Millspaugh out as Patriot coach

The Patriots will have a new football coach next season.

Jay School Board on Monday chose not to renew the three-year contract of Jay County High School football coach Tim Millspaugh.

“Obviously it’s a decision you’ve got to make,” Millspaugh said of the board’s choice to open its search for a new coach. “When you don’t win that makes it harder, that’s no question.

“Maybe somebody else would have more success in getting kids and parents to understand the commitment to the weight room and the sacrifice it takes to be successful in athletics today.”

Jay School’s superintendent Jeremy Gulley was brief in explaining to The Commercial Review the board’s decision, which was 6-1 with president Phil Ford dissenting.

It was part of a vote on an “administration memorandum of understanding” regarding coaches contracts.

“The board chose not to pursue a renewal,” he said. “They felt it was time for a change.”

In eight years leading Jay County football, Millspaugh was 28-53, which included the program’s only winless season last fall and a 1-19 mark over the last two years. Millspaugh’s Patriots were above .500 just twice, a 7-4 clip in 2013 and a 6-4 record in 2017.

During his time, Jay County reached the sectional semifinal twice. The program’s last sectional title came in 2007, when Millspaugh was an assistant to then-coach Shane Hill.

“We knew this was coming,” Millspaugh, 45, said of the struggles the team was going to face these last two years. With a declining enrollment, the class sizes shrunk as senior classes graduated. “You hope you can get enough effort and improvement in the weight room that you can make up for some of the deficiencies and we just weren’t able to do that.

“This year was especially hard from a work standpoint. It is what it is.”

Jay County athletics director Steve Boozier said Monday night a hiring committee will be formed just as with its most recent boys and girls basketball coaching vacancies — the former this spring and the latter in 2015.

He said the job will be posted later this week and applications will be accepted until some time in January. Then, the committee will evaluate the applicants, conduct interviews and make its recommendation to the school board.

Boozier also said there is no definitive date as to when he hopes to have a new coach hired, but that he and the committee won’t dawdle in finding Millspaugh’s replacement.

“Just evaluate and see how quickly we get applications and the quality of the applicants,” he said. “Don’t want to rush it or take too long either … just judge it as the process goes on.”