By Kyle Coppola
Lake Minneola High Promotes Abre Leggins To Head Football Coach
MINNEOLA, Fla. — Lake Minneola High School is turning to a familiar face to lead its football program. Offensive coach Abre Leggins has been promoted to head coach following the departure of Mike McGlynn, the school announced Monday.
McGlynn, a retired NFL offensive lineman who took over the Hawks in 2024, is stepping down for personal reasons. His brief tenure brought increased attention to the program, but now the team is moving forward under Leggins’ leadership.
(Lake Minneola High is hoping to return to their former glory under head coach Leggins.)
“He is great, and the kids love him,” Lake Minneola Principal William Roberts said of Leggins, who joined the Hawks in 2024 after three seasons as an assistant at Ocoee High School. He previously coached at Tohopekaliga and Osceola high schools in Kissimmee, as well as Jones and Colonial high schools in Orlando.
A former offensive lineman at UCF, Leggins is known for his ability to develop young talent and build strong relationships with players. Since the retirment of Walter Banks a year ago, Lake Minneola High has been working to find the right man at the helm. Coach Banks led Lake Minneola High to district championships and regional final apperances. Last year Mike McGlynn was hired to take over the program but now it will be coach Leggins who becomes the third coach in three years at Lake Minneola High.
“We thank Coach McGlynn for his contributions and wish him well,” Roberts said. “We are excited to see Coach Leggins advance to the head coach position, and we know he will continue to do great work with our Hawks.”
Lake Minneola will begin the 2025 season in a few weeks as they prepare for the spring football season.
Kyle Coppola was born in Newton, Massachusetts and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communications from Curry College in 2016. After traveling to Florida on a family vacation, he decided he could not get enough of the warm weather and made the move from snowy Massachusetts to central Florida 8 years ago.
For the last decade Kyle has gained valuable experience in social media content creation, marketing and sales, writing, video production, sports announcing and even broadcasting for local radio stations, such as FM 102.9 in The Villages and FM 91.5 in Massachusetts. Every year he volunteers at The Villages Charter High School as a play-by-play sports announcer for the football games as well as a public address announcer for the basketball games, including the annual Battle at The Villages Tournament.
Outside the office Kyle is a husband and father to two beautiful girls along with their cat. In his spare time he likes to spend time with his family, travel, play golf and swim. He is also a huge sports junkie and even bigger motorsports fan and loves to attend racing events when he can.
