LAND O\u2019 LAKES \u2014 The Tampa Bay Buccaneers named Land O\u2019 Lakes High flag football coach Shawn Millard the 2025 Coach of the Year, the team announced June 22 on social media.<\/p>\n
Millard guided the first-year Gators to a 15-2 record that included a regular-season overtime victory over Class 2A state champion Robinson \u2014 his alma mater \u2014 and a district championship. The team also won the Capital City Flag Football Tournament in Tallahassee in March.<\/p>\n
Despite a stellar season from quarterback Sophia Spiegel, who threw for 2,961 passing yards and had 64 total touchdowns, the Gators fell in the first round of the playoffs to Springstead. Land O\u2019 Lakes outscored opponents 515-101.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am absolutely honored and grateful to win the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2025 Flag Football High School Coach of the Year Award,\u201d Millard said. \u201cThis award is for every one of our coaches, players and support staff at Land O\u2019 Lakes High School. These types of things don\u2019t happen without their dedication, hard work and passion for this amazing sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
Millard was selected from eight other local coaches, all of whom won Coach of the Week honors from the Buccaneers during the season. The list included Robinson\u2019s Joshua Saunders and Alonso\u2019s Matt Hernandez, both of whom guided their teams to state championships.<\/p>\n
The school received $4,000 from the Buccaneers, and Millard will likely be invited to a game during the upcoming NFL season.<\/p>\n
The Gators and other Pasco County high schools played flag football at the varsity level for the first time this past school year. Players, parents, coaches and leagues \u2014 including Pirate Bay Flag Football out of Land O\u2019 Lakes Recreation Complex \u2014 lobbied the school board to add the sport.<\/p>\n
Millard will return all but three players from this season\u2019s team, including his daughter, Ariel, an incoming sophomore who had a team-high 82 catches for 405 yards and five touchdowns.<\/p>\n
The program\u2019s first flag football player to sign with a college team was senior Nevaeh Cabrera (33 catches, 328 yards, two touchdowns), who is going to Pasco-Hernando State College.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAND O\u2019 LAKES \u2014 The Tampa Bay Buccaneers named Land O\u2019 Lakes High flag football coach Shawn Millard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2077],"tags":[211,7,38346,6,38226,704,250,2597,2596],"class_list":{"0":"post-173880","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","8":"tag-buccaneers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-land-o","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-pasco-county","13":"tag-tampa-bay","14":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","15":"tag-tampabay","16":"tag-tampabaybuccaneers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114779967108901647","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}