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Zone Read: Ty Wisdom Unplugged

Eric Sorenson
Arizona Sports News online

He’s back.

After three successful seasons at Millard South High School in Omaha, Nebraska, which included a Class A State Championship in November, Ty Wisdom has returned to the Valley, taking over Rick Garretson, who retired, at Chandler High.

“Zone Read” caught up with the former Horizon and Desert Vista head coach to discuss a myriad of topics on, and off, the field.

I met you when you were at Horizon but I know you started your AZHS coaching career at Valley Vista. How did you end up here in the Valley for the first time? “I was just tired of the cold [in Nebraska]. I was 29. I was only dating my wife, who was my girl friend at the time, for a year. People in the Midwest don’t leave, which is fine. But I remember going in and telling my head coach, ‘I’m out of here.’ He was like, ‘What? Where are you going?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. Arizona, Las Vegas, Florida. Somewhere. I gotta go. I gotta do this.’ So I started applying to places…I was fortunate Josh SeKoch gave me an opportunity to be an assistant under him coaching quarterbacks and being the OC there. We had a great group of kids.

“That’s how I ended up out in Arizona. But I didn’t know a sole in the high school coaching world. Not one person.”

Did your girl friend, now wife, come with you? “She did. She was a nurse. She said, ‘You know what, I’ll go.’ That was the best thing that ever happened.”

When you found out Chandler was open, was it a no-brainer for you to pursue it? “I’ve always had a lot of respect for the whole Chandler [Unified School] District, in general. I moved to Arizona in 2014 and Chander was in their [early] hay day.

“Obviously, I knew it was a great job but, like I told you, I had a great job [at Millard South]…once I heard from Shawn [Rustad], the District AD, who was reaching out to say congrats on the [Nebraska] state championship, that just sort of started the conversation. He called me and said, ‘Would you make this move?’ I said, ‘Yes, I wouldn’t come all the way out there to interview if I wouldn’t do it.’ Me and my wife sat down before I was offered and said, ‘Alright, we need to figure this out.’ 

“After meeting with [school officials], I was like, ‘Man, this place is special.”

I remember talking to Joseph Ortiz after he got the Perry job and the one thing he really stressed was how blown away he was by how serious CUSD is about their academics and athletics. When you were going through the interview process, did you sense that, as well? “Yes, no question. No question the importance of athletics is right there with academics. That says something when you’re sitting down and having an interview with the superintendent. A lot of people at most schools haven’t met their superintendent. I think I met our superintendent twice at Millard South, and they’re right across the street.

“I think that’s really neat that they value that. That’s what excites a community. That’s what brings people together. It’s all a part of the students’ athletic and academic journey, right? I think that’s so important. If you value the athletics part of it, just as you do the academics, I think you’re going to get a great school culture and atmosphere.”

You took over, let’s call them, “rehab programs” at Horizon and Desert Vista. I believe both of them didn’t win a single game the season before you arrived. Do you approach Chandler any different considering the high level of success they’ve had over the past decade? “I think you approach every program differently. I’ve taken a lot of time [in selecting my staff]. I interviewed staff for an entire week for over an hour with each guy…I really wanted to find out what was a good fit there. The big thing is, obviously, there are a lot of people who want to coach at Chandler. That’s a big deal.

“My first year at Horizon, one, I didn’t know anybody. Two, nobody wanted to coach there. We built that thing from the ground up and I love that school. I love the success they’re having and the culture that me and my staff built at that time. That place is special.

“It’s my job to put the right people in the right seats [at Chandler]. When I do that, we are going to have success. I have no doubt in my mind we will have success at Chandler. I know that it’s a very, very attractive place to play football, but it’s also a very attractive place to go to school and coach at, too. We’re going to get this thing going real quick.”

I asked Coach Garretson if Chandler was a Top 50 job nationally and he said it is. Are you in-line with those thoughts, and the high expectations that accompany that title? “Absolutely. I was talking with my wife and she said, ‘That’s exactly what you want. This is it.’ I always said, I don’t want to be at a place where 8-3 and ok. I want those high expectations. Now, with those high expectations, you need to meet me on the other side, too on some things we need to do that and, no doubt, our administration will be on board in whatever they are capable of doing. 

“It’s a tremendous football job and Shaun [Aguano] and Rick [Garretson] did a great job. Chandler is about championships, no question about it. But we’re not going to sit there and keep talking about it. We going to talk about how we get there and how we do things. The best was to carry that, and respect the past, is to put a great product on the field, in the community, and in the classroom.”

You and Chris McDonald are good friends. How much did you talk to him about the Chandler opening, and will the dynamics of your relationship change at all considering Basha is, obviously, one of your Premiere Region rivals? “So, I didn’t talk to him. I really didn’t talk to anybody, as far as opinion-wise. I felt like I had to do my own [homework]. I know the Valley. I’ve seen it from a far, as well. I just wanted to dive in myself and get my own opinion on everything – good and bad.

“For the second part of the question, the way we are as people, and the way we do things, we aren’t going to go behind each other’s back. If something is happening in his program or mine, we’re just going to pick up the phone and call each other. At the end of the day, it’s a high school football game. We’re trying to mentor young men. It’s not going to affect us. We’re competitors but it’s like going against your brother. You want to beat him, but at the end of the day, we both want each other do well.”

How did Millard South react to you leaving? “(long pause) Um, it was pretty quiet. It happened fast. I think there was a lot of shock. But, the one thing that I told my wife was, this place is in a much better spot than I found it. That’s no shot at [former Coach Andy Means]. He ran a great program. Now [at Millard] they have football class. They have a brand new weight room and different weight stuff. They are absolutely loaded [on the roster] and those kids will stay together. They’ll win another state championship. I’ll continue to stay in touch with those guys…I want to see those guys do week. They know that.

