MADISON TOWNSHIP — Christmas Day came a couple days early for Madison athletic director Doug Rickert.
The new year can’t arrive soon enough for Scott Valentine. Madison’s new football coach wants to get to work.
Valentine, whose high school coaching résumé speaks for itself, accepted an offer to become Madison’s next football coach Wednesday afternoon. He inherits a once-proud program that has fallen upon hard times during the past decade.
“This is a big day for Madison,” Rickert said. “If you look around north central Ohio, has there been a more winning coach during the past 50 years than Scott Valentine? I don’t know that there has been.”
A 1981 Ashland High School graduate, Valentine starred at Ashland College in the mid-1980s. He was an Associated Press second-team All-American and the Heartland Collegiate Conference Defensive Lineman of the Year in 1984.
He began his coaching career shortly after his playing days came to an end and got his first head coaching position at South Central High School in the late-’80s. He coached at Ontario for six seasons, leading the Warriors to an undefeated season and the program’s first-ever playoff appearance in 2001, before coming home to coach at Ashland High School in 2002.
During his 17-year stay at his alma mater, Valentine was a combined 130-60 with 10 playoff appearances and seven Ohio Cardinal Conference championships. He guided Ashland to a Division II poll championship and was selected the state’s Division II Coach of the Year in 2006 and piloted the Arrows to a berth in the Division II state semifinals in 2007.
He stepped down following the 2018 season to spend time with his ailing mother and to watch his sons play college football. Scott Jr. followed in his father’s footsteps and was a senior starter along AU’s defensive line last fall. John Valentine was a senior and the starting center at Division III powerhouse Mount Union.
“When I retired, my mom was not doing well and I got the opportunity to spend some quality time with her before she passed away,” said Valentine, who was inducted into the Ashland County Sports Hall of Fame in 2008 and AU’s Hall of Fame in 2012.
“I had two sons playing college football and I wanted to be able to see them play. I felt neglectful missing Saturdays.”
Valentine’s mother, Elise, passed away in July of 2019. Valentine resumed his coaching career at Ashland University shortly thereafter, serving as wide receivers coach under longtime AU head coach Lee Owens, himself a Madison graduate.
“We were blessed to have him,” Owens said Wednesday evening. “Everywhere he’s been he’s been successful and, as a Madison grad, I’m excited for him and the program.
“It won’t be long before that once-proud program is playing championship football again with Scott Valentine as the head coach.”
Valentine was an early convert to the pass-first offense so prevalent at the high school level today. He adopted the philosophy in the mid-2000s with quarterback Taylor Housewright pulling the trigger and took it a step further a few years later with Marcus Fuller in charge. Housewright was Ohio’s Division II Offensive Player of the Year in 2007 before going on to an All-America career under Owens at AU.
Housewright is the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Montana State. Fuller was a two-time, first-team All-Ohioan in Division II and a two-year staring quarterback at Brown University in the Ivy League.
“He’s such a great teacher of the game. In a very unique manner he commands respect from his players,” Owens said. “He’s got that ‘it’ factor in coaching. It’s hard to put your finger on it, but you can tell he has it by the way players respond and react to him.
“We learned a lot from him. That whole wide-open, empty (backfield) set, we had not been into any of that and we were into it quite a bit this year. What we were doing was a lot of his stuff.”
Valentine isn’t sure what offense he will install at Madison.
“I learned something from (legendary former Mount Union coach) Larry Kehres a long time ago. It’s PFP — players formations and plays,” Valentine said. “First you look at who your players are. Players determine what kind of formations you have and then you put plays together based on that.
“We’ll still throw the ball, there’s no doubt about it. I think you’ve got to be able to throw the ball to be successful.”
The Rams were 0-8 last fall and 2-35 in four seasons under former coach Dave Stupka, who stepped down earlier this month. Madison’s last winning season came in 2014, when Sean Conway led the Rams to a 7-4 record and a berth in the Division III playoffs. Conway is now the high school principal at Madison.
“My success all along has been because I had really good players and assistant coaches. Talking with Doug and Sean, they feel like they’ve got good kids there,” Valentine said. “The next part is getting my staff together. I know there were some good coaches on staff.
“I’m looking forward to meeting the kids. I always like having one-on-one meetings with guys to get to know them a little bit. Then we need to get the weight room going and get kids ready to attack the rest of the year and into the summer. It’s going to be a challenge, but it’s one of those challenges that you get excited about.”
For Valentine, the job is a homecoming of sorts. His father, John, was the head coach at Madison before joining College Football Hall of Fame inductee Dr. Fred Martinelli at Ashland College in the 1960s.
“I was born when he was coaching at Madison and he moved to Ashland College when I was 3 years old,” Valentine said. “The first high school football game I ever went to was probably at Madison.
“When we were talking about the possibility of me coaching at Madison, we thought it would be kind of neat because my dad coached there all those years ago.”
Rickert said Valentine distinguished himself in a field of more than 20 applicants. The search committee narrowed the field to three before tabbing Valentine.
“You start with his character and his integrity. Anyone you talk to, they’re going to say Scott is a great man of character. That means a lot to me,” Rickert said. “It’s a slam dunk when you’re looking for a candidate and you find a guy who has been this successful in turning a program around.
“When you think of Ashland football, you think of Scott Valentine. Years from now, we hope we can say the same thing about Scott Valentine and Madison football.
“It’s a Merry Christmas for Madison.”