Warsaw Football Coach Phil Jensen Stepping Down
December 5, 2017 at 5:15 p.m.
Warsaw Football Coach Phil Jensen Stepping Down
By Roger Grossman-
“Do you want to be the coach of Warsaw football next season?”
The answer was equally simple and to the point.
“I won’t coach anywhere else.”
Monday afternoon, Jensen walked into a meeting with the leadership of the school corporation, the high school and the athletic department and told them that he had coached his final game at Warsaw.
No one knew it was coming. It was not inevitable. No one was ready for it.
His resignation was accepted and then a series of meetings took place.
Jensen met with his offensive and defensive coordinators, Matt Thacker and Kris Hueber, who had been with Jensen long enough to deserve to hear about it first. They love Warsaw and Jensen would happily admit he loved them back.
He owed it to them to tell them, so he did.
Then the football players in the program, both those who are graduating and those who will be back, gathered in the Tiger Den. They had been around him every day since Aug., and some of them hundreds of times over their four years – on their knees, in classroom chairs ... but never like this.
They knew something was up, and their faces showed it.
Jensen went on to tell them that he was retiring from coaching, and shared all the reasons why. But as the reality of the moment set in for everyone there, he looked the boys square in the eyes and assured them that THEY were not part of the reason he was stopping in any way.
When he was finished, they all walked away. Many stopped to hug the man they had called “coach.” The rest walked slowly back to their classes. All of them with their heads down.
And to each of them, Jensen whispered some words of thanks and encouragement.
It was a powerful moment.
For 18 years over two different campaigns, Jensen did something that was deemed impossible by virtually everyone who lived in Warsaw, and those who had ever lived in Warsaw.
I knew Jensen when he came to Warsaw. He was tough as nails. It was his way or the highway. There was very little, OK, there was really no grace in his leadership style. He was a bulldozer with a whistle around his neck, and that was just the way he wanted it.
After the program tried and failed for years to win a playoff game, the Tigers finally broke through in 1998 – Jensen’s third season at the helm.
Warsaw lost in the sectional semifinals the following week, but as Jensen left the field he saw me standing there on the side of the field at Lakeview Middle School. He stopped and looked at me with a face half-filled with disappointment and half-shaded with opportunity lost.
I will never forget what happened next. I grabbed him by the arm and I turned him toward the stands, and I said to him “look up their Phil … what do you see? What I see is a community who believes in what you are doing and what you are going to do. You’ve done the unthinkable here my friend … you made football Fridays important in Warsaw, Indiana!” Then I moved my finger from side-to-side and said to him “YOU…YOU did this.”
And with that approach, and a special group of athletes who came through WCHS together in the three years that followed, Jensen proved that Warsaw could be “a football town” too.
It was remarkable. The Tigers won Northern Lakes Conference championships in 1999, 2000 and 2001. Warsaw had never won three NLC titles in a row, and it hasn’t been done since.
In 2000, Warsaw lost 10-7 at Penn in the sectional semifinals. The Kingsmen then cruised to the state title.
Before then, it was unimaginable to think Warsaw – a basketball school – could take powerhouse Penn to the brink of elimination in the football state tournament.
A year later, the Tigers enjoyed their first undefeated regular season since 1964.
If the standard is “leave it better than you found it,” Jensen’s time as Warsaw’s coach could be viewed as nothing but a monumental success.
Go back to 1996: Warsaw was playing varsity football home games at an aging, poorly-lit facility located miles from the high school. The practice field was a mess, the seating area was insufficient and the press box was inhumanely small for those 90-degree early season Friday nights.
There was almost no winning tradition to draw on, and there was the fear of losing your place on the basketball roster by playing football.
Then Jensen showed up.
Home games are now played at a classy stadium with field turf located across the parking lot from the high school. Players run 100 feet instead of 300 yards to their locker rooms. There are two practice fields so well-manicured that many smaller schools would gladly play games on them if they could.
There are state-of-the-art weight and conditioning areas under the watchful eyes of people who specialize in maximizing athletic performance in young people. Fans watch games from stands with excellent sightlines, and the media and game workers have top-shelf places to do their jobs.
Funny thing is, none of that is his greatest accomplishment here. Jensen reminded us that coaches teach more that sports, and through his motto “Son … Student … Athlete” he made our community better. You don’t have to like football to appreciate that.
Yes, Phil Jensen, you are leaving Warsaw Tiger Football a whole lot better than you found it.