“A lot of them get it. They said, ‘Hey, congratulations. I know this is something you and your family wanted. It sucks, but it’s part of the business.’ Then there are others who are pretty bitter, mostly parents.”

Since I first met you back in your early days, it was evident to me that you do things your way, even if that may rub people the wrong way. You’re not liked by everyone, and that doesn’t bother you because you choose your own path, does it? “No, I don’t think it can for the fact that, if you do things the right way, and when I say the right way, I mean the way I believe in, you can put your head at rest at night. When you lead, it’s a lonely place at the top. That’s the reality of it. You’re going to lose a lot of friends every day. When I put this coaching staff together, one of the things I say at the end that is non-negotiable is, ‘If I don’t genuinely like you, I’m probably not hiring you.’ If I hire you, you will never hear me say a bad word about you until I can’t anymore. You do something that I can’t have your back for.

“When your staff is super loyal and it’s tight, it just trickles down to your kids and I’ve just be so fortunate to have really good staffs everywhere I’ve been.”

Both of your parents were educators and your dad was a coach. Did you know from an early age, this would be your career path, as well? “Yeah, I did. I didn’t necessarily know if I was going to be a football coach, a basketball coach, whatever. I guess I just admired my coaches growing up as far as how they went about things. I was from a town of about 10,000 people and they were just the most respected guys in the community. They did things the right way. They treated us fair, but they were tough on us. There was a standard…there’s a standard that kids want to be held to. My job is to put really positive coaches in front of these guys.”

You mentioned your home town. How would you describe Lexington, Nebraska? “So, Lexington, Nebraska is dead in the middle [of the state]. A guy by the name of Monty Kiffin graduated from there. Mick Tingelhoff, who’s in the Hall of Fame. Barry Alvarez, the former coach at Wisconsin. He was the head coach at Lexington [High] for two years. We lived a block away from our football field and our football team was good every year. I think our head coach won 11 games a year for like 14-straight years. You’d see people climbing the fence the night before to put blankets on their seats because it was going to be a packed house. Everyone in the town was going to be there.

“Main street homecoming parades. It was just a great atmosphere for athletics, and that was every sport. It was a great place to grow up…we had it pretty good growing up. My best friend is still a cattle farmer back home. He was my center in high school. We still talk once a week.”

I heard you never eat full meals, you only snack all day. What are your favorite snacks to consume? “I never met a chip I didn’t like. I’m a big kettle chip guy. This isn’t really a food (laughing) but you know those little white Lifesaver mints? If you watch me during a game, I’ll have like 30-60 of them.”

Chew on them or suck on them? “Oh, chew on them. They’re gone. Relentlessly coming through.”

Why don’t you eat meals? “Oh, I don’t know. It’s funny, me and my wife, everywhere we go, if we order something, we’ll split it. I’ve never met a nacho I don’t like.”

You keep a pretty tight circle. I know your family means everything to you, and I know football means everything to you. How do you balance the two? “I tell you what, it’s tough at times. It really is, and we’re going to hit a tough spot coming up, right? I’m going to leave [Omaha] Sunday and my wife and kids are going to be back here. Sometimes, you’re like, ‘What am I doing?’

“I have a really great wife that supports me in whatever jobs I’ve pursued. But, the other side of it is, I’m really excited to get [my family] to the Valley, and we’ll make it work for these few months. It will be tough, but I believe football is a family. If you do it the right way, it’s a family. There’s nothing better than having your [own] kids at practice. People bringing their kids to games. That’s what it’s about. It’s a bigger picture…at the end of the day, it’s a journey and creating those memories and life experiences, not only for the kids we’re coaching, but for my family, for myself, and this coaching staff.”

Chandler has some long-standing traditions dating back to when Shaun was the head coach, like Ohana and some of the other things that have been engraved into that program. How are you going to massage through those? Are they going to stay, or are you going to put your own stamp on the program? “I’ve had a lot of discussions with a lot of important people. It’s one of those things where I respect the past, but I’m not Shaun, and I am not Rick [Garreston]. So, me coming out and saying, ‘Ohana,’ or ‘Makoa,’ – that’s fake. Can we embody the same things without using that? You know, the family atmosphere, being courageous, being tough, being relentless. Absolutely. All of those things.

“I bounced it off a lot of people because in no way do I want to be disrespectful. What Shaun and Rick did here was unbelievable. Respecting the past is what we’re going to do by putting a great product on the field, and kind of putting our new stamp on it.”

What was your main message to the team the first time you met with them earlier this month? “I said, ‘Chandler is about championships and this is probably the last time you’re going to hear me talk about this.’ You just talk about going to work every day and the process – focusing on that. 

“The second thing I told them was, ‘You guys didn’t choose me, I chose you. You don’t even know who the hell I am. You may have read an article or saw something on Twitter, but you don’t know me. And I don’t know you.’ I’m your head coach by title but I’m not going to lead that way. I never have. What I am going to do is show up every day and I’m going to mean what I say.  We are going to go to work together…we’re going to have fun. It’s a game and you gotta have fun. We’re going to play the game without the fear of making a mistake. That’s the kind of culture I want to create.”

 

 

 

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A Valley native, Eric has had a passion for the Arizona sports scene since an early age. He has covered some of the biggest events including Super Bowls, national championships and the NBA and MLB playoffs in his near 20 years in local media.

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