“We’re not that far away. We have some talent and there’s more coming. I look around and I see kids who can play. I’m convinced.” – Versailles football coach Scott Broerman. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
A surprise hire to those who anticipated headlines from an impressive list of applicants, the current athletic director and a home-grown disciple of Al Hetrick was ultimately chosen to be the next football coach at Versailles…and the fifth since Al Hetrick!
Versailles, OH – Scott Broerman is out to prove something to himself, and no doubt to those across the area who may question…that he can do what novelist Thomas Wolfe said you can’t do when he wrote his famous book, You Can’t Go Home Again.
But with Broerman there’s an ironic twist to Wolfe’s story, because he’s been at home now for the past eight years, working in school administration, living happily in Versailles, Ohio.
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But here’s where the story, with Broerman as the leading man, takes a different twist.
Can he tempt fate to coach high school football in one of the most storied competitive cultures in all of Ohio High School Athletic Association football?
And in Versailles, that means…can you be the man to replace the man, who replaced the man, who replaced the man, who replaced the man who replaced “the man” – Al Hetrick – the almost mystical figure since his retirement from coaching in 2005?
Hetrick, the legend, won 334 games, 18 league titles, and six state titles over 38 seasons at Versailles. At its very mention his name still elicits oohs and aahs, and accepting respect for his record.
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The current Athletic Director at Versailles, Broerman was chosen from a list of better than thirty applicants three weeks ago to replace 2021 Division V champion coach Ryan Jones, who left following the past season over reported differences with administration.
His qualifications?
In football reality, his coaching experience amounts to having spent time on coach Bob Olwin’s staff at Versailles as an assistant between 2008 and ’12; and in the Brookville school district previously as an assistant football coach with Mike Hetrick (the son of Al Hetrick). He was also that school’s varsity baseball coach, his primary experience as a head coach in any sport.
But, for those open-minded enough to believe in ‘buts’…Scott Broerman comes to the job as a most convincing, if not surprising hire. A former math teacher, he makes no bones about tackling the equation of being the head football coach.
One, he’s hometown born and raised, graduating from Versailles in 2005.
Two, he was an offensive lineman for Al Hetrick during the waning days of his career…part of Hetrick’s last state championship team in 2003.
Three, he played two years of college football at Ohio Northern before transferring to Wright State where he graduated with an education degree in mathematics.
Four, like no one you’re likely to meet, Broerman takes nothing for granted when he shares his appreciation for the legacy of Versailles football…or for the core values, character, and expectations within the community itself.
If blood is thicker than Xs and Os, then Scott Broerman is the walking, talking personification of what ‘Tigerball’ means, the familiar and oft-referenced terminology that defines everything associated with Versailles, Ohio – football to bar-b-cue chicken on Poultry Days. Broerman oozes Versailles and its every virtue.
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“Well, I’ve wanted to be a football coach and math teacher at Versailles since I went to school here,” he said last week, in his first and only sit-down interview since taking the job over the holidays. “That trip took some turns there when I went administrative, and I didn’t know if the opportunity would ever come up. And now, at this point of my life I have a wife and four kids, being the AD, so I didn’t have to convince myself that this is something I wanted to do. But I had to convince my wife. I needed to make sure she was on board.
“From the school district I had some support among the higher ups and from the board, so that’s how it all came about. But I will say that in the eight years I’ve been here as athletic director I think I established some solid foundation. They’ve seen my work and I’ve proven myself. I haven’t lit any fires, knock on wood. And I’m admitting that I’m a different, more mature, adult than what I was when I left Versailles for those six years in Brookville.
“As an old offensive lineman I’d love to line up in the ‘T’ and rip off first downs and long drives. But we have to do more things because we play a lot of good teams.” – Scott Broerman
“Those six years made me really understand how special Versailles is. Brookville was my first full-time teaching job, I grew up a lot, my wife was teaching there, and the experience really matured me. Brookville is a great school, a great community, and there was a time when I had interviewed six times at Versailles for three different jobs; and Brookville made me see that I wasn’t yet ready for those jobs. I didn’t understand it then, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Brookville is a lot like Versailles and it brought a whole new understanding to life outside of Versailles – new friends, new perspectives – and the rest is kinda’ history, a little bit.”
There’s long been an overtone you sense about Versailles football, real or not, that anyone not named Hetrick would struggle to satisfy as the community’s football coach. Al Hetrick won all those games, all those titles, including an at-the-time unheard of three-peat, in 1993, ’94, and ’95. The term ‘Tigerball’ was born, a book was written about it, and Hetrick’s legacy and authority on all things football felt forever cemented, and unapproachable.
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Jason Schondelmyer, who tasted success at Arcanum, never won at Versailles.
Bob Olwin, while he won at Versailles, won in a manner different than Hetrick’s style of power, smash-mouth football.
Adam Miller had up and down times during his seven years as coach, but he wasn’t a Versailles product – never played for Hetrick.
Ryan Jones won that coveted state title in 2021 after replacing Miller in 2019, but again, his ways were his own, and not of the legacy.
