16
THE PRESS
JULY 11, 2016
Woodmore's Bosh rehired as football head coach
By Mark Griffin
Press Contributing Writer
[email protected]
Woodmore was poised to carry some
momentum into the 2010 football season.
The Wildcats won their final four
games in 2009 to finish 4-6 and 3-3 in the
Suburban Lakes League. Woodmore’s administration, however, decided not to renew head coach Lou Bosh’s contract at the
end of the that season, and the Wildcats
had a new coach in 2010.
The ‘Cats have had two head coaches
since Bosh left, and now he is back. Bosh,
49, who has been a teacher at Woodmore
for 26 years, was hired as the Wildcats’
new head coach in April, replacing Brian
Spicer.
“When I heard the position opened
up, I spoke to our principal, Jim Keiper,”
said Bosh, who lives in Elmore. “I said
I was very interested and I thought I had
a lot to offer, guiding these young men at
Woodmore. I wanted that opportunity
again. I thought we had some unfinished
business and we’re excited and looking forward to the upcoming years. I want to get
these guys in line to be prepared and have
some fun.”
Bosh has hired five assistant coaches
– two are volunteers – and said he wants
to add one more varsity assistant. One assistant is a former player under Bosh, Zach
Floro, who punted at Defiance College.
The Wildcats have had just one winning season in the last 12 years, spanning
their last few seasons in the SLL and the
last five years as a member of the Northern
Buckeye Conference. Bosh said one of his
first priorities is to get Woodmore athletes
excited about playing football.
“We want to continue to promote them
and praise them in the little things they’re
doing correctly,” he said. “We are continuing to work to build relationships with
guys in the hallways who maybe fell by the
wayside and getting them back participating. We always recruited the hallways. We
have to regain the relationships that were
once there.
“We averaged over 50 kids on the team,
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Coach
Lou Bosh returns
to the Wildcats
grades 9-12, when I was there. We want to
get back to that level, where you have those
numbers. In Division VI, we can’t not have
any of our student body help us.”
Woodmore Athletic Director Steve Barr
said there were a lot of positives in rehiring
Bosh.
“Lou brings a ton of experience with
him and he stayed active in coaching
since the last time he was the coach at
Woodmore,” Barr said. “Nothing replaces
experience. Probably one of the biggest
pluses is the fact he has been a physical
education teacher at the high school since
1998 and he knows the student-athletes,
eliminating any learning curve.
“Being able to have our head coach in
the building is very important,’ Barr added.
“Lou has done a great job putting togeth-
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summer program going very well. There
are more players lifting and working out
than we have had in any of my five years
here. The change in coaches has gone about
as smooth as you could expect, and Lou
should get all the credit for that.”
Bosh wasn’t out of coaching for long
after he left the Wildcats’ program. He immediately got a call from Oak Harbor coach
Mike May, who invited Bosh to join the
Rockets’ staff. Bosh coached outside linebackers and receivers at Oak Harbor from
2010-12.
Bosh then joined former Woodmore
coach Mike Lee’s staff at Clay from 201315. He was the Eagles’ defensive coordinator and outside linebackers coach the past
two seasons. Bosh was a varsity assistant
at Woodmore from 1991-1997; he went 5467 as the Wildcats’ head coach from 19982009.
“I have been on a football field every
fall since my fourth-grade year, either playing or coaching,” Bosh said. “I am still
learning the game. I like the excitement of
preparing and seeing the finished product.
How good can we prepare and get ready.
The process is the whole thing. Going
through it and building camaraderie and
seeing what these guys get from what we
work with them about.”
Bosh said several of his former players have reached out to him via telephone,
email and social media to tell him they
were happy he was back at Woodmore.
Bosh said he’s had the full support of his
family including his wife, Jill.
“They have always been supportive,”
Bosh said. “Jill is very happy and excited,
like I am. We’re looking forward to it.”
Asked why he thought the Wildcats’
program has fallen on difficult times in the
past decade, Bosh said it was “a mixture
of a lot of things.” Woodmore has featured
several outstanding individual players in
the last several years, but the teams have
not won consistently.
“We changed leagues (from the SLL
to the NBC in 2011) and other teams kept
getting better,” Bosh said. “Playing in the
NBC, you still have to play the (teams
from) Genoa and Eastwood, in particular.
Eastwood has been the class of the league,
and Mike Vicars did a nice job at Genoa.”
Genoa was a middling program until
Vicars turned it around. The Comets have
since made the state playoffs every season
from 2009-14. Eastwood has played in the
post-season nine times, including in 2009,
‘11, ‘13 and ‘14. Even Lake has recently
participated in the playoffs under coach
Mark Emans, qualifying in 2013 and ‘15.
Woodmore has been in the playoffs six
times, but not since 2001.
“The changing of coaches over the last
six years never really allowed the kids to
buy into a home base of anybody being
there,” Bosh said. “We have to bet back to
the basics and teach fundamentals and focus on the little things.”
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