By Chris Chaney
Sun staff
The changes on Clough Pike continue as the West Clermont Local School District Board approved David Brausch as the new head football coach at Amelia High School on Jan. 27.
Brausch will replace Randy Hospelhorn. Hospelhorn headed up the Barons from 2009-2014 and tallied a record of 22-38.
“I’ve coached for a long time — about 30 years of high school football and four years of college football,” Brausch said. “I spent the last four at Mount St. Joseph and became aware of the (Amelia) opening when I saw it on the state website.”
Although Brausch had no real contacts at the high school, Rod Huber, the head coach at MSJ, had coached Amelia athletic director James Collins when Collins suited up for the Lions. Brausch reached out to Collins and expressed interest in the opportunity, he said, and the hiring process proceeded from there.
Brausch is no stranger to Clermont County. A resident for the past five years, Brausch has previously coached at Clermont Northeastern, among other stops in the Greater Cincinnati area. Also, his oldest son, David, graduated from Batavia High School.
Brausch coached at Lebanon High School for 10 years from 1995-2004, reaching the state playoffs in six of those 10 seasons and winning the Division II state title in 1998.
Following a successful stint just north of Clermont Co., Brausch moved further north to take the head coaching job Perkins High School in Sandusky, Ohio. He was there for three seasons, one of which resulted in state playoff berth.
Adding two more years at the helm of CNE, Brausch boasts an overall head coaching record of 110-55.
After being approved by the school board, Brausch was able to meet his players for the first time last week and they had their first day in the weight room on Monday, Feb. 2.
Brausch’s first order of business at Amelia is to establish an identity that will become synonymous with Baron Football.
“We have a group that’s going off in a bunch of different directions and I want to bring them all together as a family,” he said. “We want to play for each other and have each other’s backs.
“I’m a faith, family football guy and we want to go from there. We’re going to be young — we’ll only have two seniors — so what we lack for in experience, we’ll have to make up for in work ethic, hustle, desire and commitment to one another.”
Amelia will have a solid role model in overcoming obstacles on their sideline as Brausch is now two years cancer-free following a battle with multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells.
The coach said his teams will employ offensive and defensive strategies based upon the personnel the Barons have to work with. He said an option attack or spread offense is a possibility, but you can only run those sets if you have athletes who can thrive in important positions.
“One of the good things about the experience I have is that I’ve had guys who can run the option, I’ve had guys who can throw and we can split between them,” Brausch said. “On defense, we have to see what we have at each group — what we have on the D-line, who’s at DB, linebackers.”
The coach said he has about half of his staff filled out, which includes his son David, who recently graduated from MSJ. Mark Thomas, who coached at Amelia last year, is staying on board. Jason Conley, formerly CNE’s head coach and most recently an assistant at Batavia, is coming on to help the Barons as is Chris Compton, a former player of Brausch’s from MSJ.
The coach and his staff are excited about the immediate future of the program. Brausch said he had no reservations about considering the position given the fact that Amelia would be consolidating with Glen Este in a few years.
“I’m a one-day-at-a-time guy,” he said. “I learned that the hard way when I had cancer a couple of years ago and we’re going to take it one year at a time and when the two years are up, we’ll worry about it then.”