Fast starts…quarterback Justin Knouff helped Marion to a 21-0 first quarter lead last December in the latest of their 14 state titles. Knouff returns in 2024. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Six years after our last one-on-one with ultra-successful Marion Local coach Tim Goodwin, we check back on the personal and collective success since that 2017 visit. And as good as they were then, they’ve only gotten better.
Maria Stein, OH – It’s been six years since we sat down with Marion Local’s Tim Goodwin in the summer of 2017.
Owners of nine state titles at that time, the Flyers were on the doorstep of history as they pursued their tenth that fall. Ultimately seeking to tie Cleveland’s St. Ignatius state record of eleven, it amounted to a scenario of not would they do it…but when?
At the time the often close-to-the-vest Goodwin opened up, talking about past, present, and future.
Was he happy to stay at Marion, eschewing other, bigger, and more lucrative opportunities in Division I?
Was Marion and Division VI football still challenging? Was it still fun after nine titles in sixteen seasons?
Was the all-time record for state titles even a priority?
And…based on their consistency and those nine titles since 2000, was Marion Local, indeed, the best football program in Ohio, all divisions considered?
A lot has happened since 2017. Answering the question then about the priority of surpassing Ignatius for the all-time record, Goodwin answered with a shrug, and said, simply, “If we’re this close, we might as well go for it.”
And go for it they have, having won three in a row, currently, and four of the last five in Division VI and VII, raising their all-time record for football titles to 14 entering the 2024 season…and no end in sight!
On the weekend of the 4th of July football fans can now anticipate the start of another season, just seven weeks away; and already reader inquiries from parts outside the area, wanting to know more about the elephant in the room – the latest anticipation of what Marion Local might do for an encore in 2024, if they even need one.
Goodwin and the Flyers are currently in the midst of a 48-game win streak, and three 16-0 seasons having ended in Div. VII state titles.
They currently own a 48-game win streak, three consecutive 16-0 seasons, and many believe the potential for the 2024 Marion team to be Goodwin’s best ever. Losing just twelve seniors and five of their 22 position starters from last year, the rest of Division VII football rolled its eyes this spring when Marion Local’s enrollment again puts them back in Division VII for the 2024 season.
It led a recent reader to write and ask: “If the OHSAA can divide up Division I so the smaller schools don’t have to play Lakewood St. Ed, why can’t they do something so the other Division VII schools don’t have to play Marion Local.” Adding, “Where’s the competitive balance?”
Answer: How much would you pay to find it? Marion will travel nearly four hours to southwest Indiana to find an opening night opponent in 2024.
A math teacher by training, and now in administration at Marion Local after moving out of the classroom, Goodwin sat down again last week to re-examine Flyer football by talking his native language – probabilities and statistics.
Since 2013, Moeller Trucking is a charter sponsor of MAC sports on Press Pros Magazine.com
Starting with the question of being happy in his current job, the community, and life path…there really is no question. He’s not looking for a bigger, better opportunity. A man of simple needs, Maria Stein has it all.
And with his current job, what’s changed since that conversation six years ago?
“Probably our staff,” he answered last week, with a tone of having turned a page. “We have some former players coaching now who are successful people, and they’ve brought new ideas and good technology skills, and technology is so much more a part of coaching than it was back then. It’s increased our knowledge and our efficiency. The ‘basics’ part of putting a team together hasn’t changed – what works and what doesn’t – but the method of how we do as a staff has because of the technology is so much difference than what it was then. Our practices are more efficient, we’re not duplicating efforts from one group to another because you only have to much time in practice. It’s just made us better, but understand, too, we’ve had great kids for the last five years.
A champion himself from a decade ago, former quarterback Adam Bertke now coaches the next generation of Marion quarterbacks.
“We’ve won back-to-back state track titles with a lot of our football guys, so you can’t pooh-pooh that. We’ve always had pretty good team speed, but the last five years have been the ‘fastest’ five years in my twenty five.”
And, is it still fun, with success almost a foregone conclusion from one season to the next? His answer…a concession to more change and of his having turned a page.
“It’s fun to see other people take ownership of things, because in the past when I had to do a lot more I wasn’t as focused,” he adds. “I feel like now we’re all using our skills as a staff better then way back then. I’m a big picture guy and I don’t have to get down in the weeds now on a weekly basis. For instance, Adam Bertke and Chad Otte are coaching the quarterback position now, and I don’t worry one bit about quarterbacks, anymore. They can coach ’em a lot better than I ever could, so I can be the big picture guy, be the dreamer, and be the vision. I coached both of those guys, and now that’s just fun to watch.”
