New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Wholley on new career path at Avon Old Farms
AVON — Jon Wholley is surrounded by the stone walls of a tiny classroom that has the look of a dungeon but the feel of something more charming as he sits at a desk and discusses his vision for the Avon Old Farms football program.
There are books on shelves: calculus, algebra,
Latin. Here, he teaches math. Here, also, he runs football meetings and breaks down film. This room, ground level of a building erected in 1927, is the epicenter of Wholley’s new professional life, one derailed by circumstance and the pandemic in 2020 — one since reinvented.
Wholley, 39, was named AOF coach-in-waiting last spring and ran much of the program’s day-to-day operation during the 2021 season, when the team won a New England bowl champi
onship — the NEPSAC Kevin Driscoll Bowl — for the first time. Driscoll, previously coach at the school in 19852013, had returned as interim coach to bridge a gap in the wake of Pierce Brennan’s departure.
Wholley is now in place, officially, leading a program on the type of campus he’s familiar with from an outsidelooking-in perspective.
A standout player at Southington High, Wholley was a walk-on running back at UConn and an assistant coach at his alma mater on three occasions. With stints on staffs at Central Connecticut, Fordham and Mississippi State mixed in, Wholley has spent 15-plus years living the nomadic life of a college assistant coach, with countless recruiting visits to campuses of public high schools like Southington and private prep schools like Old Farms.
“I always dreamed to be the head coach of UConn or Notre Dame or the New York Giants,” Wholley said.
“This has become that for me. I’m not driven to have status. I’m driven to have success for my family and my players, and I’ve had a lot of experiences that benefit the kids I’m coaching. I’ve been through a lot of what they want to get through.
“My goal is to help every kid — if they’re good enough to play JV, or if they’re good enough to play at Alabama. I want them to have the skills for success over not just the next four years, but the next 40.”
Wholley left Randy Edsall’s UConn staff before the 2019 season to become an assistant under Joe Moorhead at Mississippi State. When Moorhead was fired after the season, Wholley returned to Connecticut with his wife, Carly, a nurse who also grew up in Southington and attended UConn, and sons Lucas, now 6, and Tyler, 3.
“I stayed at home with both kids and my wife went to work full time,” Wholley said. “I say I was the director of family operations. I’ve worked jobs where it was 80 hours-plus a week and this was, by far, the hardest job I ever had.”
On March 11, 2020, the day Rudy Gobert became the NBA’s first confirmed COVID-19 case, triggering a shutdown of the sports world, Wholley interviewed with Bill Belichick for a vacant spot on the Patriots’ staff. That position was soon frozen.
Months later, he showed up to a scheduled interview for a job with the Giants — but then-coach Joe Judge, a Mississippi State graduate, did not. In the meantime, Wholley worked parttime as an analyst for Penn State, breaking down opponents’ game film.
Soon, the opportunity at Avon Old Farms was presented. Matt Proffitt, another Southington native who had paid close attention to Wholley’s career, was part of the search and hiring committees.
“I knew if we interviewed and were to land Jon, on football, we were going to be good there,” said Proffitt, the math department chair and an assistant football coach at Old Farms. “That box was checked. I knew of his work ethic and that box was checked, too. We were focused more on everything he said, how he wanted to make an impact, develop the program, develop student-athletes, place student-athletes at really high, good-fit schools.”
Wholley still walks around with a UConn backpack, with a UConn ID badge hanging from it. Where for 15-plus years, since graduating from UConn with a political science degree, Wholley was used to his job being exclusively about football, he’s now a conductor for the entire student-athlete experience.
“Let me tell you about his Wednesdays, in season,” Proffitt said.
Wholley, who lives on campus, meets with positions groups, receivers and defensive backs, from 6:30-7:30 a.m. He attends an all-school meeting at 8 a.m. Then he teaches three math classes, followed by his mandatory supervision of a lunch period. He leads football practice, then staff meetings. He is required to attend dinner and facilitate meals for students. After dinner, he holds office/classroom hours. Next, he proctors a study hall, returns home for a bit and goes to a dorm for a 10:30 p.m. check to make sure every student is accounted for.
“He is exceedingly positive and energetic, but he’s adaptable in a way where he can change his approach kid to kid without giving up his genuineness,” Proffitt said. “He’s got an amazing rapport not with the kids, but with each kid.”
Nine players from last season’s Old Farms team earned college football scholarships, eight at FBS schools. Wholley wants to elevate exposure for all Connecticut prep programs, and wants players more involved in the communities. Step by step, he is trying to lift the profile of a sport he’s spent a lifetime involved with, creating opportunities for students who don’t want their football journeys to end in Avon — even if his very well could.
“I enjoy it because it’s teaching,”
Wholley said. “In some ways it’s more challenging because in college, your test is practice that day. You don’t ever leave the classroom going, I wonder if that kid got it? They’re going to tell you within two hours because it’s going to show on the field.”
At their core, these jobs are similar. Wholley shares what he knows about maximizing potential. The lessons apply on campuses that feel like cities as well as at little Avon Old Farms, which sits on a tree-lined winding road that challenges GPS and radio signals. The buildings look like, as Clemson coach Dabo Swinney told USA Today after recruiting Taisun Phommachanh, “something out of Harry Potter world.”
Wholley attended Wagner for a year before deciding to walk on at UConn in 2001. He earned a scholarship as a senior but tore an ACL midway through the 2004 season and missed the Huskies’ first bowl appearance, the Motor City Bowl.
“You’ve got to know what it’s like to be able to work and practice with no light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “My freshman year at UConn, camp was really hard. I remember calling my mom, crying. And in the other corner of the dorm, I remember hearing somebody else crying, saying, ‘I can’t do this.’ It was Dan Orlovsky. He was at the opposite end of the spectrum, the highest recruited kid.
“I tell that to kids, that I’ve done nothing but be involved in football 17 years later and Dan’s done nothing but be involved in football. And we were crying and wanted to quit. You’re going to feel that way. You have to accept that and embrace it.”
Wholley was a graduate assistant at UConn in 2006-08, and an assistant again with the Huskies in 2010. When Edsall left for Maryland after that season, Wholley had hoped to join Edsall but was not offered a job. He was retained by Paul Pasqualoni at UConn, though, ultimately a valuable experience. Also, Wholley had a wedding to attend that summer — D.J. Hernandez’s wedding. He invited Carly, his high school sweetheart.
“The problem is, I wasn’t hers,” Wholley said. “I asked her out on AOL instant messenger in 1997 and she said no. But we were always good friends.”
Wholley and Carly started dating soon after Hernandez’s wedding and were married in 2012.
Wholley’s father, John, had died in August 2011 after a long battle with brain cancer. Remaining at UConn allowed Wholley precious family time when his father’s condition worsened.
So he understood in 2020 that career conditions that don’t seem ideal can turn out just fine.
“It’s like God gave me a bonus,” he said. “I want us to be the best prep school program in the country. It’s about setting up a system to allow people to be successful — on the field, in the classroom, and in placement.”