Fennville football aims for stability with new coach Wendell Hughes Sr.
FENNVILLE - The past eight years have been tough for Fennville Blackhawks football, seven different head coaches have cycled through the program leaving the players with a new culture and a new system year after year.
In June, Fennville hired Wendell Hughes Sr. to head the football program and he looks to provide the school with a quality they haven’t seen in that position: stability.
“I want to lead this program for several years to come,” Hughes said. “I want to bring a newfound love for Blackhawk pride; I want the kids to have pride in being a Fennville Blackhawk. As we grow the program, good things will happen.”
Hughes comes from a long history of coaching football. He began his 23-year football coaching career in Burr Oak, where he spent ten seasons before moving to Centreville to be their junior varsity coach. While this is his first year coaching varsity football, he was part of a coaching staff that has made the postseason in five consecutive years including a state championship campaign in 2020.
For Fennville, participation in football has been decreasing, but Hughes brings the blueprint for building a successful program to the Blackhawks.
“Coming from this program, we started like Fennville now, low numbers, not much buy-in,” Hughes said. “I’ve seen the blueprint on how to build a successful program, so I bring that with me.”
Building a winning culture in his utmost goal in his inaugural season. His ultimate goal is to return Fennville to playing 11-man football. They currently play in the 8-man league.
“I’m looking to change the culture, for buy-in,” Hughes said. “We had a group of 16 guys that showed up religiously in the summer. My goal is to get us to return to 11-man (football) and compete at that level.”
How does Hughes plan to do that? Offseason training and recruiting. This season he got off to a late start. His offseason training program traditionally begins in January, but it began in June this year. The training regimen includes both weight lifting and football skills training.
“We go three nights a week with an hour in the weight room and an hour doing agilities on the field,” Hughes said. “We ramped it up in July to four or five nights a week after the dead week.”
The players have been buying into Hughes’ style and his leadership. Captains Jacob Miller, Quinn Rosema and Aidan Swingle cite his positivity as one of his greatest strengths.
“He’s more personal with you,” Rosema said. “He wants you to be a good football player, but at the end of the day, he wants to make sure that you’re OK.”
The Blackhawks posted a measly four wins last season, but Hughes is bringing a new system of offense and defense to the squad. Similar to many smaller schools, the Blackhawks will run a condensed full-house T offense to fit for 8-man, while primarily running zone coverage or single high safety coverage on defense.
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The team is still quite young, only a handful of the players are juniors or seniors, but through culture building and consistency, Hughes hopes to bring more participation to the program.
“As a coach I bring consistency,” Hughes said. “You get what you give as a coach. I’m going to give them love and discipline. There’s already a few that would run through a wall for me (and I for them).”
Fennville will begin the 2023 season on the road as they do battle with Lake Michigan Catholic high school August 24.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Fennville football aims for stability with new coach Wendell Hughes