Leugers Insurance proudly sponsors MAC sports on Press Pros Magazine.com.
The 48-game win streak is a couple of years short of Cincinnati Wyoming’s all-time regular season record (72), or nine short of Delphos St. John’s MAC total of 57. But if you know Tim Goodwin he prioritizes things like that as another part of the big picture – a new group, and a new challenge.
“We’ve talked enough that people who know me understand that looking at the scoreboard doesn’t help the scoreboard,” he explains. “And I’ve thought about this. We’re going to have a good team this year, and there’s no way around that. And we’re going to have a chance to win ’em all. But we’re not going to let that streak and what external people are saying about it take away from the fun of our season. Our seniors will be a great group of guys and they deserve to have a fun senior year. The albatross of that streak is not going to take away from that fun.”
And how about the albatross that Marion Local now represents to the rest of Division VII football, to the reader’s point of balancing what they’ve done for the big schools with some balance at the other end of competition? And are they actually that much better than the rest of the teams in Division VII?
“We’re not going to let that streak and what external people are saying about it take away from the fun of our season. Our seniors deserve to have a fun year.”
“Well, it varies,” says Goodwin. “I thought Dalton was a good team last year. I thought they had the horses to play with us, but they just weren’t used to doing it against a team like us when we’re able to get off to a fast start. We’re confident that we can go out and do what we do. We execute, and the next thing you know the game is 21-0 and basically over. This has happened more than once over the years.
“I used to teach statistics, and there’s two types (interval and ratio). And I tell the OHSAA that statistically there’s not that much difference with ratio statistics in the way smaller Division I teams divide out than there is with Division VII. Hardin Northern has done it. They’ve beaten us once and actually won the state title once (2004), and they’re a super small school. But it’s a rare situation.”
Back to 2017, we asked Goodwin…with nine titles won in a span of so few years, if there was any doubt whether Marion Local, pound for pound, was the best football program in Ohio.
His answer? “Well, we’d have to be in the conversation.”
Pla-Mor lanes proudly sponsors coverage of your favorite MAC sports on Press Pros Magazine.
And as he turns a page of his own presently – while the Flyers will soon prepare for another, different, chapter in their stunning legacy – we asked again. If there was any question back then, where does the conversation stand now?
“I don’t know that there is an answer. Certainly, no one has done what we’ve done,” he says after moments of consideration. “It’s a good subject to just hash about, but how do you compare situations? You’re never gonna’ come to a resolution, but I think if you watch us play…we just play good football. And people notice that. We we play all three phases, we’re not making mistakes, we execute, we don’t burn timeouts, and we’re not jumping offsides. We don’t do stupid stuff. Now if you consider those kind of factors it certainly puts us up there. But if you compare us to a Massillon, or St. Ed, with the number of individually skilled athletes they have – about who can cover who – then you might have a different argument.”
What’s next? Marion returns 80% of its 2023 roster, including their high-powered passing attack (Andrew Pohlman, above).
Still, the program he’s built since 1999 has been uniquely his own. It’s Marion football. Which raises the question of whether he could do the same in any given division?
“Well, again it’s about that staff that we’ve been talking about,” he says, his voice rising to the challenge. “It would be fun to take our staff and go somewhere and just for fun see what we could do, although that’s not realistic. But I think the things we do in player development would help any program.”
Obviously! Which brings up the final point of our visit. They seem to have had an inexhaustible feeder program over the years, generating the question from outsiders over how they continue to do that, despite small enrollments in Division VII?
“We’re still getting almost every boy out for junior high school,” he assures. “But we’re going to have some years coming where we have smaller classes coming through. So that will be a challenge.”
But it’s always been a challenge. Fourteen titles and three runners-up defy the same probabilities that have guided so much of what he’s done – those same statistics that prove that each Marion team is both uniquely different, and the same.
And to the present, they’ll seek title number fifteen this year, which only raises the question of how far they can go. Is there an end in sight?
“It’s more open-ended than it was when we were going for eleven,” he admits. “But I’m not thinking about limits, or about what’s enough.
“I’m having fun and I love what I’m doing.”
Dorsten Contracting, in Minster, proudly supports area football on Press Pros Magazine.com.