Recently hired Justin Schmitz, right, will take over the reins as the new varsity football coach in Manchester. (Photo by Mark Carpenter)
By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
There will be a new face roaming the sidelines with the headset in 2022 for the Manchester Greyhounds football squad, but a familiar face for fans of the county teams who participate in the Southern Ohio Independent League. Justin Schmitz, the only varsity coach that the North Adams program has known since its rebirth, has moved south and taken the reins of the Manchester program.
“I saw this position open up and honestly it was a dream job for me,” said Schmitz. “As soon as I saw it, I applied for it, Nick (Neria) called mein for an interview and it went really well. It was a really good fit for both of us and I’m here now as part of the Greyhound family.”
One big change for the new Manchester head coach will be the shift from coaching in a program that was not officially sanctioned by the ACOVSD or the OHSAA to a team that is part of the OHSAA.
“That weighed into my decision a lot,” explained Schmitz. “I can honestly say that Manchester is where I always wanted to be. The facilities are the best in southern Ohio, stepping into this is amazing.”
Schmitz takes over for Neria, who gave up the head coaching job to become the new high school assistant principal and the school’s new athletic director.
Job one for Schmitz was getting to know his new crop of athletes. At the time of this interview, the Greyhounds were still in voluntary workouts, but official practice began on Monday (August 1).
“Nick has already laid a good foundation of disciplined kids, so stepping in has been easy to this point,” said the new Manchester head coach. “The offense will be changing just a little bit, they were a run-heavy team in the past. We’ve had about 22 kids consistently showing up for voluntaries, and we’ll probably pick up five or six when mandatory roils around, so we should have good numbers.”
Schmitz played high school football at Blanchester and spent nine years as the head coach and leader of the North Adams program.
“This is a totally different spot because the football culture is already here at Manchester,” Schmitz explained. “Sometimes it was tough at North Adams because we were always trying to build that culture. Stepping in here has been unreal the amount of community support. At one of our workouts, the school board president came out and thanked me for being here and all the kids for working as hard as they have. That was pretty special.”
“This is going to work out pretty good, I’m fired up to get started.”
