DeMatha Catholic High School announced Thursday that Coach Bill McGregor is taking a leave of absence and moving into the head of football operations role. They introduced Bryce Bevill ’90 as the new interim head coach of the football program. He becomes the fifth head coach in Stags history dating to the program’s inception in 1949.
“Being able to come back home, where my foundation was started, to be able to come full circle is just a blessing from the Lord,” Coach Bevill said.
Bryce Bevill’s DeMatha history dates back to his time as a student, when he played for the Stags between 1986 and 1989, winning a WCAC championship in 1986. He was inducted into the DeMatha Hall of Fame in 2011.
After graduating, Bevill played collegiately at Syracuse, then professionally in the Canadian Football League, spending four seasons between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers playing running back.
Bevill’s coaching career started with him serving as a scout for the British Columbia Lions. He returned to DeMatha as an assistant coach for three seasons and then became director of player development for the University of Maryland for two seasons under Head Coach Mike London. He moved on to Howard University where he was the director of football operations for one season, then spent a year as athletic director at Bishop Ireton. Before returning to DeMatha this past spring, Coach Bevill most recently was with the New York Jets, working as the director of player engagement for the past five seasons.
“You get a chance to see from a college standpoint what it was … how it’s done at the top level, just the communication and how things are done from a coaching standpoint, from a scouting standpoint, a recruiting standpoint, then also how to communicate and relay that to our families. I think that’s the biggest difference when you’re talking about working from a professional level to the high school level. It’s just the integration of communication with families and being able to connect with them,” Bevill says.
Coach Bevill has big shoes to fill. Former head coach Bill McGregor is a legend. He was at the helm of the program for 36 years, coaching 390 games across his career; his record through those games is 334-53-3, a winning percentage of .860 that ranks No. 1 in Maryland high school football history. He led the Stags to 19 conference titles over that span. He is among four coaches all-time to win at least 300 high school games in Maryland and is just coming off a season where he led DeMatha to an 11-0 record and a WCAC title. The Stags are also on a 21-0 game winning streak dating back to last season, one game shy of the school’s record.
With that legacy, many coaches would feel added pressure stepping into this situation. “Pressure is outside …. I’ve always been a player, and a coach had a standard in how we looked at it. You know, we put more pressure on than people can put on ourselves.” Coach Bevill explained. “You know, so we’re working with the ability to talk about being excellent, and that is what we want to do in all phases …. So if you’re moving and operating and building and creating a communication and a culture, that’s no pressure … and to me pressure is always internal. It’s not external.”
Coach McGregor is moving into the head of football operations role where he will oversee the program, but not on the sidelines. He will be helping out behind the scenes, advising staff on whatever questions they have, but his presence will still be felt on this team.
“Every day I speak with Coach McGregor. He is someone that probably got more football and more information that I will probably ever know. So to have him around, he has a wealth of knowledge …. It’s a blessing to have someone to be able to have a resource like that on campus, that I can talk to every day when I have questions or things that I don’t understand and things that come up; to have him around is going to be awesome,” Bevill said.
For Coach Bevill, the future is now because his status beyond this season as head coach is unclear. “I’m the head coach this year, and we’re gonna maximize what we can do this year and however it all falls. We’re gonna leave that into God’s hands.”
For the Stags, hopefully the future continues their winning past and leads to a third straight championship this fall.
