The 2023 high school football season kicks off this week with eight first-year head coaches in Summit County .
Akron Public Schools has two of them — John Daraio at Ellet and DeMonte Powell at North .
The other six are John Kromalic at Copley , Phil Martter at Woodridge , Kevin Pask at Cuyahoga Falls , Rich Smith at Coventry , Kevin Stacy at Manchester and Corey Tanksley at Springfield .
Coaching turnover has become common in all sports. The longest tenured Summit County football head coach is Mogadore's Matt Adorni, who is entering his 20th season leading the Wildcats.
The next seven coaches in line are East's Marques Hayes (12th season), Nordonia's Jeff Fox (12th), Archbishop Hoban's Tim Tyrrell (11th), Barberton's Tony Gotto (10th), Garfield's Kemp Boyd (10th), Firestone's Eric Mitchell (ninth) and Hudson's Jeff Gough (eighth).
Here are details on the eight new head coaches:
Daraio , 28, has nine years of football coaching experience, including last season as the linebackers coach at Stow. Before that, he was an assistant for two seasons apiece at Barberton, Revere and Rittman.
Ellet , which finished 4-6 last year, opens this season at home against Gnadenhutten Indian Valley.
Daraio played football, ice hockey and baseball in high school and graduated from Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Hyde Park, New York, in 2013. He graduated from the University of Akron in 2017, and also served as a baseball assistant coach at Revere from 2016-2021 .
"We have a very good senior class," Daraio said. "... People want to be optimistic and be excited, which I think is great. I think people think we can be a playoff team [in Division II, Region 5]. That is a not an easy region to be in. People want to compete for the league championship, and we are excited about it and I think we can."
Powell , 30, is a 2011 North graduate. He was a Vikings football player and then an assistant football coach from 2016-2020. He also served as the North girls track and field coach from 2014-2022, the North boys track and field coach from 2019-2022 and completed his first season as Ravenna's track and field coach in 2023.
North , which went 1-7 last year, begins this season at Coventry.
"I am super excited just being able to come back," Powell said. "There are a couple of kids on the team that I coached before when they were freshmen [in 2020], so that was surreal to be able to see what they went through and then be able to come back at the tail end of their careers.
"Camp has been up and down for us. The good thing is we have not lost anybody due to injuries."
Kromalic , 27, played football in high school and college, graduating from Copley in 2014 and Baldwin Wallace in 2018. His coaching background includes being an assistant football coach for two years apiece at Nordonia and Copley and one year at Brecksville. He is also a track and field coach at Copley.
"Training camp has been good, probably better than I expected," said Kromalic, an assistant to former Copley coach Jake Parsons during the past two seasons. "The big piece is how much our kids are retaining knowledge and how much time they are spending on learning things outside of the football facility. I am happy with how competitive they have been in practice. The big part is translating that to a Friday night, which I am excited to see."
Copley, which went 3-8 last season, opens this season at Amherst Steele.
Martter , 34, is "excited" to see what his players can do in Week 1 at home against Revere. He inherits a Bulldogs team that went 7-4 last year under Jeff Decker .
"I could ask nothing more from the team," Martter said. "We hit the ground running in the spring when I got the job. It started with the weight room, and in June and July we were putting in four to five days a week in the weight room for two hours a day. The guys have given no pushback. It has been an open embrace to my coaching style. I have been extra hard on them and pushing them to see what they can give, and they have responded great."
Martter played football at Woodridge and graduated in 2007. He earned a degree from the University of Akron in 2012 and has been an assistant football coach at Woodridge from 2007-2013, Rittman in 2014 and Canton McKinley from 2015-2022. He also served as McKinley's wrestling coach for eight seasons.
Pask , who turned 30 on Aug. 6, graduated from Cuyahoga Falls in 2011 and Walsh University in 2016. He played football for the Black Tigers and the Cavaliers.
Pask served as an assistant coach to Shane Parker the past two seasons at Falls. Pask's coaching background also includes time at Ravenna in three sports, with five years as a Ravens assistant football coach, two years as the boys tennis coach and two years as an assistant baseball coach.
