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Jackson-Milton hires Brode as football coach
By Brian Dzenis
Jackson-Milton High School has looked inwards for an answer to its coaching question.
The school announced on Monday that track coach Nathan Brode will be taking over the football team.
The move comes after Mark Assion stepped down on July 25 after spending roughly a month on leave. Offensive coordinator Matt Ruby was serving as the interim coach in Assion’s absence.
Brode never expected the job to come open the way it did.
“It’s been very unique, but I really love coaching and when the opportunity came about, I wanted to pursue it,” Brode said on Monday. “I had no doubts that I wanted to be the coach.”
Brode is entering his fifth year as the school’s track and field coach. He has coached the junior high football team for the past five years and his most recent stint with the varsity team was in 2013.
“I’ve coached [the varsity team’s] freshmen, sophomores and juniors in junior high,” Brode said. “I have a good rapport with all of them. I would see them every day in class.”
Ruby and the rest of Assion’s staff will stay on board, Brode said. Steve Moore, a Jackson-Milton teacher who has assisted with the track team, will join them.
Because he’s joining the team with fall practice opening this week, Brode said he won’t change how the Bluejays play too much.
The team has made the playoffs for the past two seasons in a row. Those were the only years in the program’s history where Jackson-Milton made the playoffs.
Brode hails from Canfield and was apart of the 2005 state runner-up team.
“I’m extremely passionate about football, it’s what gets me going and when that position came open, there was no doubt about what I wanted to do,” Brode said.