ASHLAND — Earlier this week, Ashland City Schools interim superintendent Steve Paramore announced via press release his recommendation that head varsity football coach Sean Seder’s contract not be renewed later this month.
Paramore declined to comment on his recommendation until after the board of education’s Jan. 23 meeting.
“Once they have an opportunity to vote on (my recommendation) then I’ll be willing to make a comment on it,” he said.
Seder said the administration indicated it was looking to take the football program in “a different direction.” He is currently the head coach of the varsity wrestling program.
“I don’t remember anything specific (about) football, it was more the direction of the program, policy and procedural type things,” he said.
Seder first became head coach in 2019 when he took over for Scott Valentine. Since then, the Arrows have gone 21-20 overall and 16-9 against Ohio Cardinal Conference teams. This past season Ashland finished 6-5 overall, 4-2 in the OCC. In the first round of the playoffs the Arrows were bounced 69-7 by eventual state champion Toledo Central Catholic.
Valentine coached at Madison in 2022 and went 1-9 in his first year with the Rams.
The Arrows also had two playoff appearances under Seder, one in 2022 and one in 2020 when any team could participate in the postseason. Seder said he through he did a “pretty decent” job as head coach.
“I felt like if you look at our body of work, just talking to my coaching staff and my kids, I felt like we checked all the boxes, hit the metrics we were aiming for,” he said.
In Seder’s most recent performance review from December 2021, the district was satisfied with his cooperation with the athletic director, his status as a positive role model, his understanding of rules and regulations, his coaching performance, and his cooperative use of facilities.
However, under Seder’s “areas where specific improvement is required,” the district wrote “Coach Seder should work to improve communication avenues within program relating to administration, coaching staff, and parents, as well as continue steps to ensure integrity of the football program.”
Seder and his coaching staff put a “big emphasis” on making these improvements this year by meeting with the athletic director and having weekly meetings with players, he said.
“(We) just got to keep everyone in the loop, we tried to address it, I don’t know if we met their standard or not,” Seder said.
Performance reviews from previous years also noted Seder needed to improve his communication with the athletic office and his completion of administrative tasks.
His head coach contract was most recently renewed for the 2022-2023 school year in September, paying him $8,241.84 annually for the role. Seder is also a STEM teacher, equipment manager, and wrestling coach at the district.
While Seder said he’s disappointed with the district’s decision, he wants to remain positive about it.
“If you had told me four years ago this would happen even though it sucks and it’s disappointing, I’d do it all over again because I had a great experience and also great relationships. I don’t have any regrets,” he said.
