PHOTO BY RACHEL NAGEL / THE VILLAGE REPORTER
200TH CAREER WIN … Delta Athletic Director Walt Steele (left) presents a commemorative football to Vicars after earning his 200th career win on September 19.
By: John Fryman
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
john@thevillagereporter.com
DELTA – Mike Vicars has seen his successful head football coaching journey take him to different high schools throughout Northwest Ohio.
The 62-year-old Liberty Center native has been through the peaks and valleys during a successful 40-year-plus high school coaching career, and on Friday, September 19, he achieved a special milestone, capturing his 200th career victory with a 65-0 Northwest Ohio Athletic League triumph over neighboring Swanton.
“It says a lot about the longevity of time and how it passes, it’s crazy,” said Vicars. “It really tells me that over the years, with getting 200 wins, I’ve been fortunate of coaching a lot of good kids in my time.
“Been lucky to have runs of kids that really liked football, and then I had good assistant coaches that generally, when our coaching staff came together, we all stayed together the whole time.”
Vicars admitted it was a different feeling afterwards, reaching the 200-win coaching milestone, but it was also a flashback for him, reflecting on his career.
“It was a really different kind of feeling, wondering what it would feel like,” he said. “Because what was very unique about it, people around here and the kids, it was really important to them.
“At times, it was more important to them than it was for me, and to see the joy in them.”
He credited his wife, Cecilia, for being very supportive of his coaching career, and reaching the milestone is also a credit to her.
“She (Cecilia) has made a lot of sacrifices not only in time, but we’ve moved, and I changed jobs and moved our children to different schools,” said Vicars. She was always there and stood behind me the whole time. She’s always been amazing.
“I think any coach that is married, their wife has to understand they are a little bit of a football widow to a certain extent.”
He then added, “I couldn’t have done it without her. A lot of families struggle because of coaches in football and the amount of time they put in. “She made not only our family great, but she made our football family great because it was all encompassing and was all in.”
Vicars, whose career overall coaching record is 200-126, joins three other former Northwest Ohio Athletic League football coaches, Charles Buckenmeyer of Napoleon, John Downey of Archbold, and Rex Lingruen of Liberty Center, in the elite 200-win club, along with current Patrick Henry head coach Bill Inselmann.
Buckenmeyer posted a 209-54-9 record from 1948-51, 52-77. Downey was 222-99 from 1979-2008, and Lingruen posted a 253-104 record from 1985-2016.
Inselmann is currently the NWOAL’s all-time winningest coach with a 276-103 record heading into a week six contest at Liberty Center.
“Those were the coaches that I looked up to for sure, and you’re trying to mirror yourself at your program,” said Vicars. “Every one of those guys either helped me or I studied the crap out of them on tape.”
Coming out of college at the age of 23, Vicars landed his first head coaching job at Holgate, where he lasted only two seasons, going 1-19 overall.
“When you’re 23 years old, you were going to save the world, and you know better than most people,” said Vicars.
“Quickly, I got to find out right away that wasn’t the case. I think in those first five years of being a head coach, I think we had won five games and went 5-45 overall, so I piled up a lot of losses right away.”
One day, Vicars had looked at himself in the mirror and then said, ‘Hey Mike, you don’t know what you’re doing at all,’ regarding his own coaching future.
Looking for a jumpstart in getting his head football coaching career on the right path, Vicars said he needed some mentors in his life who were good coaches he could copy a little bit.
“Back in those days, guys like John Downey, who was super successful,” said Vicars, “My own head coach, Jim Meeker, who turned around the football program at Liberty Center when I was there.
“The legendary Skip Baughman at St. Mary’s Memorial was another guy that I went and saw and talked to a lot. Of course, Charles Buckenmeyer, where I sat in a couple of different times in his basement, just searching what makes a good head coach.”
Following his brief stint in Holgate, Vicars took over the coaching reins at Ada, which is located just west of Lima. “Ada was a revelation for me because that was about the time, after about three years of 0-10, 1-9, 3-7, that’s when I started to seek other people out,” admitted Vicars.
“I also had a couple of assistant coaches that weren’t in the program at the time that were longtime coaches that came back in Dave Allen and Greg Grimslid, along with Denny Simon and Mark Nickels. They came back and helped me.
“Not only that I was reaching out to like the Skip Baughmans and the John Downeys of the world, but those guys also had some winning experience and helped mentor me.”
It eventually paid off with a Northwest Conference championship and a first-ever state playoff berth in Vicars’ sixth season at Ada.
Vicars would go on to become head coach at Hilltop, where he guided the Cadets to back-to-back 7-3 campaigns after taking over from Hal Krotzer, who had retired.
“I worked with some good assistant coaches and players at Hilltop, and we also had a couple of 1,000-yard rushers in my short tenure,” said Vicars.
That’s when Delta came calling for his coaching services, and after interviews with former high school principal Robin Rayfield and athletic director Randy Lintermoot, Vicars was hired for the first of three coaching stints with the Panthers.
In his initial season at Delta in 1999, the Panthers went 1-9, defeating Montpelier in the regular season finale, but the foundation was beginning with a coaching staff of Randy Lintermoot, Bob Morr, Jamie Grime, Nate Ruple, and Neil Bersticker, all of whom were with Vicars for the next eight seasons.
The next year, the Panthers went 6-5 and made the state playoffs for the first time in program history, losing to eventual state champion Sandusky Perkins in the first round.
Under his tutelage, the Panthers achieved history by winning their first-ever NWOAL championship in 2002, sharing it with Patrick Henry, and went to the playoffs, losing to Archbold in the second round.
They also shared the 2006 NWOAL title with Patrick Henry, but in the playoffs, they reached the Division IV state semifinals, falling to Versailles.
Following his initial stint at Delta, Vicars also coached at Genoa and Swanton. Neither of those programs experienced much success until his arrival.
In his brief coaching tenure at Swanton, he led the Bulldogs to a share of the NWOAL title in 2015 with Wauseon and had reached the state playoffs in 2015 and 2016.
In his second coaching stint at Delta, Vicars coached players whose fathers had previously played for him earlier in his coaching career.
“When they called me and asked me to do this, I had told them no,” said Vicars. “I’m 62 years old now, and I didn’t think I had the energy to do the rigors of being a head coach again.
“But I’m retired, and I didn’t like that part either because I wasn’t going to be in the building with them every day. They came back to me, and they talked me into doing it.
“It’s kind of like it was a God call, almost. I said that I would do it for two years. We’ll have to see after this.”
