This is the last in a three-part series looking back on the breakthrough 2006 season for the Ashland High School football program.
ASHLAND – Father Time served me up a smackdown this month.
I always knew the guy took no prisoners, but when you go down memory lane – looking back 20 years on a high school football team you helped cover – you truly see his cruel intentions.
Recently flipping through microfilm of articles in the Ashland Times-Gazette from 2006 at the Ashland Public Library, I was aboard a time machine of text.
I moved to Ashland for a full-time sports writing job at the T-G in March of 2006. That summer was my first foray into high school football around here.
To walk into the 100th season for the Ashland program was something I felt lucky to do even then. Getting to know the coaching staff, along with some of the players, grew more memorable as that 12-1 season played out.
Amazingly, four of those coaches are still on the staff now – Scott Valentine (entering his 30th year overall as a head coach), running backs coach Carl White (50th year of coaching), defensive line coach Jim Deppen (44th year) and defensive backs coach Scott Sauder (23rd year).
When Valentine led the 2006 Arrows, he was just about the age I am now. I won’t give you the exact numbers because it would cause me unnecessary pain, and I know Coach V too well at this point to release those sealed files.
All this is to say that reliving bits of your life through articles you wrote two decades ago is a bit surreal.
Rather than ask you to try to see it through my lens, though, consider some of the other things going on around Ashland in the months leading up to that 2006 season that help prove the rapid passage of time.
Remember when Walmart opened on U.S. 250 out by the highway and the former one off Baney Road closed? Yeah, that was that August.
And Corner Park downtown? They broke ground on that the week of the Arrows’ first game that year.
Football seasons have flown by for Ashland and its fans over the last 20 years – almost all of them accompanied with big success.
Since the start of 2006, the Arrows have more than twice as many wins as they have losses (152-74) and they have captured nine league titles and 14 playoff appearances. All six of Ashland’s double-digit-win seasons have come since then.
Prior to 2006, it had been 43 years since the Arrows had even won nine games in a season, and the program was 417-438-40.
That season of destiny two decades ago was a true moment in time for the program and the city.
I feel lucky to say it will always be one of mine as well.
Here are a few more interesting notes to know about AHS in 2006:
T-G ties to the Arrows
The Times-Gazette sports editor during that season was Dusty Sloan.
A 1995 AHS graduate himself, he churned out a massive amount of articles on the 2006 Arrows and was on the field for the “Century Celebration Night” against Shelby as a former player in the program.
We still chat to this day. He’s spent the last 12 years as the go-to sports guy at Ashland University as its director of athletic communications.
“It was a joy to be able to document for the world what the 2006 Ashland High School football team accomplished, as it turned out, for both of my alma maters,” Sloan told me. “First, what that Arrow team did in and of itself, but second, so many of those players went on to play for the Ashland University football team, and that brought a sense of joy, as well.”
“Athletics has a way of bringing people together that, sadly, not much does anymore,” he said. “And that team captured the imagination of an entire city and that just added to the excitement.”
Another former T-G co-worker of mine was Chris Snow, although we worked in different departments when he was hired full-time on the sports desk in 2017.
He eventually handled the T-G sports department for about three years until August of 2022 and, ironically, was a senior and one of the leading tacklers on Ashland’s 2006 defense at outside linebacker.
“After our freshman season, Curt (Gillespie) and I made a pact that we were going to go 10-0 and win a state title as seniors,” Snow told me this week. “We truly believed that heading into our senior season, even coming off the 5-5 (season in 2005).
“Although we came up short of winning a state title, I think it was that belief all of us had in what we were capable of that made a difference throughout the season.”
The turf era begins
You simply can’t talk about Ashland and 2006 without talking turf.
Former Ashland High School athletic director Rick Brindley said conversations about it began to really pick up steam during the 2005 football season – with both AHS and Ashland University frustrated with the grass playing surface while still sharing Community Stadium.
Brindley said rainy weeks where the Arrows played at home on Friday and the Eagles played on Saturday left the field looking more like a dirt track than a football field.
With a big push from former AU head coach Lee Owens – who had experienced similar turf surfaces on NCAA Division I fields, including during his time leading the University of Akron – the two entities reached an agreement where AU and Ashland City Schools would split the cost of the new ProGrass covering at $304,621 apiece.
Before Community Stadium got its artificial grass makeover, it was something mostly reserved for football programs at private schools and powerhouses.
Like Ashland, Tiffin had turf that was shared between its high school and college teams.
Elsewhere, Brindley said he could only remember seeing it on the high school level at Massillon and Canton McKinley at that time – two of the oldest, most well-known football programs in the country.
“We were one of the first and we were very fortunate to have a way that we funded that,” Brindley said.
