Noie: Todd Stammich embraces coaching chance at Washington

SOUTH BEND — Seated among the shouts and smiles and sunshine in the picnic area of Four Winds Field earlier this month, Washington High School football coach Todd Stammich suddenly goes silent.

For the last few minutes, he’s been talking about football. About this upcoming season. About his coaching career. About his guys. He’s talking fast, and then, it all just ends. Words don’t come easily as he ponders one question. He looks into the outfield as he tries to formulate an answer.

Once he does, Stammich speaks quietly, as if he’s afraid his emotions might get the best of him if he lets them. And he won’t let them. Not now. Not here, around members of the Washington football team. Those are now his guys, and he’s going to stay strong for his guys. So he pushes on, but you can hear it in his voice. It’s soft. It’s shaky. You can almost see the lump in his throat.

This season, this team, this job means a lot to Stammich. A whole lot.

Why, after so many years as a middle school coach — Stammich spent the previous 12 as a guidance director at Jefferson — does he want to again coach varsity football? Be a varsity head coach in town for the first time? And why at Washington, a school that last had a winning season in 2015?

Stammich stares into the distance for a second, pauses, looks away, and then proceeds with caution. Can’t let his emotions win. Not yet. Not here.

“It’s really not about winning,” Stammich said. “I believe that everyone needs help in becoming a better man as you grow up. If that is not the main focus, then I really think that we’re lost.”

For Stammich, it’s not all about football. It can’t be. He has to be about more to his players. Wins on the field are nice, but wins in life, well, that’s more important.

“If I die at say, age 85, and all they can say is I won some football games,” Stammich said, “that would be very depressing.”

So when practice rolls around and it’s time to block and tackle and hit and catch and run with the football, the 46-year-old Stammich steals a few moments with his guys to make it about everything BUT football. Red-zone offense install? That can wait. Learning the defensive signals? Hold on. Wind sprints? Not yet.

For the first 15 minutes of every Panther practice, it’s not about being a better quarterback or running back or linebacker. The message is about how to be a better person. Not 10 years down the road. Not 10 months, either. But today.

“That’s really what drew me back into coaching,” Stammich said. “It’s the chance to say, hey, this is how we’re going to be as a team. We’re not going to use profanity. We’re not going to be disrespectful to officials. We’re not going to disrespect women.”

During those first few life-lesson sessions, the Panthers looked at their new coach as if he was from Mars. Who’s this guy? Why is he telling us this stuff? They wanted to go run around and play, not sit and listen. But the more Stammich has talked, the more he sees receptive sets of eyes looking back at him. Nods of heads. Guys getting what he’s saying.

And that gets to him.

“That’s the beautiful thing,” he said. “These kids don’t know me from Adam, especially at this age, but they truly are buying in. The kids here are special.”

Moving forward

The players have bought in at a time when they really don’t have to buy in. Don’t like the new coach? Don’t like your role? This is an age when kids decide they don’t have to play football. They can find something else to do. Or do nothing. But Stammich has 22 seniors out this season, which opens Friday at Hammond. He considers this year’s senior class an “embarrassment of riches.” That might not translate into the school’s first winning season since 2015, but it’s a start.

A good one for the new guy.

“These kids, their whole lives, they’ve been sold something that for a lot of them, it wasn’t delivered,” Stammich said. “They could look at me like, ‘OK, another guy with a lot of promises.’ But these guys, I tell you what, they have bought in.”

As has Stammich. He could have stayed at Jefferson, but wanted to make this jump to the west side. To the school where his parents graduated. To the side of town where he was raised — right there along Western Avenue — and went to grade school. To a place that won state championships in 1969 and 1973 and produced coaching legends like Tom Roggeman. Stammich still hears stories of the old Washington coach from his father.

Stammich’s high school roots might run through Riley, but he considers himself more than a south-side guy. He’s a South Bend guy. Prior to the dozen years at Jefferson, Stammich spent 11 coaching at Riley. He figured his high school days were long behind him.

But the more he coached at Jefferson, the more he was asked by parents of players, by South Bend Community School Corporation administrators, by game officials. By family and friends — why not give high school coaching another shot?

Stammich then started wondering much of the same. Could he do it again? Would he want to do it again?

As the years passed, Stammich did the same on any coaching opportunities. Nothing felt good. Nothing felt right.

“There just never was a situation that spoke to me like this one did,” he said.

That’s when Washington principal Thomas Sims made Stammich an offer last winter that he felt he couldn’t refuse. The two had worked together at Jefferson and worked well. Stammich had an opportunity to join Washington as dean of students and head football coach. Everything felt right, so here he is.

Stammich feels lucky to be at Washington. The feeling at Washington is mutual.

“He’s always very positive and upbeat with kids,” Sims told the Tribune. “There’s a connect that they have with him. He makes them feel a part of his family.”

Nerves accompanied Stammich through his first few weeks. They really haven’t gone away. If anything, they’ve multiplied as two-a-days ended and the opener draws near. Stammich knows there are a lot of young men counting on him. He doesn’t want to disappoint them. Or his administration. His players. His school. His town.

What’s that first series of plays going to be like come Friday night? For Stammich, the emotions will be flowing. He may again feel that lump in his throat. Like, he’s here. Really here. Again.

Eventually, he’ll have to get down to the business of making decisions, getting his guys to believe, of being the head coach. That first series or two might be difficult.

“I hope I won’t pass out,” Stammich said. “I hope I can call a few plays and get the kids fired up.

“I don’t want to let them down.”