"It is amazing to be back at Cuyahoga Falls," Pask said. "I love Falls. I have spent my whole life here and my parents still live down the road so I get to see them all the time. It is awesome to be able to give back to a school and a place that really has meant so much to me in my life. This is where I learned to love the game and how to play the game. It gave me the opportunity to play at the next level so I couldn't be more thankful to be able to give back to Cuyahoga Falls High School."
Falls, which went 1-9 last year, is set to host Firestone in Week 1.
Smith, 43, has two children in the school district and said he is "invested in Coventry."
Smith's football coaching resume includes assistant positions for 14 years at Coventry , two years at Hoban and a year apiece at Cloverleaf, Chippewa and East. He also oversaw the Coventry youth football program, and has coached wrestling, baseball, softball, basketball and track and field at various levels in the school district.
Coventry , which went 5-6 last year, opens the season at home against North.
"I love this community," Smith said. "I live and breathe Coventry."
Smith graduated from Edison High School in Richmond in 1998 and earned a degree from the University of Akron. He played football at Edison and in college at Malone.
"The last year I was at Akron, I coached at Hoban as a freshman coach [in 2003] and then I coached varsity when Tyrell Sutton was a senior [in 2004]," Smith said. "I was on Ralph Orsini's staff. I love him. He is one of my mentors in coaching. He is a great guy. I learned a lot coaching up in the [press] box and working with experienced coaches."
The bulk of Smith's football coaching career has been at Coventry under Jay Newcome, Ed Egan and John Kinsey. He lauded the three men as "great guys and great coaches."
"I am very happy with our players effort this summer," Smith said. "We are a really young team. I am going to start eight sophomores on both sides of the ball. We have only three seniors on the team. They are good seniors, but we are a young team. We have 12 upperclassmen total and 48 kids on the team. We started this offseason with 30 kids and now we are up to 48."
Stacy , 36, is ready to go in Week 1 when Manchester visits Carrollton. The Panthers were 0-10 last year.
"It is an honor to be trusted to build upon the tradition that has been set here," Stacy said. "You talk about 48 straight winning [or at .500] seasons and following in the footsteps of coach [Jim] France . He still has a big shadow here, but we are bringing in a mostly new staff and an all new offensive philosophy. We are very multiple now and doing primarily shotgun formations."
France retired with an Ohio-record 401 career wins in 2020 after 48 seasons as Manchester's coach. France compiled a 398-122-4 record in 48 seasons at Manchester with stints from 1971-1984 and from 1986-2019
Stacy played football at Northwest and graduated in 2005. He earned a degree from the University of Akron in 2010. He was an assistant football coach at Waynedale for four years, Massillon , Green and Northwest for three years apiece and Lake for two years. He also was the Waynedale boys basketball coach for three seasons.
"The kids have really had a great offseason," Stacy said. "They were super young last year with a bunch of freshmen and sophomores playing, so a lot of those guys are coming back. They kind of took their lumps last year through youth. I think they used that as motivation this offseason to get in the weight room. We had around 35 guys on average in the weight room everyday during the winter time, regardless if they were in a sport or not. In terms of numbers in the weight room and buy-in, the kids have been fantastic."
Tanksley, 34, is leading Springfield after his father, John Tanksley , died June 11. Corey was approved as coach by the Springfield Board of Education on July 18.
"We have continued to move forward," Corey Tanksley said. "The kids have been working hard. They have reacted well and they have been putting in a lot of effort and a lot of time. We have made a lot of strides this offseason. The kids have gotten bigger, stronger and faster.
"We have had a lot of kids that have been starting since they were freshmen and they are coming into their junior year now, so we have a lot more experience under our belt. They are hungry and they are excited. They think they have a good chance to get some wins under their belt this year."
Springfield , which went 0-10 last year, opens its season at home against Garfield.
Corey played football at Northwest and graduated in 2007. He earned a degree from Western Governors University, and has experience as an assistant football coach at Norton for seven years, Green and Springfield for two years apiece and Brecksville, Kenmore-Garfield and Northland Christian in Houston, Texas , for one year apiece.
Corey will also be in his second year as Springfield wrestling coach after being the wrestling coach at Northwest for two years and an assistant at Green, Norton and Brecksville.
Michael Beaven can be reached at mbeaven@thebeaconjournal and is on Twitter at @MBeavenABJ .
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Eight new high school football head coaches in Summit County in 2023