Valentine said it would have been plenty more years before it would have happened had AU not still been playing at Community Stadium. (The Eagles’ new digs at the Dwight Schar Athletic Complex, a $25 million project, didn’t come along until 2009.)
“It was huge for both programs because then we were playing on a good field throughout the entire year (in home games),” Valentine said. “That added to the excitement.”
Brindley still remembers the scramble to get the turf ready for the 2006 season.
The original expected date of completion was Aug. 4, leaving the Arrows plenty of time to get used to the surface before the start of the season.
But rain pushed the target date back and ProGrass workers were putting in time on nights and weekends just to be sure it would be ready for Ashland’s opener Aug. 25 against Willard.
Even on the day of the first game, Brindley said he was on a machine spreading rubber pellets around the field up until 5 p.m.
He called it the busiest fall sports season of his career as an athletic director.
From there, Ashland would put money back from the postseason games it hosted and the parking fees for those games.
All of it went into a fund to help replace the turf when it was eventually necessary. That time finally came after the 2019 season – meaning the Arrows got 14 seasons out of their original turf before needing it replaced.
“They had guaranteed us eight years, and we were hoping to get up to that maximum of 10-12 years,” Brindley said. “So we passed that.”
Poll position
While a seemingly endless amount of big moments took place on the field for the 2006 Arrows, one of the most unique and memorable elements from the season came on Halloween night.
When the final Division II state poll of the season was released by the Associated Press that evening, Ashland was on top of the list.
The Arrows had just polished off their perfect regular season and received 20 first-place votes, finishing at the top of the AP poll – which started in 1947 – for the only time in their history.
The best finish outside of that year for Ashland has been at No. 9.
“When you have people voting, that means enough of them saw you play or knew things you’d done,” Valentine said. “It was a great thing for our guys and something they could take with them.”
The poll championship was just the second in area football history, following only Black River’s Class A poll title in 1977.
It also was a big reason Ashland’s coaching staff and players ended up getting rings following that season. Valentine and Arrows defensive coordinator Dan Fuller both said it’s the only ring they ever received that was associated with high school football.
The only other seasons Ashland has finished in the AP poll are 1963 (No. 10 in the “all classes” poll), 2009 (No. 9 in Division II), 2015 (No. 9 in Division III) and 2025 (No. 9 in Division II).
“When you have all those factors and they all come together and it all works out right,” Fuller said of the season, “when you look back and reflect, it’s a special moment for sure.”
Other notes from 2006
- Another huge enhancement for the Arrows earlier in the year was the school’s $185,000 upgrade and expansion of its high school weight room. The project was completely funded by money raised through the Ashland High School All-Sports Booster Club, which, at the time, was led by co-presidents David Housewright and Jeff McFarlin – the fathers of 2006 Arrow standouts Taylor Housewright and Tyler McFarlin.
- In the lead-up to Ashland’s 100th season, the Times-Gazette put out a reader voting poll to mark the Top 5 moments in the AHS program’s history. Those chosen were:
- 1. Roosevelt Robinson’s 1964 season, which saw him earn Ohio Back of the Year honors while rushing for 1,963 yards and leading the team to a 9-0 record.
- 2. The 2003 playoff-qualifying team, which was the first to qualify since 1987. Those Arrows finished 8-3 and lost to eventual state champion Avon Lake, 14-3.
- 3. Tim Seder’s school-record three field goals in a 23-21 win at No. 8-ranked Mansfield Senior in 1992. Seder went on to kick in the NFL.
- T-4. Ashland’s Cardinal Conference title in 1971, a 7-1-1 season that followed a 1-8 campaign just a year earlier.
- T-4. The first playoff appearance in 1987. It was the 81st season for the Arrows, who lost in the first round to eventual Final Four squad Benedictine, 38-12.
- Ashland senior Matt Austen was voted by his classmates as one of four team captains in 2006, even though he didn’t play. Austen dealt with a back injury that kept him off the field, so he worked the camera for the team from the press box for much of 2006 before dressing for games late in the season.
- Ashland’s well-known Sweet 16 group – also known as the Sweeties Dance Team – was celebrating its 50th year in 2006.
- The oldest AHS football alum at the “Century Celebration Night” against Shelby was 91-year-old Glen Wasen, a 1932 Ashland graduate.
- The same week the Arrows lost to Piqua, the OHSAA had to scramble to move up playoff games from that Saturday to Friday because No. 1-ranked Ohio State was playing No. 2-ranked Michigan. It was the first time the fierce rivals ever met as the top two-ranked teams in the nation, and the Buckeyes won, 42-39.
- Ashland wasn’t the only nearby school to finish 10-0 in 2006, as West Salem Northwestern also ran the table in the regular season. The Huskies finished ranked No. 2 in the Division V state poll but were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round. It was the first time in Ashland-area history that two teams went 10-0 in the same regular season.
