Brooke Tyburski is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Northwest Christian High School for AZPreps365.

David Inness never intended on becoming the head football coach at Northwest Christian High School when he visited its open house for his children in 2010, even though he had been coaching for over 20 years at multiple high schools.

Northwest Christian head football coach Derek Wahlstrom had decided to leave the program after the 2009 season after coaching for seven years and producing decent results, ending his coaching career with a record of 31-29 from 2004 to 2009.

“The head coach had just resigned the day earlier or maybe even the day of,” Inness said. “He saw me walking on campus and said ‘Hey, you should go for this job,’ and I’m like ‘Nah, I’m good where I’m at.’”

That conversation got the ball rolling for Inness, who became the new football head coach for the 2010 season that was anything but smooth sailing at first.

“My first season, very first practice, I had 14 kids show up,” Inness said. “I very quickly said to myself ‘What am I doing?’

“I met every kid as they came onto campus the first day of school, and we ended up with 29 players and two kickers. We had to make two teams with 31 guys. I didn’t know what I was getting into.”

But things began to turn around quickly as the team found itself winning game after game and soon enough was competing for the state title against Yuma Catholic, where they defeated the Shamrocks, 30-27.

“We won it our first year and we had no idea how,” Inness said. “We were all just going along with the ride. The first three years were like that.”

That was only the beginning for Inness, who after 10 years of coaching at Northwest Christian, is the best football coach the school has ever seen, holding a combined record of 109-21 and leading the school to two more state championship titles in 2012 and 2018.

Inness’s teams consistently find success even throughout constantly evolving rosters and using players with no previous experience. The Crusaders ended the 2019 season with a record of 10-2 and reached the semifinals despite the team including 19 new starters, some of whom had never played a snap of football before.

Inness said his coaching philosophy is simple: he coaches his players the way he wanted to be coached.

“We’re relaxed but we’re also extremely disciplined,” Inness said. “We know when we’re going to be serious and when we’re going to have fun. I want us to have fun, be loose, but when it’s game on, we’re going to play as hard as we can.”

Though many different teams have been successful through Inness’s tenure, he is reluctant to take credit and is quick to point to his players for commendation.

“It’s never been about me or the coaches,” Inness said. “It’s the kids and buying into what we do. It’s fun to coach kids who are extremely smart and do what they’re told and we’ve been extremely blessed. I know that my name’s on the door but I just want to be a part of it.”

Inness does a lot to create personal relationships with his players and made clear that spending time with them is his favorite part of the job.

“We’re together all the time,” Inness said. “We do lunch twice a week watching film, we do crazy things like bring the ice cream truck out for practice one day, we do pizza once a week. Every Saturday morning before we watch film we meet and have breakfast together.”

He said that building these relationships helps develop them not only as players, but as people as well.

“I want them to know that we have their back,” Inness said. “It’s about more than winning or losing. It’s about trying to get them ready to handle life. My job is to try to make them better people, but they usually turn around and make me better.”

“He cares more about us as men than as players,” senior wide receiver Eddie Van Sant said. “He brings in people to give us a devotional each week and help us spiritually. He focuses on making us better young men.”

Senior wide receiver Cameron Adams has been coached by Inness for six years and emphatically calls him the best coach he has ever had in his life.

“He cares more about you off the field,” Adams said. “We have had an extremely close relationship and he is there for me through everything. He’ll text me to see how I’m doing after a game. He teaches me just as much as an athlete as becoming the man I’m growing into today.”

Adams said he believes Inness has been so successful as a coach because of his passion and dedication to football.

“He knows the values that are needed to be a part of something successful, something bigger than you,” Adams said. “On a daily basis I just love being around him and his energy and how he loves the sport more than anything. We went on a trip to New York and he watched film the whole plane ride there and back.”

After the Crusaders’ season ended with a loss in the semifinals this season, Inness is eager to get back to football and start a new season. Even with the success the program has had in the past, Inness said his mindset for the team never changes.

“We never, ever talk about winning state,” Inness said. “We worry about one week at a time. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing. We never look ahead, so we prep like we’re playing in a playoff game every week.”

Inness said that he is not sure how long he will continue to coach, but that he has no plans of coaching anywhere else and will keep it up for as long as he is healthy and effective.

“I don’t care how long you’re at a program, eventually it wears out and you have to know when it’s time to go,” Inness said. “But I’ll know when it’s time. Right now I can’t wait to get started again.

“The job’s not done here. There’s more that we want to do with our program. We’ve got a lot more work to do here at our school.”