ASHLAND — The most suitable description might simply be to say it’s a coming-home party.
Or perhaps the cliché could be that everything old is new again.
Instead, maybe something about teaching an old dog new tricks?
Whatever best suits the scenario, when the Ashland High School football team kicks off its 117th season Friday at home against River Valley, it will do so with former head coach Scott Valentine back at the helm after four seasons away.
Just don’t call him an old dog. Or even old.
As Valentine said last week, he just turned 60, putting an emphasis on the “just.”
“I’m the youngest in my group of college guys!” he said with a laugh while chatting last week inside the Keith Wygant Memorial Fieldhouse.
Whether fans of the Arrows want to look at it as some kind of rebirth or simply a reunion, there’s undeniably some huge history coming back with Valentine, who steps in after Sean Seder led AHS to a 21-20 record in four seasons as head coach.
A 1981 Ashland graduate, Valentine is the program’s all-time leader in wins (130-60) and seasons coached (17 from 2002 through 2018), piling up seven Ohio Cardinal Conference titles and 10 playoff appearances along the way.
“Nobody wants a coaching change, but if there’s going to be a coaching change, you’d want (Valentine) – a familiar face,” sophomore quarterback Nathan Bernhard said. “… He’s a guy you know has had success here.”
The Arrows posted just one losing season under his tutelage, gathering a Division II state poll title in 2006 and four regional championship appearances while also advancing to the Division II Final Four in 2007.
He was named Ohio’s Division II Coach of the Year in that 2006 campaign, when Ashland and junior quarterback Taylor Housewright started a perfect 12-0 before losing to eventual state champ Piqua in the regional title game.
Two more of Ashland’s most remarkable seasons came in 2009 and 2010, when the team went a combined 21-5 and thundered its way to back-to-back regional championship games again — this time behind quarterback Marcus Fuller. The Arrows set the school record for scoring in 2009 (437 points), only to obliterate that total the next fall (521 points).
Fuller said Valentine has been like a football institution at Ashland.
“I’m happy he’s back,” said Fuller, who later became the starting quarterback at Brown University in the Ivy League. “He was instrumental in my career and obviously he’s been a close family friend for a long time.
“I look forward to seeing what he does with another quarterback (Bernhard) that he’ll have three years with (as a starting QB). I hope they get back to those deep playoff runs.”
Ashland posted a program-record four consecutive postseason berths from 2014 through 2017 and could have made it five straight in 2018 had it not been for three final-possession losses.
Valentine stepped away from the whistle after that season to spend more time with his family, which at the time featured two sons playing college football (Scott Jr. at Ashland University and John at the University of Mount Union).
“To put in the time on Saturdays and the weekend to be able to do what I felt I had to do (as a head coach), I just didn’t think I could do that (while following my boys’ careers),” Valentine said of his decision to take time away.
With a little more flexibility on his weekends, he became a paid part-time coach at AU for head coach Lee Owens for a few years before getting back onto the high school sidelines last fall at Madison.
It was mostly tough sledding with the Rams in 2022. They finished 1-9 with losses to seven eventual playoff teams, including Ashland.
But Valentine believes every coaching experience he’s had since leaving AHS has added valuable pieces to his ever-growing bank of football knowledge.
“There was a great staff at AU, so I learned a lot about how they do stuff and how some of those things can fit into what we’re doing here,” he said. “I definitely took away a lot of things that can help us become a better program.
“If you stop learning then you’re pretty much done as a coach, because you’ve got to make changes.”
That brings him to this 2023 season.
As wild as it might be for Valentine to hear, he’s entering the fifth decade of his life as a head coach after starting at South Central as an up-and-coming 23-year-old. Now, he is kicking off his 60s as a grizzled coaching veteran.
He boasts a 168-114 career record in 26 years as a head coach (also including a six-year run at Ontario), and Week 10 this season will be his 200thgame leading the Arrows.
“That (200) is a lot of games to be in one place,” Valentine said. “I was very fortunate before to have great staffs that helped allow us to be successful. Anymore, if you’re not successful, you’re out.”
While he’s already been leading the Orange and Black for nearly two decades — and a large portion of his coaching staff is what it was in 2018 — this summer’s preparation certainly has some pretty gleaming newness for Valentine.
For one, the field turf and scoreboard at Ashland Community Stadium received a makeover after he left the program. But even more impactful was the completion in 2019 of the Keith Wygant Memorial Fieldhouse, a $4.3 million multipurpose athletic facility built right next to the stadium.
Valentine said it saves his team up to 45 minutes every day on things like team meetings and weight lifting. During his previous tenure, the trek to and from the high school building before and after practice used to eat up those valuable minutes.
Speaking of the fieldhouse, it’s hard not to notice the name of the coaches room Valentine and his staff work out of there — laughably ironic for a guy who despises attention.
The plaque outside the door declares it the “Coach Scott Valentine Classroom.”
An All-Ohio player and coach for the Arrows, the Valentine name needs no introduction.
“He’s done a great job coming back here and taking over where he left off,” Bernhard said.