There wasn’t a point during the Layton native’s playing career at BYU or the NFL, or even during the first of three seasons with his former Northridge head coach Fred Fernandes at Roy High during the 2010s, when Coats considered himself head coaching material.

“You’d ask me back then, and I would’ve told you I’d never become a coach,” Coats said.

But Fernandes had an impact on Coats (as well as current West Field football head coach Eric Jones) during three winning seasons together with the Royals.

It inspired Coats to obtain his teaching degree, a brief stop as Northridge’s offensive coordinator, and seven consecutive seasons at Farmington as the school’s first-ever head football coach until accepting the athletic director vacancy at West Field this summer.

Patrick Carr, Standard-Examiner

Funny how things change.

With a home firmly planted in West Haven, Coats cuts his daily commute from 30 to 5 minutes in his return to Weber County as the former Cougars standout tight end makes his foray into sports administration in place of Mike Russell, who helped launched each program as West Field’s first athletic director during the 2024-25 school year, and who remains the school’s head boys basketball coach.

“It was kind of a perfect-world deal,” Coats said. “Great kids that I see all the time in my neighborhood. I know they’re talented. I’ve been against, competing with Fremont and Roy my whole time, so I knew this area was a definitely a great athletics community.”

A self-proclaimed Marvel-fan, Coats has a unique perception of the tight-suited heroes routinely littering preshow commercials at the movie theater. Coats, from football to now in sports administration at a rapidly growing high school, brought his favorite metaphor with him.

“I just love superheroes,” Coats said. “I love the mindset of being more, not settling and thinking that you can only accomplish so much. As a kid, I grew up on all of it. It’s one of the things that’s been in the back of my mind as an athlete myself, trying to be super and more than just the average. Then, in college and professionally, it stuck with me. So that’s what I push on kids.”

Former Weber State tight ends coach David Fiefia replaced Coats at Farmington this fall, and the Phoenix are off to a 1-1 start, handing Roy a 37-7 loss on the road to begin the year. Coats led Farmington to two region titles (2019, 2024) as the program’s only other head coach.

Reuniting with a fellow football-head in Jones certainly sweetened the pot when Coats entered talks to become the athletic director at West Field, which finished 1-10 overall in football, competing in an unrelenting Region 11 for its inaugural season before punching up to Region 5 this season.

Jones and the Longhorns are 2-0 to begin Year 2, starting the season with a 48-0 shutout at Taylorsville and leaning on sophomore quarterback Easton Eilertson’s 282 passing yards and five touchdowns to defeat Skyline 46-37 in Week 2’s home opener in Taylor.

Coats may know Jones’ philosophy more than most, spending several Friday nights on the same or opposite sideline of his colleague. Each one coaching job wiser, Coats and Jones are back under the same roof.

“He was phenomenal there,” Coats said about Jones at his high school alma mater in Roy. “He was a Roy staple. Knew the community really well and the thing I love about (Jones) is his outrageous attention to detail. He’s over-organized, prepared, and frankly just a football guy. To take that passion for kids and see them excel, and this passion for this game of football that we all love, he exudes all of that.

“It’s great to watch great coaches do their thing.”

But football’s only played in the fall, and Coats’ mission at West Field ultimately involves lifting each of the school’s fledgling athletics programs.

It’s a undoubtedly a challenge, moving from full-time playcaller to an administrator for 24 programs offered at West Field, according to the school’s athletics website. Coats has experience, as any coach, working with many administrators from his past lives.

In particular, Coats singled out Mike Puzey, the current athletic director at Roy and now a region neighbor to the former Royals assistant, as part of his emulation at West Field.

“I’ve seen the full spectrum of (athletic directors),” Coats said. “I know what kind of AD I want to be, and the biggest thing I want to be is the No. 1 supporter to those coaches. Coaching high school sports is not for the faint of heart. It’s a lot of hours, it’s a lot of sacrifice from the regular world, if you will, because you’re trying to take care of these kids, you’re trying to compete and do all these great things.

“So I just want to support them because I know the grind of doing that and it’s a lot easier when you have a partner in crime. My job’s to be that partner for all of them.”

Connect with reporter Conner Becker via email at cbecker@standard.net and X @ctbecker.