School board members voted Monday to hire Gilner, who has been an assistant with the team since the program began in the early 1990s with then-head coach Chris Herron. Gilner also is an assistant boys basketball coach.

“I was excited about it,” he said. “I felt we could get the fundamentals back into the game and that’s my emphasis.”

Gilner’s son Michael, who played for the Chieftains in high school, was an assistant last season and will be again this season. The junior varsity coaching position hasn’t been filled yet.

The longtime assistant takes the helm for a team that’s won just three games in the past two years.

“I want to have fun,” Gilner said. “I want the kids to have fun. I think we can do that by learning the fundamentals of the game and seeing what happens after that.”

In other coaching news, Darren Neas resigned as THS golf coach after two years. The board also hired Andrew Gantenbein and Shawn Hecox as seventh-grade football coaches.