The Van Wert County Courthouse

Thursday, Mar. 28, 2024

Temple steps in as new Cougar AD

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent sports editor

For Trent Temple, there’s no place like home.

Temple was hired as Van Wert High School athletic director in March, and the 1989 VWHS graduate officially began leading Cougar athletics on August 1.

Trent Temple

“Obviously graduating from Van Wert you know a lot of people here and there’s good and bad with that,” Temple said with a chuckle. “Everybody wants to remember you when you were in high school and if that’s the case, we’d be in trouble a lot of times because obviously you’ve got some maturing to do.”

“As you move on, go to college and take on different jobs and have a family, you mature,” Temple added. “It definitely was exciting for me to see this position come open.”

Temple is taking over for Ben Collins, who was appointed as Van Wert’s interim AD last fall. Collins is now serving as dean of students and assistant athletic director.

“Most guys probably would have walked in here and said ‘I’ll pass,’ but Ben came in here and handled it well and kept things afloat,” Temple said “Hats off to him, he stepped up to the challenge and did a great job.”

Temple spent the 2018-2019 school year as athletic director at Ada High School, but he’s no stranger to Van Wert athletics, having served as middle school athletic director for 12 years.

“Having some experience here and coaching for as long as I have in multiple sports, you get an idea of how things are done, and I also went on to get my masters in athletic administration and took classes through the NIAAA (National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association), so that’s really helped,” Temple explained. “You get a bigger picture of how things are done in an athletic department. There’s two different types of thinking when you’re talking about running a program than an athletic department.”

Last year was a big one for Van Wert’s athletic program, as the football, volleyball, cross country, boys’ basketball, wrestling, track and baseball programs enjoyed successful seasons.

“I remember sitting at the baseball state tournament talking to (high school principal) Mr. Priest and saying I don’t know if I remember a year where there’s been this much success across the board,” Temple said. “They graduated a great senior class – when you look back at the class, it was an unbelievable group of athletes that bought in, were committed, were dedicated and willing to sacrifice.”

“This is going to be a challenge this year,” Temple added. “We return a lot athletes in those programs but there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done.”

Temple agreed that the Class of 2018 raised the bar in terms of athletic success at Van Wert High School.

“It’s always nice to have a senior class that leads, because they teach the younger kids how it’s done,” Temple noted. “When you have success and they see and they see it, they realize this is how they did it and we want to do the same thing, so that want to follow that model or mentality.”

Van Wert’s fall sports season officially began with practices last Thursday and the golf team’s opener at the Defiance Invitational on Monday, and Temple said he’s looking forward to overseeing Cougar athletics.

“There’s nothing like watching athletic contests and seeing all that hard work by the players and coaches pay off,” Temple stated. “That’s something that you just can’t get anywhere else. When you see that reaction when an athlete makes a great play and the coach gets excited, the parents get excited, that’s what I’m looking forward to most.”

POSTED: 08/07/19 at 3:42 am. FILED UNDER: Sports