The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Rotsky brings building ways to VASJ
Aaron Berry raised his hand in the back of a meeting room at Euclid High School and had a question for his new coach.
Jeff Rotsky had just been named the head coach of the Euclid football team and was meeting with his prospective players for the first time.
Berry rose to his feet and put his new coach to task.
“Are you for real?” Berry asked his new coach pointblank.
“All you say, this sounds great. But are you what you say you are? Are you doing to do what you say you’re going to do?”
Rotsky, 55, has heard it before.
He’s been coaching for nearly three decades now — taking his family-oriented GFGF (God-FamilyGrades-Football) blueprint to stops across the Greater Cleveland.
The latest stop is Villa Angela-St. Joseph where — as in his other stops — the football program has fallen on hard times with dwindling participation and/or iffy success.
But as he has done in stops prior to VASJ — at Chanel, Maple Heights, Cleveland Heights and then Euclid — he is excited about
the challenge of building something special.
Something that is bigger than what’s seen on the field on Friday nights.
Under Rotsky’s tutelage, programs at Chanel, Maple Heights, Cleveland Heights and Euclid were all elevated to greater heights than prior to his arrival. Now he’s at VASJ, where he hopes is the last stop in his illustrious program-building career.
“I’ve always loved climbing the mountain more than stay atop it,” Rotsky told The News-Herald. “I don’t think there’s any magic secret to how we’ve done it. It’s not the Rotsky Effect. It’s the staff plan, a staff that’s been with me for so many years. Guys who Joe Klir, Johnnie Lemons and Eric Stephenson.
“It comes down to trust. The players know if there is anything they need —
if something is wrong and they need anything from a bed to sleep to clothes on their back we’re going to be there for them. Once they see that, believe in it and trust it. They will do anything for each other as players and anything for us as coaches.
“That trust is where it all begins.”
The plan has worked everywhere, including
• Chanel, where the Firebirds
had won 12 games in nine seasons prior to Rotsky’s arrival. Rotsky turned the program around, went 33-12 and took teams to the state finals in the 1990s.
• Maple Heights, where the Mustangs had lost 20 games in a row before Rotsky took over. In five seasons, he went 45-11 there, won three Lake Erie League Titles and went to the playoffs five times.
• Cleveland Heights, where prior to Rotsky’s arrival, they program had never reached the playoffs. Yet the team went 9-0, 8-2 and 9-1 from 2011-2013 and became regulars in the Division I, Region I playoff scene.
• Euclid, where the Panthers had gone six straight years without a playoff berth.
But under Rotsky (who went 49-19 in six years at Euclid), the Panthers went to the playoffs all six years.
Now he’s at VASJ, where he takes over for Elvis Grbac who stepped down after two seasons.
The Viking are coming off a 1-7 campaign in 2020 and haven’t one more than six games in seven years.
The master-builder that he is, Rotsky loves the challenge.
“We will get there,” Rotsky said. “When I first met with the team, I asked for a show of hands of who thought they’d play college football and not one hand went up. I was broken. … A month ago at our team trip, I asked the same thing and 80 percent of the hands went up.
“These guys are starting to believe. They believe. That belief and their love for each other will carry us on Friday nights.”