CANTON — Maria Stein Marion Local coach Tim Goodwin sat in front of a gathering of statewide media members in the bowels of Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium, two players seated on either side of him.
The Flyers had just won their 64th straight game and fourth consecutive state championship in resounding fashion, a 74-0 win over Hillsdale in the Division VII final. The line of questioning was less about the game and more about how Marion has been able to maintain a standard of excellence very few programs ever achieve.
“The standard is the standard,” Goodwin said matter-of-factly. “And it’s not always fun to hold the line on the standard.”
For a handful of programs around the state, Marion Local chief among them, winning state championships isn’t some far-off fantasy. Playing for and winning state titles is the rule rather than the exception; the expectation rather than the dream.
Exclusive Company
Twenty-four hours after Goodwin led the Flyers to their record 15th state crown, Coldwater and Kirtland met in the Division VI championship game. Both schools were seeking an eighth title and are on the short list of small-school programs that occupy the same rarified airspace as Marion Local, albeit at a slightly lower altitude.
Coldwater, Marion’s Mercer County neighbor and Midwest Athletic Conference rival, won 31-7.
Remarkably, Kirtland was making its 13th state title game appearance in the past 14 seasons. Longtime coach Tiger LaVerde has built a powerhouse in Lake County at a school that was once a northeast Ohio punching bag. Kirtland was a combined 25-35 in the six seasons before LaVerde’s arrival in 2006. Since then, the Hornets are 244-21.
“He’s resurrected that whole program and that community,” Crestview coach Steve Haverdill said of LaVerde when Kirtland paid a visit to Crestview in Week 2 of the regular season. “They are going to have to build a statue of that man outside Kirtland High School when he decides to hang it up.”
So what is LaVerde’s winning recipe?
“I tell my kids there are no shortcuts to success. You’ve got to put in the time,” LaVerde said after his Hornets beat the Cougars 42-6. “If you want to be good at anything, you’ve got to love it and you’ve got to work hard at it.
“Our kids love the game and they really work hard at it.”
One of those kids is LaVerde’s son, quarterback Jake LaVerde. The junior was an All-Ohio first-team pick.
“Expectations are so high to go to state every year,” the younger LaVerde said. “That’s pretty special. We try to compete every day and get better.”
Winning Culture
Kirtland won its most recent state title in 2023, beating Versailles (another Midwest Athletic Conference power) 32-15. That game was played on Dec. 2, 2023.
“The day after the state championship we had 50 to 60 kids in the weight room,” Tiger LaVerde said. “That’s kind of been the culture the last 10 years. They take pride in that. They take pride in just working hard.”
Neither Kirtland’s LaVerde nor Marion’s Goodwin is blessed with a wealth of five-star recruits. In fact, a search of the football rosters of the 18 Ohio colleges and universities that offer football scholarships (FBS, FCS, Division II, NAIA) found only two players who suited up for Marion or Kirtland.
“We don’t have (major-college prospects),” LaVerde said in late-August. “We don’t have a bunch of big kids, but they are strong. They work their tails off and they don’t take a day off.”
Likewise the players who flanked Goodwin in the state championship press conference looked similar to the Hillsdale players who preceded them. The biggest among them was left tackle Kyle Ungruhn, a 6-foot-4, 245-pound senior.
Two of Marion Local’s starting offensive linemen weighed less than 200 pounds. Yet in the state championship game, the Flyers rushed for 248 yards on just 26 attempts, averaging 9.5 yards per carry.
“Our kids grow up being physical,” Goodwin said. “They don’t grow up playing video games. They grow up outside, either working or playing with some sort of ball.
“This area loves sports and not just football. … We’re a beneficiary of that.”
Marion Local football players are expected to adhere to a simple tenet.
“Our motto is be humble and work hard,” Goodwin said. “I just love being part of a unit that, we’re all pulling the rope in the same direction. Everybody wants the same thing and is willing to go through incredible sacrifice and hardship to do it.”
Programs like Marion Local and Kirtland — and coaches like Goodwin and LaVerde — have set a standard that other programs and coaches aspire to.
“They’re very sound and very disciplined and they play together as one. That’s what we’re trying to teach,” Haverdill said of the Hornets. “All 11 guys on the field have to do their job. You’ve got to do what’s best for the team and play together as one and that’s where you’re going to get better. That’s what they do.”
What’s true of the Hornets is also true of the Flyers, Hillsdale coach Trevor Cline said.
“What impressed me the most is just how fundamentally sound they are,” Cline said. “Usually you can find weak spots on a team and that’s not the case with Marion Local.
“Even when they rotate guys in, those guys who are getting rotated in are still guys who would start on the vast majority of teams in the state of Ohio.”
The Flyers’ 66-man roster included 18 seniors who never lost a high school football game. Those youngsters built on a foundation established well before they put on shoulder pads for the first time.
“You’ve got to thank the older guys who came before us so we could keep the tradition going,” senior quarterback Justin Knouff said. “It’s something special that you’ll never forget.”
Knouff and his talented classmates had to wait in line before they could add their chapter to the Marion Local story.
“These guys did have to wait their turn,” Goodwin said. “For as talented as they were, there was only a couple of them who played as sophomores.”
While they may not have played meaningful varsity minutes until later in their careers, Marion Local’s seniors were part of 24 postseason games — almost two-and-a-half extra seasons. All that additional practice time is a part of the winning equation.
“Certainly an extra six weeks of practice (per season) doesn’t hurt things,” Goodwin said. “And we work with those guys every day.”
Trust the Process
Marion Local captured its 12th state title in 2021, beating Newark Catholic 42-7. A day earlier, Clarksville Clinton-Massie won its third state championship with a thrilling come-from-behind 29-28 win over Youngstown Ursuline. Clinton-Massie trailed 28-7 in the third quarter before scoring the final 22 points, including the winning two-point conversion with 45 seconds remaining.
Legendary Clinton-Massie coach Dan McSurley was asked to reflect on the evolution of his program afterward and he pointed to what he called his most embarrassing moment as a coach as the day everything changed.
It came in the regional championship game against Coldwater 14 years earlier. Coldwater led 49-0 at halftime and thundered to a 63-14 win en route to a Division IV state championship in 2007.
“Until my coaches saw that, witnessed that first hand, they had no idea what level you had to play at,” McSurley said at the time. “Then I think our program took it to another level.”
It’s a trajectory Hillsdale hopes to follow. The Falcons trailed Marion Local 33-0 after the first quarter and 60-0 at the half.
“That’s where we want to be next year,” sophomore quarterback Kael Lewis said. “We’ll use that as motivation to work hard all off-season.
“When people don’t want to wake up for lifting we’re going to think back to this game.”