The assistant coaching structure under Bayfield High School head football coach Gary Heide will change for next season.
Heide and Bayfield’s athletic director Rob Dean decided to move from two full-pay assistant coaches and four half-pay assistant coaches to three full-pay assistants and two half-pay coaches starting next season.
In order to give everyone a fair chance to have a job, Dean and Heide decided to open all of the positions and conduct interviews.
They interviewed nine candidates and finalized the coaching staff last week.
“We wanted to get as many paid coaches on the staff as possible,” Dean said. “It’s really about changing the structure of the assistants and how they were paid.”
Heide will remain the head coach of a team that has made the state playoffs in two of his three seasons at the helm.
Mike Wnorowski will be the Wolverines’ new defensive coordinator as a full-pay assistant after coaching at Bayfield Middle School last season and volunteering with the high school team once the middle school season ended.
Frank Hawkins and Justin Matherson were hired as the other full-pay assistants, and Don Funke and Mike Wood will be the half-pay assistants.
“The coaches who accept half pay still work full time,” Dean said. “They’re really donating to the program.”
BHS used two interview committees to select its candidates.
The committee that hired Wnorowski was composed of one athlete, one parent, Dean and Heide, and another committee of two parents, one athlete, Dean and Heide selected the other coaches.
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
