Jeff Hancock knows what it’s like to build football programs.
He was part of the creation and early beginnings of the Siena Heights football program and has experience of helping build a struggling high school program when he spent three years as the head coach at Vidalia High School in Louisiana.
Hancock hopes to use that past experience now that he’s been hired as the head coach at Dansville. Hancock replaces Wayne Dismuke as the Aggies’ leader.
“You evaluate things in hindsight and it was, hey we could have done this better, we could have done that better,” Hancock said. “I think taking my lessons learned from those times there, good and bad, will kind of help me.”
Dansville has won just one game over the last three seasons and last had a winning season in 2020 when it finished 5-3.
Hancock brings three decades of coaching experience as he takes over at Dansville. He primarily has worked in the college ranks and spent time as an offensive assistant at Grand Valley State, Adrian College, Siena Heights and McMurry and as the head coach at Highland (Kansas) Community College. Hancock also has his high school coaching experience in Louisiana and in the early stages of his coaching career at Romulus and Ypsilanti Willow Run.
Hancock had last coached in 2021 at Highland before moving to Michigan where he was working as an athletic admissions coordinator at Spring Arbor. He was missing coaching and now will have the opportunity to get back on the sidelines at Dansville.
“As high school jobs came open I would check them out and do my homework on the places and I was like you know what, I think this is a pretty good place,” Hancock said.
“I seemed to be gravitated towards (it.)”
Hancock will lead Dansville as it transitions to 8-player football in 2026.
“It’s just about getting kids to come out and play football and getting them excited about it and getting them wanting to be a part of it and build it,” Hancock said of his goals. “That’s what always kind of appealed to me even back when I was with Coach (Jim) Lyall at Siena (Heights) when we started. It was real exciting to build something and it’s kind of doing that when you’re taking over a program that maybe hasn’t done so well for a couple of years.
“I think that’s what excites me is getting the kids fired up and setting the culture and going out and competing.”
Contact Brian Calloway at bcalloway@lsj.com. Follow him on X @brian_calloway and Bluesky @briancalloway.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Dansville football turns to longtime college coach Jeff Hancock as new leader
Reporting by Brian Calloway, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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