So, again, I wave my finger across the footprint of the program and say to Jensen, “YOU … YOU did this.”
And we’re sure glad you did.
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“Do you want to be the coach of Warsaw football next season?”
The answer was equally simple and to the point.
“I won’t coach anywhere else.”
Monday afternoon, Jensen walked into a meeting with the leadership of the school corporation, the high school and the athletic department and told them that he had coached his final game at Warsaw.
No one knew it was coming. It was not inevitable. No one was ready for it.
His resignation was accepted and then a series of meetings took place.
Jensen met with his offensive and defensive coordinators, Matt Thacker and Kris Hueber, who had been with Jensen long enough to deserve to hear about it first. They love Warsaw and Jensen would happily admit he loved them back.
He owed it to them to tell them, so he did.
Then the football players in the program, both those who are graduating and those who will be back, gathered in the Tiger Den. They had been around him every day since Aug., and some of them hundreds of times over their four years – on their knees, in classroom chairs ... but never like this.
They knew something was up, and their faces showed it.
Jensen went on to tell them that he was retiring from coaching, and shared all the reasons why. But as the reality of the moment set in for everyone there, he looked the boys square in the eyes and assured them that THEY were not part of the reason he was stopping in any way.
When he was finished, they all walked away. Many stopped to hug the man they had called “coach.” The rest walked slowly back to their classes. All of them with their heads down.
And to each of them, Jensen whispered some words of thanks and encouragement.
It was a powerful moment.
For 18 years over two different campaigns, Jensen did something that was deemed impossible by virtually everyone who lived in Warsaw, and those who had ever lived in Warsaw.
I knew Jensen when he came to Warsaw. He was tough as nails. It was his way or the highway. There was very little, OK, there was really no grace in his leadership style. He was a bulldozer with a whistle around his neck, and that was just the way he wanted it.
After the program tried and failed for years to win a playoff game, the Tigers finally broke through in 1998 – Jensen’s third season at the helm.
Warsaw lost in the sectional semifinals the following week, but as Jensen left the field he saw me standing there on the side of the field at Lakeview Middle School. He stopped and looked at me with a face half-filled with disappointment and half-shaded with opportunity lost.
I will never forget what happened next. I grabbed him by the arm and I turned him toward the stands, and I said to him “look up their Phil … what do you see? What I see is a community who believes in what you are doing and what you are going to do. You’ve done the unthinkable here my friend … you made football Fridays important in Warsaw, Indiana!” Then I moved my finger from side-to-side and said to him “YOU…YOU did this.”
And with that approach, and a special group of athletes who came through WCHS together in the three years that followed, Jensen proved that Warsaw could be “a football town” too.
It was remarkable. The Tigers won Northern Lakes Conference championships in 1999, 2000 and 2001. Warsaw had never won three NLC titles in a row, and it hasn’t been done since.
In 2000, Warsaw lost 10-7 at Penn in the sectional semifinals. The Kingsmen then cruised to the state title.
Before then, it was unimaginable to think Warsaw – a basketball school – could take powerhouse Penn to the brink of elimination in the football state tournament.
A year later, the Tigers enjoyed their first undefeated regular season since 1964.
If the standard is “leave it better than you found it,” Jensen’s time as Warsaw’s coach could be viewed as nothing but a monumental success.
Go back to 1996: Warsaw was playing varsity football home games at an aging, poorly-lit facility located miles from the high school. The practice field was a mess, the seating area was insufficient and the press box was inhumanely small for those 90-degree early season Friday nights.
There was almost no winning tradition to draw on, and there was the fear of losing your place on the basketball roster by playing football.
Then Jensen showed up.
Home games are now played at a classy stadium with field turf located across the parking lot from the high school. Players run 100 feet instead of 300 yards to their locker rooms. There are two practice fields so well-manicured that many smaller schools would gladly play games on them if they could.
There are state-of-the-art weight and conditioning areas under the watchful eyes of people who specialize in maximizing athletic performance in young people. Fans watch games from stands with excellent sightlines, and the media and game workers have top-shelf places to do their jobs.
Funny thing is, none of that is his greatest accomplishment here. Jensen reminded us that coaches teach more that sports, and through his motto “Son … Student … Athlete” he made our community better. You don’t have to like football to appreciate that.
Yes, Phil Jensen, you are leaving Warsaw Tiger Football a whole lot better than you found it.
So, again, I wave my finger across the footprint of the program and say to Jensen, “YOU … YOU did this.”
And we’re sure glad you did.
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