Mosinee, West begin year with new coaches
MOSINEE - Craig Martens was seemingly exerting as much energy as his players as prep football teams returned to the practice field Tuesday.
The first-year Mosinee football coach was in constant motion. First he worked with the linebackers on their form during a drill and then ran across the field to where the linemen were hitting the blocking sled. Then he headed toward the middle of the field to watch over some 7-on-7 passing repetitions.
"I'm going to run over and get some water first if you don't mind," Mertens said before he took a few minutes to answer some questions about the opening practice for the 2016 season.
Martens, a 2005 Mosinee graduate, was back in his element. The former center and linebacker was took over the program in January after Paul Nievinski stepped down after a 20-year career as the head coach and nearly three decades with Mosinee football overall.
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"I'm really excited to be back (on the field)," said Martens, who was a volunteer assistant with Mosinee last year, working mainly with the offensive and defensive lines . "We've been meeting since January here and there for administrative stuff, planning the season and getting things ready to go. I'm just excited to get back on the field and put some of the plans in action.
"I went away from Mosinee for a little while and coached down south in Stoughton," Martens said. "I'm just very happy to be back in Mosinee and coaching for the program that I played for and had the opportunity to do some good things with, and now just keep growing that tradition."
Martens is one of two new football coaches locally as Jason Foster ran the Warriors players through his first practice with Wausau West. Foster, a 1991 West graduate and former football player and assistant coach, took over the position after Kevin Grundy stepped down after a decade with the Warriors.
"It feels busy," joked Foster, who served as West's defensive coordinator the past four years after four years as Northland Pines coach. "It's very exciting, actually. I'm fortunate that I had the opportunity to be an assistant and a head coach and then step back again and be a coordinator. I feel like I'm more prepared this time around for some of the challenges that go along (with the job)."
Foster presented a challenge to his team at the start of the season
"Our big thing is that we had some letdowns on Friday nights last year," Foster said. "We were definitely better than a 3-6 team last year. We talked a lot this offseason about the difference between 6-3 and 3-6 was really a bunch of mental mistakes and not being ready to play and finish some football games. We had two-score leads in several games hat we let get away from us last year, so its really about cleaning up those mental mistakes and having that mental preparation for Friday nights.
"So our goal is that, 'Success is built every single day'. We don't get to just go through the motions other days and show up Friday nights and hope to be successful," Foster said. "Our message is to get better every day."
Martens knows the challenges that awaits him as the Mosinee program had new leadership for the first time in two decades.
"We've obviously made some adjustments in certain things and we have some staff members that are still on from last season and years past. It's a very similar system with some new terminologies," Martens said. "We are continuing some traditions. One thing I asked (the players) was, 'What traditions do you love about Mosinee football and want to continue and what traditions do you want to start on your own?' So we have some things that we are keeping and some things that we are adding and making our own. But we are keeping the tradition of Mosinee football alive."
Tim Johnson: 715-845-0731, or timothy.johnson@gannettwisconsin.com; on Twitter@timmyjo11