BY MARK URBAN
TRAVERSE CITY -- For the first 11 seasons that Traverse City West had a football team, Matt Prisk was the coach.
Traverse City St. Francis hadn't had a football coach without a Sellers' surname since the 1970s.
But this fall, two of the three Traverse City schools had new coaching regimes.
Times, at least in terms of Traverse City football, were changing.
Alum Greg Vaughan returned to take the reins at St. Francis while TC West turned to Tim Wooer, who left his alma mater at Kingsley.
"They're jobs that a lot of people would want," Vaughan said of the two openings in Traverse City. "Plus their great communities. For different reasons, the jobs at St. Francis and West are great jobs."
Vaughan was right.
A field of 21 coaches applied for the job at TC West while some 16-17 resumes were received, hoping to lead the Gladiators.
Wooer, who guided Kingsley to a Division 6 state title in 2005, said leaving the Stags was a tough decision.
"I had a great job," Wooer said. "That was the tough thing. At the same time, it was an unbelievable opportunity at a bigger school.
"I got the chance to maintain the relationships with friends and family at Kingsley while at the same time have a huge career opportunity at West."
Vaughan said he eyed the St. Francis job when Josh Sellers took over in 2003.
"I knew Josh was probably going to get it and I didn't have enough experience at that point to do it," said Vaughan, a 1995 graduate of St. Francis. "Plus there were a couple of other things I wanted to experience to help me."
Vaughan, who won a state championship as an assistant coach at East Grand Rapids and a Division II national championship while on the staff at Grand Valley State, was an assistant coach at Randolph-Macon College before accepting the St. Francis job.
All the Gladiators did in Vaughan's first season was to reach the Division 7 state championship game for the second straight season. But unlike 2007, St. Francis came home with the state trophy thanks to a 41-13 rout of Ubly.
TC West opened Wooer's first season at the helm with a 42-14 loss to Hudsonville and a 57-35 setback against Grandville. But the Titans didn't lose again until qualifying for a seventh straight playoff bid and a share of the Big North Conference title.
The Titans wound up 6-4 with a narrow 21-14 loss to TC Central in the regular-season finale and a 46-26 setback to eventual state champion Rockford in the opening round of the Division 1 playoffs.
"The thing that impressed me most about the kids was a willingness to stick with it," Wooer said. "We gave up 57 points to Grandville and that was a great opportunity for the kids to say, 'What the heck is going on?' Or, 'Who did these people hire?'
"We stuck together as a family and there was no bickering or arguing. We just rallied the troops and improved drastically. You do most of you're improving from Week 1 to 2 or Week 2 to 3 and I don't know if I ever had a team that made huge growth in Weeks 4, 5 and 6."
