Meet the new D’Ibervillle Warriors football coach. Winning is in his blood.
D’Iberville has its man after the Harrison County School Board approved Josh Ladner to be the next Warriors football coach.
Ladner replaces Larry Dolan, who left in January to return to Forrest County Agriculture High School.
The Warriors’ new leader is a D’Iberville graduate who has worked for the school for 13 years in various roles. Ladner is the powerlifting coach and has worked as an assistant for the football team, with a focus on offensive lineman and the weight room.
“Coach Dolan really set the tone, he brought back that Warrior tradition and spirit,” Ladner told the Sun Herald. “That tough mindset that I was used to when I was here and played. That grit that is required in order to be great at football. When you think about D’Iberville football, that’s what you think about.”
Ladner won a state title at D’Iberville under then-coach Louis Smith in Ladner’s senior year in 2002. The Warriors made it back to the championship game in 2008, the year Ladner joined legendary head coach Buddy Singleton’s staff.
D’Iberville hasn’t made it beyond the second round since then, but Ladner hopes to change that.
“I want to service this community, I want to serve the kids and, not to get ahead of myself, but it’s been 20 years since we won a state championship and I would like to do that again.”
Ladner’s deep roots in D’Iberville gave him the edge in the edge in the hiring process.
Harrison County School District athletic director Averie Bush pointed to Ladner’s experience and role in the community as a big reason why he landed the job.
“He’s a key cog in the community,” Bush said. “He put a lot of time in and has shown a lot of dedication, a lot of growth and a lot of determination.”
According to Bush, Dolan had been tasked with not just mentoring and developing the athletes, but doing the same with the coaching staff.
Dolan’s mentorship has paid off now that the school has looked within to find it’s next leader.
“I have to credit him a lot for helping me grow as a person and a coach these last few years,” Ladner said. “I’ve learned so much from him. Not to be too sentimental, but he had become like a father figure to me and a mentor.”
Ladner’s vision is simple: to carry on the deep-running winning tradition the program has created. In just the last three years, D’Iberville has won 29 games and gone 19-2 in district play.
“The way that I grew up, had nothing written on me that I was a winner,” Ladner said. “ (Winning a title) indicated to me that anything was possible. Throughout my career, whatever I was in charge of, I just knew that we were going to be the best. We were going to win a championship... That’s going to be the standard here, if nothing else. Until that’s accomplished, the job’s not done. That’s going to be the standard that we set right off the bat.”
Championships are in Ladner’s blood and he knows how to attain them. Beyond the football title he won as a player, Ladner also led D’Iberville’s boys and girls powerlifting teams to state titles last year.
Ladner says the majority of the coaching staff will be retained, the first step in making sure the D’Iberville football program is truly built by D’Iberville.
The team itself is in for a significant reload in 2022 with its top four rushers and 11 top tacklers all graduating.
Harrison Central is now the last known head coaching vacancy in South Mississippi.
