First-year football coaches gear up for debuts

The headset will provide its usual snug fit. Beneath his feet, the turf will have that familiar soft crunch. The leaky water bottles will be right where they’ve always been when the August heat makes it necessary for a quick drink.

Juston Wara has seen it all before. As a player and assistant coach for Oshkosh North, he has stepped onto J.J. Keller Field at Titan Stadium countless times to take part in a Friday night battle of strength, speed and heart.

But this Friday, when the Spartans host Menomonie in the 2017 season opener, something old becomes something new. Wara will make the walk from the locker room underneath the stands to the sideline with the title of head coach on his shoulders.

“It’s exciting,” Wara said. “It’s a familiar place for me. I’ve been around Oshkosh, been in the stands watching my brothers play at North and then going to North and UWO, but it will be different.

“I expect there to be nerves on Thursday and the day of (the game), but once the game starts, I expect it will go away.”

Wara is one of a number of coaches across the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin coverage area who will be making their head coaching debuts this week.

In Sheboygan, both North and South will have new faces on the sidelines when the season begins Thursday night.

The Golden Raiders have a familiar face in place as former defensive coordinator Joe O’Brien steps into the new role — a position he has wanted to fill from a young age.

“I’ve wanted to be a head coach since I was 6 years old and always had a dream of how my program would run and how it would look,” O’Brien said. “There are a lot more decisions I’m making as a head coach. It’s a lot more stressful, but a lot more enjoyable.”

Across town at Sheboygan South, Jason Harder is dealing with the challenges of being a newcomer to the Redwings program.

“The timing of being hired when I did, it wasn’t super late but it was late enough so trying to learn everything has been challenging,” said Harder, who taught in Michigan last year. “From trying to get things going, to try to inventory because it’s bigger numbers and such, that will always add a bit of a challenge. But football is football, and everything will fall into place.”

Michael Rader has the difficult task of replacing John Nowak, the legendary head coach at Green Bay Notre Dame who passed away shortly after retiring last season.

The longtime assistant has plenty of experience in the program, but Nowak’s absence will certainly be felt when Rader and the Tritons take the field.

“I expected him to be in the stands and yelling at me and doing the things he had always done. I was looking forward to that,” Rader said. “I’m very familiar with the school and the players and with a little bit of experience in the head man’s job it certainly doesn’t hurt.”

Whether stepping into a new role from being an assistant or taking over at a new program, there are certain things that all new coaches are dealing with.

The most noteworthy is the administrative duties of the head coach that go far beyond what happens at practice or between the lines on game night.

“There are administrative responsibilities I hadn’t even imagined, not counting the ones I already knew about,” said Frank Mattia, who takes over at Freedom for Clint Kreiwaldt.

“There’s a lot more time involved when you are in charge instead of when you are just an assistant,” said Todd Wondra, who is the new coach at Campbellsport. “If players ever got injured before, I didn’t have to worry about any of that paperwork, but now I have to fill out all that stuff and make sure it gets turned in.”

The administrative side to the position can take away from actually coaching, but that’s where a new coach can rely on his staff to help.

“You don’t get to really coach as much because you are always thinking about what you are doing next,” said Winneconne’s Nate Ryf. “When I took the job, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy because of all of that kind of stuff. The biggest part is the management part but I have an assistant who is handling a lot of that behind the scenes stuff, which is a big help.”

Added Harder, “If you come in and try to take it all on yourself, you can do it, but it’s very tiresome.”

There are also added responsibilities when it comes to football, especially for a coach being moved up from a coordinator position.

At D.C. Everest, Tim Strehlow had been the offensive coordinator for the past six seasons but now has to be focused on all phases of the game.

“Until you become a head coach, you don’t really understand the whole scope of things,” Strehlow said. “Working with the school district, working with the community and then you have two other phases of the game I hadn’t worked much with.”

For those coaches completely new to a program — Harder and Waupun’s Ethan Kintzler — there is the added requirement of learning the talents of the players in the program as well as getting a feel for the other teams in the conference.

That was something that Kintzler, who had previously been an assistant coach at Oakfield, took on the moment he was named head coach.

“There wasn’t much time where football wasn’t on my mind and I wasn’t watching film or thinking about it,” Kintzler said. “I immediately got on film to see what I had and what the other teams in the conference were doing so I had a feel for it. I’ve been doing that all summer.

“I have a really good staff around me that helps me and they realize I’m a first-year head coach and still learning.”

Every coach wants to leave his mark and that can be tricky when a program has a long tradition of success or where there have been a number of respected predecessors.

So instead of coming in and changing a lot of things, slight tweaks to the approach or a new drill or two can be the answer.

“We’ve done quite a few different team-building exercises with this current team. There were a couple of activities that I wanted to introduce to create new traditions,” Rader said. “Not that anything we did in the past is wrong, but I want to put my mark on a couple of things.”

And in some cases, it just takes time for a coach to forge his image.

Realistically, it might take more than a year,” Strehlow said. “It might take a little time to put my own stamp on things but a little bit of emphasis in a couple of areas — not to say that any coach did anything wrong — just doing it a little different, making it my own.”

With the first weeks of practice and a scrimmage under their belts, these coaches can now focus on the games.

“It’s an amazing feeling being out there on Friday nights,” Ryf said. “It will be a little different. That 6-foot step when you go from assistant coach to head coach is a big one because that’s when you have to make the decisions so there’s going to be nerves. But you’re grateful for the opportunity you have. A lot of people would give up a lot to be able to what we’re able to do as coaches.”

For Strehlow, who was a ball boy for the D.C. Everest program while in elementary school and then went on to star as a player, those first steps onto the field as head coach are the culmination of a long journey.

“It will be a special feeling when I get down there on Friday,” Strehlow said. “I just noticed at the scrimmage that my name was engraved on the wall as coach. It’s real now.”

First-year coaches

Jay Anderson, Auburndale

Jim Ash/Jeff Brightwell, Clintonville

Scott Biemeret, Gibraltar

Todd Diethelm, Athens

Jim Hagen, Colby

Jason Harder, Sheboygan South

Seth Jaeger, Winnebago Lutheran

Ethan Kintzler, Waupun

Frank Mattia, Freedom

Joe O’Brien, Sheboygan North

Shane Obrigewitch, Lomira

Michael Rader, Green Bay Notre Dame

Nate Ryf, Winneconne

Tim Strehlow, D.C. Everest

Juston Wara, Oshkosh North

Todd Wondra, Campbellsport

Chris Zablocki, Kohler/Sheboygan Lutheran/Sheboygan Christian