By Mark Carpenter-
The future of high school football at Manchester High School is in limbo at the moment, but if the Greyhounds take the field next fall, it will be with a new head coach on the sidelines. After eight years with the MHOS football program, six of those as the head coach, Dustin Cook will not be leading the blue and gold in 2020. Cook will be leaving the school district, accepting a position as Junior High Principal in the Eastern Brown District in Brown County.
Cook began his head coaching career with the Greyhounds in 2014, after serving two years as an assistant coach under Coach Jason Mantell.
“The good thing in the beginning was that there was a lot of continuity among the staff,” says Cook. “Jason had things going in the right direction and once he left, we were able to just pick up where he left off. We had a lot of guys on staff that had roots to Manchester football which made the transition to head coach for me extremely easy. We had good numbers, excited kids, and some pretty successful seasons, maybe not in the win-loss column every year, but we definitely had a lot of highlights and memories.”
“One thing we always looked at is that we were competing in games against some pretty tough competition and the kids were able to come out every Friday and play they game they loved.”
One of the things that Coach Cook always seemed to be able to do was to keep his team’s spirits up, though sometime Murphy’s Law invaded his program, if something could go wrong it would, especially in the injury department as his Hounds seemed to lose key players each season.
“That’s something we always talked about, those life lessons that you can learn because you certainly aren’t going to win every battle in life,” said Cook. “That’s what we tried to instill in our kids, just keep plugging along and good things will happen and sure enough we at least found a few weeks every football season where those things came to fruition.”
“I think the kids looked forward to football season and getting out there every Friday night to compete.”
In six years as the Greyhound top man, Cook’s teams have had some memorable moments, both on the winning and losing side. Three of those stand out among the rest for the departing head coach and will certainly be recalled by the Manchester faithful.
“Two of my most memorable games came against Portsmouth Notre Dame.,” says Cook. “First, is the one where we had the long weather delay and didn’t start the game until extremely late. We battled back and forth in that game, a high-scoring affair, and we ended up going up 55-54 late when Sean Frost caught a touchdown pass in the back of the end zone. We had a couple of things not go our way on the ensuing kickoff, a bad penalty, and they ended up kicking a 40-yard field goal at the horn to win the game. That game was turning point in our season because it came early on the schedule and after that, it just seemed everything went wrong.”
“My second most memorable game was also with Notre Dame here at home, the first time that we ever beat Notre Dame. It was a very emotional night, the week that Kylie Lucas had passed away. We were trailing by two scores late in the second half and we had long touchdown runs by Nick Woolard and Shaun Gould that ended up giving us the win.”
“The last thing that is memorable for me here is starting to play some of the Adams County teams again,” Cook continued. “I thought that was something unique and there’s been a lot of great memories here and hopefully they have a lot more in the future.”
“The one great thing at a small school is that football provides an avenue for kids of all abilities to get a chance to play. The last few years have been interesting because if you look at our roster, a big percentage of our kids only played football. It gives those kids something to strive for and look forward to, we didn’t have as many multi-sport athletes as we had a few years ago. We had kids like Jordan Freeman and Bryan Young, which meant up and down the field in high-scoring games. We moved on to players like Woolard and Gould, plus guys in the trenches like Johnny Sowards, Kris Walters, Trent Dryden, and Jacob Calvert.”
“I think for me I’ll miss going out on the field on Friday nights, but I think the number one thing that any coach would miss would be the relationships with the kids coming in year in and year out,” said Cook. “Every year is a little different with its own unique set of challenges that you look forward to. Unlike college and the NFL where you can find players to fit your system, you have to fix your system to mesh with the players you have and sometimes for a coach that’s the most difficult thing. For example, last year we just kept tweaking things and ended up winning a couple of games at the end of the season but had an opportunity to maybe win a couple more.”
One of the budget cuts being proposed at MHS is making the football program externally funded, which could or could not mean no football next fall in one of the finest facilities in southeast Ohio.
“Unfortunately with all the financial difficulties going on at every angle, obviously difficult decisions have to be made,” said Cook. “Football is an outlet for so many kids and I don’t envy the ones making those tough decisions, but hopefully there’s a way that the blue and gold can get back under those Friday night lights and continue to strive to win games and compete.”
While Cook was the head football coach at MHS, he was also the head baseball coach and a head track coach. A graduate of Wheelersburg High School, he was a multi-sport athlete there, playing basketball, football, and baseball.
“I coached track my first four years at Manchester, and that admittedly was a bit of a challenge,” Cook admits. “This spring would have been my fourth year as the baseball head coach. I love football, but baseball is something I just have a soft spot for. I definitely won’t forget our baseball teams here.”
Like a number of coaches in the area, Cook knows that this lost 2020 spring season could have been a special one for his Greyhounds baseball squad.
“Going into this year we were on paper fairly young, but had a lot of experience coming back,” says Cook. “We went around .500 last year with a lineup full of freshmen and sophomores. The meat of our order was coming back and we had good pieces coming in and our nucleus was young, but we were ready to go with an extremely hard-working group. I think they will have a special season next year.”
“My wife and I had talked after I got my administrative degree and it was something that had to make sense for my family, I was not necessarily just looking to leave. Manchester has held a very special place in my heart, we moved here and live in the heart of the town and care a lot about the school district, but if an opportunity came up that made sense we had to look and I was fortunate enough to get an interview and the job offer, but is was definitely not an easy decision with the ties we developed here.”
“It’s been an honor and a privilege for me to teach and coach at Manchester and something I will definitely miss. Keep working hard and strive to be great.”
