I'm Just Saying with former Harvard wrestling, football coach Tim Haak

Although Tim Haak retired as the Harvard football and wrestling coach at the end of the 2013-14 school year, he wasn’t walking away from high school sports altogether. This season, beginning in July, Haak took over as the athletic director at Portage High School in Portage, Wisconsin — about 40 miles north of Madison. A member of both the Illinois High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame and the Illinois Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association Hall of Fame, Haak led the Hornets to plenty of success in his almost 30 years at the school, winning 173 games as the football coach and posting a 635-145 mark as the wrestling coach. The move across the state line allowed him and his wife, Chris, to be closer to their son, Shane, who works in Madison, and daughter, Mallory, who is a freshman at Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

They've been so gracious here to our family and those things. I know my family has felt comfortable. We haven't had a lot of change. It's been a positive change. There never was a time where I was going to retire. I was going to transition. So that's something that, no matter what, we were going to look into, something I was going to transition into.

The summer was the first time in 30 years I hadn't been involved in coaching. I'm not kidding anybody to say I don't miss it, you know. I certainly do. There's no way you can do something your whole life, then all of a sudden, you're not coaching. I think you miss the kids, you miss the coaches you coached with all those years, you miss the families. Those have been all the things you've been involved with in your career. So, I wouldn't be honest if I didn't say I missed that part of it. Those relationships with families and athletes and the guys you coached with for so long, for years, that's been a big change.

The big difference is trying to work with coaches more, and mentoring coaches. I think that's important. You're fortunate enough to have experience in those things that you can give them some of the things you've gone through to improve their programs. You're coaching coaches. You can give them your experience with things to just situations with an athlete, trying to help that communication between them or the things between parents and coaches. All those experiences, giving the experience you had in coaching, you can help them and help them problem solve through things.

It's been a good challenge, and some awfully good people here. Right now, not only the day-to-day things, you want to get coaches on the same page and everything to flow through the athletic office, we're involved in some fundraising projects – one for baseball and softball lights. That's a major project. And just projects, upgrading things in baseball, football and soccer areas, and fields, those things. The community has been very supportive.

I'm a Bears fan, and I'm obviously in the middle of Packer country here. I'm one of the few Bears fans, and I'm probably the only guy in Portage who doesn't hunt, too.

• I’m Just Saying is a regular Sunday feature. If there’s someone you’d like to see featured, write to me at jkaufman@shawmedia.com or send me a message on Twitter @joeyrkaufman.