Wears hired as Triad football coach

Triad High School has hired Dylan Wears as its new football coach.

Wears, an East Knox High School graduate who played football at Ohio University, is the Cardinals’ third head coach in three years.

Wears, 24, was selected from a pool of 24 applicants through three rounds of interviews that included administrators, teachers, parents and students. He will also serve as a middle school physical education teacher.

“I’m really excited,” he said. “I knew at some point I wanted to be a head coach. I thought I was ready now, but didn’t necessarily know for sure if I was going to get an opportunity this early in my coaching career. It really was a perfect match.”

Wears takes over for Zack Winslow, who went 3-7 last season. Winslow was recently hired as head coach at his alma mater, Marion Elgin.

The Cardinals are seeking their first winning season since 2014, when they went 6-4 and fell to Marion Local in the Division VII, Region 26 playoffs. Triad’s last Ohio Heritage Conference title came in 2013.

Wears starred as a running back at Howard East Knox, a Division VI school located northeast of Columbus near Mount Vernon.

“I went to a very similar school in size as Triad,” Wears said. “I’m from a similar type of area. That drew me to the area and made me feel comfortable in a place like that.”

Wears was a walk-on running back at Ohio University where he played under Bobcats coach Frank Solich.

“After being around coaching a little bit and seeing how other programs work, it let me know how good of a program I was in and how well it was ran by Coach Solich and the coaches he has on staff,” Wears said. “Obviously, Triad and high school ball is different than college, the way you set things up and run things, but I think I can take some of those solid principles and implement them into a high school format and use those same types of things we used when I played there.”

Wears served as an assistant football coach at Olentangy High School last season and served as the team’s strength coach for the past two seasons.

As a head coach, Wears’ goal will be to put the players in the best position to succeed.

“I’m absolutely going to access what I’m working with and take those kids’ strengths and do what I can to best fit their strengths.”

Wears began strength and conditioning with his players last week.

“They did great,” Wears said. “Numbers were good. The kids worked hard and listened well. We had some kids that were sore. I’m sure I did things a little bit differently than kids were used to, but they listened great and worked hard. It was a great first week.”

The Cardinals will have plenty of competition in the Ohio Heritage Conference North Division. Mechanicsburg advanced to the D-VI state semifinals last season, falling to eventual state champion Anna. West Jefferson beat OHC North rival West Liberty-Salem in the D-V Region 20 finals before falling to Ironton in the state semifinals.

Wears ran against several of the schools as a track athlete at East Knox.

“When I was in school, we had the (Mid-Buckeye Conference), it’s very similar style and the type of conference I played in high school football,” Wears said.

Wears and the Cardinals will look to get better each day as they progress towards the season, he said. Despite getting a late start, Wears has plenty of time to prepare the program for 2020.

“I told them nothing is going to happen overnight,” Wears said. “We’ve got time. We’re going to take it one day at a time.”

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