Craig Spence understands the importance of making a difference.

For the newly appointed Auburn Mountainview football coach, it’s a lesson gleaned from 15 years coaching at the college level. And it’s a lesson that he will share with the rest of the Lion football community beginning this summer.

Originally from New Jersey, Spence, 38, played defensive back at Stanford University, under legendary coach Bill Walsh.

It was during that time that his coaching journey began.

After graduating in 1995 with an industrial engineering degree, Spence stayed on with the football team to assist new coach Tyrone Willingham with Stanford’s cornerbacks.

“I was getting my masters, and I was doing some high school stuff,” he said. “Then Tyrone Willingham came in and he gave me a full-time position as a grad assistant, so I took it.”

Spence said he initially worked with the Cardinal’s cornerbacks but soon moved to the other side of the ball.

“The way things worked out, I switched to offense and that’s how it all took off for me,” he said. “Everything started to fit, scheme wise. And that’s when I really thought, ‘OK, maybe football might be my thing.’”

After Stanford, Spence moved on to Boston College, where he coached wide receivers for offensive coordinator Dana Bible, another of his mentors.

“That was just a tremendous opportunity, a tremendous place to coach and just a fun time, great school,” Spence said. “You’re just around such good coaches. You don’t get the sense, at the time, of how good they are. You don’t get an idea, at the time, of how much of an opportunity that was to learn from such good coaches.”

From there, Spence moved on to coach at Occidental College in Los Angeles.

After stints at Ventura College in California, Graceland University in Iowa and Columbia University in New Jersey, Spence said he had a revelation.

“Late in the summer of 2005, that was about the time I started thinking about high school stuff for the first time,” Spence said. “I think a little bit of it was being at Columbia. When you’re coaching a kid at Columbia, you’re not making that much of a radical change in that kid’s life. If you come and go, he’s still going to have his degree, he’s going to get a great job and he’s off to the races.

Spence continued:

“I just realized that at that level it becomes less about the kids and more about winning, or the organizational politics of the athletic administration,” Spence said. “The AD changes and that changes the whole program. That started to weigh on me. I think the idea of staying with a program and building it started to have more of an appeal to me.”

After relocating to Auburn, Spence accepted a job as coach of the Charles Wright Academy’s football program, where he led the team to its first winning season in 12 years. After two years with the Tarriers, Spence was reunited with Willingham at the University of Washington, where he accepted a job as the team’s offensive program coordinator.

After Willingham was let go by the Huskies, Spence stayed on with new coach Steve Sarkisian for a season.

Initially, Spencer was unsure whether to take the job with the Lions.

“I knew the job was open, and it was actually the last 24 hours before the job closed that I talked to a couple of people who were instrumental in (helping me make this decision),” he said.

According to Spence, Auburn coach Gordon Elliott was among the friends who urged him to consider the opportunity.

“So I put in my stuff at the last minute,” he said. “And then when they called me if I was interested in interviewing. I had done my homework and realized that this was something I really wanted to do.

“There is a tremendous opportunity to really build a good program there,” Spence continued. “And being a new school, they don’t have the established tradition that schools like Auburn have. You can complain that they don’t have it, but it’s also a great opportunity if you’re the one who gets to establish that.”

Spence laid out his plans for the Lion program.

“You start talking with the kids and get them to realize that they have a great opportunity,” he said. “You get them to realize that being successful is in their control. And get them to realize that my job is just to help them do it.”

Spence said he is evaluating his assistant coaches, while the team itself starts conditioning with running and lifting programs.

“The first thing you start with is you keep reminding yourself that’s it’s about the kids,” he said. “You invest in them and make them sucessful. It starts right now with building a team. Then in the end of May, you roll the ball out and that side of it starts.”