It might calm a few of the fears of Lima Senior fans to know the other football programs that Mike Fell built up continued to have success and did not fall off the football map when he left to take another job.
When he got his first job as a head coach at Columbus Grove in 1990, the Bulldogs had never been to the playoffs and had won four Northwest Conference championships in 43 years of playing football in that league.
They won four NWC titles in the next 10 years and went to the playoffs four times with Fell as coach.
In his last season in 1999, Columbus Grove was 10-2 and got to the second round of the playoffs. In 2000 in Jerry Cooper’s first season as coach there, the Bulldogs were 9-3 and saw their season end in the second round of the playoffs again.
They followed that with 11 wins in 2001, 13 wins in 2002 and an undefeated state championship season in 2003.
Ada went to the playoffs all seven years Fell was head coach from 2006-2012 before he moved to Lima Senior. Before that, the Bulldogs had been in the playoffs only once.
In 2012 in Fell’s last season before going to Lima Senior, Ada was 10-2 and reached the regional semifinals. In 2013 in Bob Olwin’s first season as coach, it was 9-4 and got to the regional championship game. The last two seasons the Bulldogs have been 5-5 and 6-4.
Those records are no guarantee Lima Senior’s success in the last three seasons will continue. But they might indicate the confidence and enthusiasm that comes with success can remain even after the departure of the architect of a change in the culture of a football program, to use one of Urban Meyer’s favorite phrases.
Lima Senior will take applications until the end of this month and then begin deciding who it wants to interview for the opening.
Who might be interested? No hot rumors have emerged. And remember that quite a few people doubted Fell was interested in 2013 when his name was mentioned as a possible candidate.
But there certainly should be more applicants than the last few times the job was open.
Lima Senior has won 22 games the last three seasons after winning only 20 the previous 12 years. The enthusiasm level of the players and in the community is higher than it has been since the late 1990s, probably the highest it has been since the state championship season in 1996.
In his farewell press conference, Fell said Lima Senior will have 12 returning starters in 2016. But it is losing several outstanding athletes to graduation in addition to its head coach.
The expectation of continued success, which would have seemed ridiculous three years ago, seems possible now, though.
Before Fell’s first season at Lima Senior, Barry Blackstone, his coach when he was a quarterback for the Spartans in the late 1970s, made a prediction. He said, “He’s going to put them back where they belong.”
Now Lima Senior needs to find a coach and some players who will keep them there.
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