By Gary Ogle
gogle@wbcowqel.com

Travis Moyer sat out two football seasons and decided he was ready to get back in the game. Moyer, who stepped down following the 2011 season after 13 years at the helm of the Wynford football program, was announced as the next head football coach at Wapakoneta on Tuesday evening by that school district’s board of education.

Moyer is currently the athletics director at Wynford.

“It’s a great opportunity for our family, but it means we have to leave what has been our home,” Moyer said of the decision to pull up roots in Crawford County where he starred at Crestline High School as a player. “I’ve been fortunate over the last 17 years to develop a lot of great relationships and that’s what has made this so great. It’s hard to say goodbye.”

Wynford is the only place Moyer has ever coached and his record as a head football coach is the standard for that sport at Wynford. Moyer’s won-loss record of 118-28 with nine playoff appearances over 13 years tells only part of the story. The Royals under his guidance captured nine North Central Conference titles, including the last seven he roamed the sidelines. His teams were runner-up three of the four years the Royals didn’t win the NCC with Moyer as coach.

The farthest the Royals advanced in the playoffs under Moyer was to the Division V state semifinals in 2011. Moyer guided the Royals to five straight unbeaten regular seasons and when he stepped down Wynford owned a regular season winning streak of 58 straight games which set an Ohio high school record regardless of division.

“(When you leave) you always want to say you left it a better place than when you go here. It was important to me to see kids with Wynford football T-shirts on, “Moyer said. “At the end of the day it’s about people and it’s about the relationships you’ve developed.”

One hundred players received all-conference honors under Moyer’s tutelage. Two of them, Tyler Brause and Tevin Eatmon, received athletic scholarships to play that sport at the University of Kentucky in the Southeastern Conference – arguably the best college football conference in the nation.

Yet, Moyer refused to single out a player, team, game or even accomplishment as the most memorable for him while at Wynford.

“It’s tough for me to do that because I did wear several hats,” Moyer said. “I’m proud of what we accomplished here. I’m proud of the success we’ve had. I can’t thank enough the players and coaches I worked with. At the end of the day, I’m proud of what we did.”

Moyer is going to a program at Wapakoneta with a tradition all its own where he will succeed one-time Bucyrus coach Doug Frye. Frye is returning to St. Mary where he coached after leaving Bucyrus. Frye was leaving Bucyrus at the same time Moyer was coming to Wynford.

“My job is to go in there and build on what he (Frye) started,” Moyer said. “We’ll have to do what it takes to be successful.”

The Redskins finished second in the Western Buckeye League to undefeated Kenton in 2013. Wapakoneta took a 9-1 record into the playoffs in Division III where it lost 41-34 in overtime to Lima Shawnee in the first week of the postseason.

“I have a great amount of respect for the WBL. It’s a great league. Our goals will be the same as they were at Wynford – win the league, go to the playoffs and play for a state championship,” Moyer said. “My big concern is to build a relationship with those players and recruit the best staff I can. I don’t know anybody (in that area) so it’s going to be a great challenge.”

Moyer said the reason he is getting back into coaching after two years away, and specifically coaching at Wapakoneta, is the opportunity that district and that community provides in allowing him to both coach and have time for his young family. He and his wife, Erin who is a Wynford graduate, currently have three young sons with a fourth expected in the spring.

“I had to be smart. Coaching football is a full-time job and I had to be confident in my day job,” said Moyer, who admitted he found the year-long schedule of combining athletic director and a head football coach to be overwhelming when it came to finding time for his family. “I won’t have the out-of-school hours I have here (Wynford). I’ll still have time to be with my family.

“They (Wapakoneta) understood my concerns, I was confident at the end of the day I can do both and still have time for my family.”

In addition to coaching football, Moyer’s duties at Wapkoneta will include being the director of alternative programs and fill in at various buildings in the district at the discretion of the superintendent.

The other thing Wapakoneta offered was a community much like the one Moyer is leaving at Wynford.

“I feel like I can continue to raise my family there. I can coach football again and it’s the right opportunity at the right time,” Moyer said. “I have the same excitement about coaching I did when I started here.

“I think what is important are the values we have here at Wynford. They are the same values at Wapakoneta.”

Moyer said his schedule at his new job, especially during the offseason, will allow his family to take trips to return home and do things as a family. It wasn’t a privilege he felt he had at Wynford while trying to be both head coach and athletics director. Moyer said he and his wife sought input from their families prior to making the decision to move.

In looking for the next head coach of the Redskins, Wapakoneta selected Moyer from a deep pool of notable candidates that included Derek Kidwell, Tim Spiess, Bill Insellman and Britton Devier to name just a few.

Moyer admitted he won’t be leaving Wynford completely behind and cited the support he received from not only players and coaches, but administrators, boosters and the community in general.

“When I go to look for a score in the paper, the first score I’ll look for is Wynford,” Moyer said. “I can’t think of a better place to start. A piece of my heart will always be at Wynford.”