Ashton high school needs new football coach; Winterland steps down after 9 seasons

ASHTON – The AFC football team will need a new coach in 2020, as Brad Winterland has stepped down.

“It just felt right,” Winterland said. “I just know the last few years, from a physical and mental and emotional standpoint, really took a toll on me and my family, so we just kind of did a lot of talking and figured now was as good a time as any.”

Winterland will remain as a PE teacher at AFC, and hasn’t even ruled out a return to the sideline at some point in the future, but for now he will step away and recharge his batteries.

He coached the Raiders for nine seasons, putting up a 22-59 record, including a 5-4 mark in 2012.

“It was a lot of ups and downs, that’s for sure,” he said. “I think the one thing I’ve been proud of is that we’re in the hardest [small-school] conference in the state, there’s no denying that, and when you go back and look at the state records, there have been three head coaches that have coached the Raiders while in the NUIC and I was the only one with a winning season.

“We had two four-win seasons, and both years we were a play or two away from being playoff eligible.”

“He’s an asset to our community,” AFC athletic director Traci Gittleson said. “He’s worked his tail off. His family is in our community. He teaches. His wife is an aide and one of our basketball coaches. He’s a pretty important part of our school district and our community.”

AFC has posted the job, and Gittleson is talking to current and former coaches throughout the area looking for recommendations, but the coaching search is going to be far from a normal one with everything pretty much shut down.

“It’s not a super-easy task in front of me right now,” Gittleson said. “As far as interviewing goes, it would all have to be on Zoom right now. We’re going to give it, hopefully, the next couple of weeks or so and hopefully have some further ideas. Right now, we’re pretty limited in what we can do. We’ve got to take it one day at a time.”

Thursday, as word began to filter out that Winterland was stepping down, messages started to come flooding into his phone from not only those who have played for him, but also from those who coached against him over the years.

“The number of area coaches who have reached out is very overwhelming,” he said. “We’re going to miss competing against each other. That’s ultimately what the game is, is competing and giving your all and at the end of the day you shake hands and say ‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you moving forward.’ That’s the most amazing thing about this conference and the coaches that are in it.”

Ultimately what ended up being Winterland’s last game at AFC was the first game of a new series. AFC and Amboy, longtime rivals in other sports but in different divisions of the NUIC up until 2019, met on the football field Week 9 in what was also the final game for Clippers coach Gary Jones.

“Fundamentally, they were always very sound. His game plans always seemed well-planned, they were well-disciplined. I thought he did a very good job,” Jones said.