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Lucas resigns as Beallsville football coach

BEALLSVILLE — When the Beallsville football team returns to the field on Friday, Oct. 9 against Racine Southern, there will be a new voice leading the Blue Devils.

Head coach Rusty Lucas, who was in his second season as head coach, submitted his letter of resignation — effective immediately — to high school principal Casey Tolzda Monday morning, citing health and personal reasons.

“A few weeks ago, he had had some health issues and I told him he needed to take care of himself,” Tolzda said. “In no way did he abandon these kids.”

Long-time assistant Dave Wiles has been named the interim head coach and assistant coaches Paul Kanzigg and Tim Tripp will also remain on the staff to see the Devils through the remainder of the season.

“(Athletic Director) Delmas (Moore) and I met with the coaches and they’re all going to do it together,” Tolzda said. “Dave was the first varsity assistant, so he was kind of the next in line and the other coaches all agreed. We just needed someone to have the title as head coach.”

Lucas steps away from a job he had always dreamed about with a career record of 4-10. This year’s club won at Hundred in Week 2. As has been the case for the last several seasons, Beallsville is battling a numbers problem. Against Bridgeport, just 16 Blue Devils suited up for action.

The players were informed of Lucas’ decision in a team meeting Monday afternoon with Tolzda and Moore.

“The kids were just sort of looking at each other and there wasn’t a real strong reaction one way or another,” Tolzda admitted.

Tolzda asked the players who wanted to continue on with the season to stand up and all 16 came to their feet.

“I told the kids we as an administration are behind them, they have a schedule and now they need to have a restart,” Tolzda said. “I want them to have some pride and do things right. I told them I didn’t care if they won another game, but I wanted them to continue to work hard and do things correctly.”

The Blue Devils are off to a 1-3 start this season and were scheduled to host Valley this week. However, that game has been pushed back to Friday, Nov. 6 as the Blue Devils’ season finale. Beallsville fell to Bridgeport last Friday in a game that was moved up from Oct. 2, meaning the Devils won’t return to action until Friday, Oct. 7 when Racine Southern comes calling.

Last week, the Blue Devils announced they were opting out of the OHSAA playoffs, but they will continue to play regular season games.

“Since we’re not playing for two weeks, we have some time to re-group,” Tolzda said. “Valley had asked us about our willingness to move the game and I told Delmas to do it because it might not be a bad thing for us as we try to get things back together.”

Wiles is retired from a career in the military and has been around the Blue Devils’ program for many years in a multitude of capacities.

As for 2021, Tolzda and Moore haven’t even begun to think that far ahead.

“We just want to get through the rest of this season, and then we’ll go from there,” Tolzda said.

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