.

Division III
Jeff Thomas, Offensive Coordinator & Quarterbacks Coach, Redlands: Thomas has spent seven years as an assistant coach, all at Redlands ... He leads the community service component of the Redlands football team, which has been instrumental in the collection of blankets (500-plus) and top ramen soup (three pick-up loads) for the county mission ... Thomas led two team trips to New Orleans for Katrina relief help and coordinated a week-long building effort for Habitat for Humanity ... He has also organized the team's effort to participate in a “re-forestation” of a local forest after it was decimated by fire ... Thomas has served on the AFCA Assistant Coaches Committee and the Program Committee ... He helps out around the Redlands campus by being a part of the Community Service Committee, Athletic Department Recruiting liaison and Athletic Department Technology liaison ... Thomas coordinates a Redlands offense that set a school record for total offense in a game (677 yards in 2007), and has accumulated various other records ... He was a part of a conference championship in 2007 ... At the culmination of his playing career at Redlands, Thomas participated in the 2002 Aztec Bowl as a defensive back.

NAIA
Josh Gehring, Offensive Coordinator, Morningside: Gehring has been an assistant coach for 11 years, with the last three at Morningside ... He has developed and implemented a leadership development program for incoming freshmen athletes with the purpose of building character, developing leadership skills, and building a foundation for academic success ... Gehring has also initiated the Morningside College Youth Football Camps that serve nearly 200 Siouxland youth ... He has spearheaded many community service and outreach projects which consist of a player readership program for elementary school children, leading food and clothing drives for local charities ... Gehring is also active in Fellowship for Christian Athletes and led a Young Adult Bible Study ... His offense led the nation in scoring in 2008 at 48 points per game, broke 32 school records, and he has tutored a Great Plains Athletic Conference Player of the Year.