The conveyor belt that is the Delaware Hayes football program has a new operator: Scott Wetzel.
“We need Delaware Hayes football, from youth to the high school level, to be like a conveyor belt … and we need to make sure that conveyor belt is working seamlessly,” Delaware athletics director Steve Glesenkamp said.
When it does, it’ll produce wins. That hasn’t been the case at Hayes for quite some time, though, which is where Wetzel, who replaces recently resigned Mike Golden as head coach, comes in.
”I went back and studied the history of Delaware Hayes football from the early 1960s to now,” Glesenkamp said. “And it became apparent to me that none of the head coaches hired were from Delaware or had Delaware ties. My feeling was that we needed to find a fit … we needed someone with ties to the community.”
Wetzel checked all the boxes.
Having coached at Buckeye Valley and Big Walnut — where he was hired by Glesenkamp — Wetzel is more than a little familiar with Delaware County football … and winning. He was 31-19 with four league titles as head coach of the Barons from 1992-96. After that, he spent 11 seasons at Big Walnut. He won 100 of the 127 games he coached at BW, collecting six OCC titles and a Division III state championship (2007) along the way.
Oh, and he lived in Delaware for 17 years … another thing that separated him from the other 10 or so candidates Glesenkamp considered.
“I always considered Delaware Hayes a bucket list type of job,” Wetzel said. “I lived in Delaware a long time … even for a while after I went to Big Walnut. It was funny … a lot of my friends’ kids played at Delaware Hayes, so they were all wearing their Delaware shirts while I was walking around in a Big Walnut shirt.”
Now, he’ll undoubtedly have his own Delaware shirts to stroll around town in.
“It was tough to leave Delaware when (my wife and I) did, but I’m excited to get back,” Wetzel, who spent the last two seasons as head coach at Westerville North, said. “I feel like I have a good grip on the atmosphere of the community. There is a hunger for success and I believe I can build on that.
“I didn’t even need a day to think about it. When I was offered the job, I took it. Everything just kind of fell in place at the perfect time.”
Wetzel said the first order of business will be to develop things like unity and trust … fundamental parts of any successful program despite having nothing to do with speed, strength and schemes.
“I’m excited to get the players and coaches together so we can get to know one another and kind of talk about expectations,” Wetzel said. “I want to build unity among the players and get on the same page as a coaching staff. A coach is only as good as his assistants.
“Aside from that, I’d say we want to build as much trust as possible over the summer. Football is a sport where you really have to trust the people beside you, so we’re going to do as many things as possible to build that.”
