Saturday’s game
What: Division I-Region 2 football semifinal, Lakota West (7-5) vs. Wayne (11-1), 7 p.m.
Where: Welcome Stadium, 1601 S. Edwin C. Moses Blvd., Dayton
Playoff history: Lakota West is 2-4 in five appearances (2004, 2006, 2009, 2013, 2014); Wayne is 16-16 in 17 appearances (1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1994, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014)
The program has maintained a high level of success for a long time. That’s good, but it’s only part of Jay Minton’s mission.
Wayne High School’s football coach and athletic director talks about being in the people business, specifically young people.
“We talk about the mind, body and soul all the time,” said Minton, whose Warriors will meet Lakota West in a Division I-Region 2 semifinal Saturday night at Welcome Stadium. “We want our kids to have some kind of foundation, a faith-family-football type of thing.
“We’ve got to be careful with doing faith too much, but we talk about faith in others. How many people come out of high school, getting ready to go out into the world, and they don’t have faith in people? We want to build that faith.
“You’ve got to have faith in yourself first and foremost, but you’ve also got to have faith in other people. I think that’s what’s really bonded this team together. It would be pretty tough to beat us if we could bottle that up and have that all the time.”
Wayne is pretty tough to beat as it is. The Warriors are 11-1 and averaging 43.4 points per game.
Their only loss came at Centerville (19-14) in Week 10. They have a dynamic quarterback in senior D’Mitrik Trice, two Division I commits in senior safety Tyree Kinnel (Michigan) and senior defensive tackle Robert Landers (West Virginia), and 16 victories in 17 years of playoff competition.
And they already have a win over West this season. It was 34-29 at Firebird Field in Week 3.
“I’m not sure that our team’s peaked yet, which is a good thing,” said Minton, in his 17th year at the Wayne helm. “Now when we’re going to do it, I don’t know. That’s the magical question.
“The neat thing I love about this group is, man, they’re striving for perfection. I love the way they approach things. We don’t have any arrogant kids. They’ve got everything you’d want in a group.”
Minton and 18th-year West coach Larry Cox are good friends. It’s a friendship that started through their association with Ryan Wilhite, now the head coach at Springboro.
Minton came to Wayne from Boca Raton, Fla., and replaced Mike Schneider, who coached the Warriors for 17 years. Wayne has been to the playoffs 12 times under Minton, finishing second twice (to Cleveland St. Ignatius in 1999 and Lakewood St. Edward in 2010).
Walking through snowflakes and an arctic wind Tuesday afternoon, Minton laughed when he was asked if he missed Florida.
“Maybe the weather,” he said. “But I wouldn’t trade this for the world. The development of the kids and the associations with people up here are just phenomenal. It’s so transient down there. It’s hard to establish what Larry and I have with our teams and programs up here.”
Braxton Miller is the favorite son in these parts, the quarterback who led Wayne to the finals in 2010. He’s become a national figure playing for Urban Meyer up the road at Ohio State.
Miller’s name has become synonymous with Wayne, and Minton doesn’t have a problem with that. He just wants people to know that he’s got a lot of favorite sons.
“We were in the playoffs before Braxton and we’re in the playoffs after Braxton,” Minton said. “I would never take anything away from him because he’s special. But Braxton was not the program. The program is so much bigger than one person.”
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