BEYOND THE SCORES

Crestview's loss a blow for high school football

Jon Spencer
Mansfield News Journal
Dan Mager created a culture that made Friday nights at Crestview more than your typical high school football game.

This is a Mager loss.

Sorry for the corny word play, but such a sentiment seems appropriate in the wake of Dan Mager's decision to step down as football coach at Crestview.

It's a blow for the school district and the north central Ohio football community at large, and the reason it should reverberate throughout the state can be summed up in a hashtag.

#IT'SMORETHANFOOTBALL

It was emblazoned on the back of the team's shirts and adopted by Crestview fans, appearing whenever they posted something on Facebook.

That was the culture Mager created within the Crestview program, a mindset he instilled in his players and supporters.

He inherited a two-win team in 2015 and improved by one victory that first season. Then the Cougars flirted with the playoffs in back-to-back 7-3 seasons and capped 2018 with three straight wins — knocking South Central out of the playoffs and beating a good Plymouth team in a shootout — to finish at .500 despite needing to replace 21 starters from a year ago.

But it was always about more than wins and losses and Xs and Os during Mager's tenure.

It was about participation as much as performance. He took a typical rural school roster and grew it to the size of something many Division I programs would envy. In 2017, he had 84 of the 112 boys enrolled in the high school playing football. The year before it was 72.

It was about turning Friday night home games into events. Fireworks after every touchdown, a grand finale to celebrate victories.

It was about using football games to salute law enforcement officers and first responders and military veterans and having the game ball delivered by a Metro Life Flight helicopter.

It was about hosting special nights for parents and grandparents and honoring former teams, like the undefeated 1982 outfit.

It was about giving fans chances to win full-access passes that permitted them to be part of Mager's pre-game speech and on the sidelines for the entire game.

It was about lots of music during the game, over the loudspeakers, in addition to the band. Sound effects on first and third down. At the end of the game, the players would go down to the end of the stadium and thank the community for coming.

It was about the Pride Walk, where Mager would select a different group at each home game to walk the team out to the field, from the locker room, up the stairs and out to the field.

And, maybe most importantly, it was about helping the community bond in times of adversity that had nothing to do with turnovers or fourth-and-short situations or falling behind on the scoreboard.

Two years ago, Walker Ramsay died unexpectedly three months before what would have been his senior season. This past season, another senior, Gavin Lowe, suffered serious injuries in a one-vehicle rollover crash during two-a-days.

And Mager buried his mother the night before the 2017 season opener.

These were all situations that drew the Crestview football family even closer.

Dan Mager mastered the art of attracting players during his four years as football coach at Crestview. His 2017 squad included 84 of the 112 boys enrolled in the high school.

When he met with his players last week to tell them of his decision to resign, Mager likened it to the receiving line at a funeral.

"They were crying; I was crying. It was a tough day," he said. "But it's been an awesome relationship, coach to player and player to coach."

An ex-Marine and former probation officer, Mager took a new job last summer as the deputy chief of parks for the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District. That meant 90-minute to two-hour drives to practice. By the end of the season, his tank, figuratively speaking, was running on empty.

"I have an 8- and 10-year-old in multiple sports and I finally had to look at everything and say, you know, I'm not really giving any one thing enough time, and I put family first," he said.

"I'm not going to close the door (on coaching high school ball again), but just right now I thought it was time that maybe somebody could spend way more time with the program, and the off-season stuff, and could maybe give the program more than I could right now."

Mager is leaving the program in better shape than he found it and has certainly set the bar high for his successor.

"Replacing Dan's going to be tough, no doubt about it," athletic director Tim Kuhn said. "He brought so much to the district from many standpoints. We fully plan to keep a lot of the stuff Dan put in place. 

"We'll also respect our new head coach and see some of things he might want to start up, too. But we definitely want to keep a lot of the things Dan started because they have become a mainstay of the community."

Since word got out about his departure, Mager has received countless texts and phone calls from his old coaches and coaching peers and coaches who just want to pick his brain.

Hopefully, there will be platforms out there, through the OHSAA or Ohio State and its coaching clinics, for Mager to share his ideas on building a program at a time when many rosters are shrinking.

His voice on fostering relationships with kids and creating a festival-like atmosphere on Friday night needs to be heard.

"You know what, I knew just as much about player No. 84 as player No. 1," Mager said. "I don't care if it's high school, college or pros. Most coaches don't get fired because they don't know Xs and Os. It's usually the ancillary things, like not communicating with your players."

The next time you see Mager on a sideline it will be coaching his son's pee-wee team. He's already talking about ways to help grow the elementary program in the Hillsdale school district, where his family has resided going back to his 14 years with that high school program.

"I'll be around in some capacity," he said. "It might be calling plays in a seventh-grade game, but I'll be on a football field somewhere doing something, coaching kids and hopefully making an impact."

A Mager impact.