Jeff Safrit didn’t feel like there was enough of it. That’s why he resigned yesterday as East Rowan High School’s football coach.

“I feel like it’s time for somebody else to come in and bring some new ideas,” he said.

Safrit is also the highly-successful baseball coach at East (over 300 career victories) and that took quality time away from his football players in the spring.

“Football is a year-round sport,” Safrit said. “A head coach needs to be in there with them more and I wasn’t able to do it.”

To show how tough it is, Safrit said there was only one other coach he knew of — at Fayetteville South View — that tried to carry the weight of head coach in football and baseball. The sports run together, which also takes time away from the family.

Safrit broke the news to his team Thursday morning.

“It was short and sweet,” he said. “I didn’t give them a lot of reasons. It was just time to make a change.”

Football changed when Safrit took over five years ago. He went 33-25-1 in his short head-coaching career.

East has plenty of skill people returning in quarterbacks Drew Davis and Raymondo Brady, running backs Cal Hayes, Antoine Blakeney and Chris Faavesi, as well as receiver Nick Lefko. So Safrit’s replacement will have talent to work with.

“The position will be opened up immediately,” said athletic director Worth Roberts. “In-house and out.”

Roberts thinks it can be an attractive job.

“We have a lot of fan support, it’s a good school and the faculty and coaching staff work well together,’ he said. “We’ve never had many problems at all.”

The new coach will have to bring in some staff members of his own, Roberts said. He will also have to fit in what positions are available. No P.E. jobs are expected to be open.

But whoever the new coach becomes, he will follow in the footsteps of Safrit, a man who turned the program around.

“I don’t think anybody can complain about his five years,” Roberts said. “Everything turned around with Jeff. It was his enthusiasm, his youth and his knowledge of football. He was able to get kids to come out and did a great job with what he had. He’s still the baseball coach and he’ll still get those kids out for baseball.”

Safrit led the Mustangs to some of the greatest moments in East’s football history. He made the playoffs three straight seasons. He won the first conference title at the school since 1974. And he beat Kannapolis, not once, but twice, in 1996, and 1997. There was the last-second, 28-27 win over Northwest Cabarrus. Another satisfying win for Safrit was last season, after everyone had counted his team out, in a 20-12 win at Northwest Cabarrus.

Safrit remembers those games fondly but he also remembers the relationships with his players.

“I always tried to help the kids as much as I could,” Safrit said. “ I never tried to coach for the parents. I coached for the kids. I played the kids who showed me they deserved to play.”

Now, he thinks someone else deserves to be the football coach.