“I think a lot of communities in the area seem to like it when someone from the community comes back,” says Broerman. “And that’s been by general consensus the past couple of weeks. Is anything better if it’s local? A state championship is a state championship, and I would never take anything away from what Ryan Jones accomplished, or from any of our titles. They were certainly exciting as a player (he was a member of the 2003 football title team) and those are things that we still talk about. It’s crazy. That was twenty years ago. And those kids on the ’21 team are going to have the same memories twenty years from now when they get together.
“But for me, I want all of our kids to experience that with my current role. Doesn’t matter what the sport, and we’re having a great year in basketball. The anticipation is positive for the spring with our new baseball coach. So to the point about it being good enough…that people are more satisfied when it’s someone local…I think that may be true. But I’ve been telling those same people, too, please keep that same thought nine months from now when I make the first mistake as head football coach. And the expectations here are high, because people know we have talent coming. But part of the reason for our past success is because people in Versailles have those high expectations.”
The Hetrick legacy…Broerman coached for Mike Hetrick (above, left) at Brookville and played for Al Hetrick (above, right) at Versailles. “I think Coach Hetrick could have asked kids to buy into anything back then, and they would have.” – Scott Broerman
These are different football times, and far different from the days of Hetrick, who once claimed that Versailles ran about a dozen plays out of a half dozen formations. “We executed them, and people knew they were coming,” he enjoyed explaining. “And they couldn’t stop us.”
But ‘T’ formation football and the full-house backfield, except in notable cases, are not popular in contemporary football. Tastes have changed.
“Technology has changed football,” says Broerman. “You get to see everyone’s scout films now, and before that wasn’t the case. You trusted your scouts that went to the games, knowing that they were going to miss some things. The game has definitely changed, but what hasn’t changed is the type of kids we have and the style of coaching. I think Coach Hetrick could have asked kids to buy into anything back then, and they would have. That worked then, and we’ll certainly do some parts of that now.
“As an old offensive lineman I’d love to line up in the ‘T’ and rip off first downs and long drives. It’s demoralizing for a defense. But, things have to be expanded. We have to have more things to go to because we play some good teams. And quite a few good teams, so we’ll prepare accordingly.”
The challenge of coaching in the MAC…Coldwater’s Chip Otten (above) and his current coaching colleagues have no fewer than 35 OHSAA state titles between them.
What remains as a tough question to address is the reality of coaching against a league full of coaches who own no fewer than 35 state titles amongst themselves. And without previous experience as a head football coach, has Broerman processed this inwardly? And how does he address it outwardly?
“Absolutely,” he adds. “And what a challenge, right? I’ve always felt that what makes the MAC special is the respect that all the schools have for each other. Everyone has their differences. But again, I see it as an opportunity, knowing nothing’s going to come easy. I’ve watched it, I’ve experienced it. You have to fall back on your work ethic, along with time management and efficiency.
“And we’re not that far away. We have good talent, and we have more coming. I’ve looked around the weight room since I’ve gotten the job. I see kids that can play. I’m convinced. It’s the MAC and a state title is always the goal…a realistic goal. Everyone believes it’s possible, and that’s OK because that’s what our kids are going home to.
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“You surround yourself with good people, knowing that there’s going to be some bumps in the road. There’s a lot of good coaches in this league who have the same goal. They don’t over-complicate. It’s a simple game. Be willing to learn. Play to your advantage. Ride your horse. Like St.Henry had the double tight ends, a great offensive line, and the running game. We can do that, too”
His staff is a work in progress, obviously. He’s only been coach for three weeks. But without being too specific some familiar names with experience and knowledge of the system will being joining him. Thinking out of the box, he hopes to bring in some youthful influence, like a Carson Bey to work with the junior high program.
“It’s not a done deal,” he says. “But we’ve got to be surrounded by good people. Our junior high staff, which is so important, are all planning on coming back. And because of the gap between 2003 and 2021 (18 years between titles), those kids don’t remember a Kyle Gehle, Ben Shappie, and Ryan McNeilan. But they know Carson Bey, and if his work schedule allows, what a great thing for a junior high kid to come into. As for the high school staff, there’s a number of people with experience that we’re still talking with, but I expect to have a very good, experienced, and enthusiastic staff. It’s very early, but that’s where we stand.”
What Thomas Wolfe wrote about was fictional. What Scott Broerman is about to undertake is football reality…third and seven against Marion Local and Coldwater.
“Another friend who’s an athletic director called me a couple of weeks ago and asked me what I was thinking when I took the job…if I had lost it,” he laughs.
“A state championship is a state championship, and I would never take anything away from what Ryan Jones accomplished, or from any of our titles. In my current role, I want that experience for all our athletes.”
But on the subject of football he’s as sober as a judge in regards to his dream to coach at Versailles, to recapture an appreciation for something once taken for granted.
There is no question…he’s all about expectations, core values, and character. He’s willing to dream, and put legs on his dreams through the example of his eight years as an exemplary athletic director.
Math teachers are detail people. He’s shows no outward concern about his ability to adapt.
He’s highly motivated by his own expectations. He’s realistic.
Long shot? It’s wait and see. It’s a new day, and history can repeat itself, if not overnight.
And it’s notable to remember that once upon a time people questioned a young guy from Ada who came to Versailles to address winning football. And that it took him a while.
His name…was Al Hetrick.
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