Scott Wetzel has resigned as Westerville North High School football coach to take the same position at Delaware Hayes.
Wetzel replaces Mike Golden, who announced his resignation in March. Golden, 62, was 14-20 with the Pacers and has a career record of 217-98 in 29 seasons, with stints at Watterson (1988-2002), New Albany (2004) and Upper Arlington (2005-13) before being hired at Delaware in 2014.
Wetzel was 5-15 the past two seasons at North and is 136-61 in 18 seasons with 10 league titles. He won the Division III state championship in 2007 at Big Walnut.
“Coach Wetzel brought a needed energy to our program the past two seasons and we plan on continuing the improvement that he started at North,” Warriors athletics director Wes Elifritz said in a press release April 25. “We wish him nothing but the best at Delaware.”
Wetzel was 31-19 with four league titles at Buckeye Valley from 1992-96. He was an assistant at Dublin Scioto in 1997 before taking over at Big Walnut, where he spent 11 seasons and went 100-27 with six OCC titles. He stepped down as head coach, but returned to the Big Walnut sidelines as an assistant from 2010-15 before taking over at North.
Delaware finished 3-7 last season while North went 2-8.
“We’re really excited about the possibility of bringing sustained success to our program,” Delaware athletics director Steve Glesenkamp said. “We interviewed 10 candidates and all had ties to Delaware County, which was important to us. I did research all the way back to the 1960s, trying to figure out why we haven’t been able to sustain the successes we’ve had.
“We’ve had some great coaches, but we didn’t have guys who understood the culture of Delaware City Schools, our community or our county. Scott was born in Delaware and his kids attended Willis (Intermediate School) before he moved to Sunbury and I hired him as the coach at Big Walnut. He’s going to be a good fit for this program.”
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