“I have no animosity with Fenwick,” said Snively, who will remain at FHS as a physical education teacher. “It’s just that my son is going to be going to school and playing somewhere else, and I want to see that happen. I haven’t gotten to see a full season of his football games for quite a long time.
“I really didn’t get all the facts to be able to make the decision until late, and that’s why I made a late decision. I love those Fenwick players, the school, the students. This is just our personal family situation.
“Financially, we couldn’t make it work for us as parents for Conner to attend Fenwick. We feel Fairfield’s going to be a good fit for him, so we’re going that route.”
Snively had three 6-4 seasons with the Falcons and led the squad to a 13-1 mark and a spot in the Division IV state semifinals in 2015.
He was the head coach at Madison in 2009 and 2010, going 7-13.
“We all have a life and we all have a family, and sometimes priorities change,” Fenwick athletic director Michael Coleman said. “Joe wants to make sure that he’s present in his son’s life, and as a coach, you can understand how difficult it is trying to do that during a varsity football season. So he made the decision to step down.”
Coleman said the rest of Fenwick’s staff is committed to staying, and the school will pick an interim head coach from that staff and likely do a full-scale search for a head coach after the season.
“I think that would be a smart choice because if you lose a coach at the end of May or beginning of June, I don’t think you’re in a great position to try to come in with a new program and a brand-new coaching staff,” Coleman asid. “I think that would just be a foolish decision to try to make that scale of a change at this late stage of the game.
“We’ll name an official interim coach in the next two weeks. With the staff that we have, I think we’ll be fine. We’re going to play a good season, and after the season’s over, I think we’ll have plenty of time to evaluate where we are and what direction we need to take.”
Snively said members of his staff when he stepped down were John Aregood, Matt Money, George Moore, Rob Lauer, Patrick Poplis and Matt Mulligan.
Asked about his coaching future, Snively said simply, “I have no coaching future at the moment.”
“I want Fenwick to do well,” he said. “They’ve got a good influx of some new coaches and veteran coaches. I told them that I would help them do anything they needed.”
The Falcons open the season Aug. 25 at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy.
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