WORTHINGTON — Mike Picetti and Michael Edwards are self-admitted football junkies.

They eat, sleep and drink the sport. That passion is what helped them land head coaching jobs at Thomas Worthington and Worthington Kilbourne, respectively.

And it was that passion for the sports and most importantly their players that put them both on the brink of being physically sick when they thought of a fall in suburban Columbus without high school football because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both Picetti, who is a Bridgeport High School graduate, and Edwards, who is a Martins Ferry graduate, work under the same school board, so they felt each other’s pain when they were told in early August that the season was being called off due to rising numbers in Franklin County.

“We were the only school district in the (Ohio Capital Conference) to completely shut down,” Picetti said. “It was an absolute nightmare for about a week because we had seniors wanting to transfer, trying to keep parents in the loop and everything else.”

The passion of the players’ families, the decline in cases in the Columbus metropolitan area and eventually Gov. Mike DeWine allowing sports to move forward caused the Worthington City Schools Board of Education to reconsider its stance and eventually permit both schools to resume playing.

The official clearance came just over two weeks ago, meaning Picetti’s team had about 10 days to get ready for Newark and Edwards’ squad had 10 days to prepare for Canal Winchester.

“It was a very emotional few days, but being the leader of the program, I tried to stay as positive as possible,” Edwards said. “I simply told the kids and the families to keep the faith. I’ll be honest, behind closed doors, I was crushed (about the board’s original decision), but I always believe in what’s meant to happen will happen and keep putting our best foot forward and that’s how it worked out.”

What each saw transpire last Friday night was something neither Picetti nor Edwards could have even dreamt about..

Thomas Worthington cruised to a 30-0 victory against Newark and Kilbourne posted a 33-14 victory.

“To play and win the way we did was really surreal,” Picetti said. “The kids deserve all of the credit. They bought into what we sold them. After the game, it was just like one of those inspirational moments when you consider where we had come from just three weeks prior.”

Edwards believes the shutdown and eventual re-start helped his players because they got a taste of having something they deeply cared about taken away.

“It definitely made us stronger,” Edwards said. “Our kids played with a lot of passion (against Canal Winchester) and one of the things I was most proud of was how well prepared we were for the game both mentally and physically.”

For Picetti, the entire offseason was a blur. He was hired in January after serving several seasons as an assistant in Hilliard at Bradley.

“It was a very emotional night, but it didn’t really hit me until I got into the coaches’ office and one of my assistants grabbed the game ball, threw it at me and said, ‘put this on your wall,'” Picetti said. “That’s when it hit me. It was just a really special night.”

Actually, Picetti joked with some of his fellow coaches and friends that if and when he was ever to receive his chance to be a head coach, it signaled, “the world was going to end.”

“I think this COVID stuff is partly my fault,” Picetti said. “Because here I am the head coach and we’re dealing with all of this stuff. It’s definitely been a challenge.”

With so few practices, Thomas Worthington improvised at times, especially on the defensive side of the ball.

“We lost about 11 practices or so and as soon as we got cleared (to play), we made the decision we were going to play the (opening) game (as scheduled),” Picetti said. “We went to a band system and literally made a band for every single kid on defense. It just told them exactly what to do. And that’s what they did. I just have a very resilient group of young men, who worked very hard and came in every day wanting to put the time in and I just couldn’t be more proud.”

Before Kilbourne was fully cleared to go back into football workouts, they went through the OHSAA-designed pod system where only so many members of the team could be together at once. It’s the same system other schools had used throughout most of June and July.

“We were three weeks from a real game and we were trying to practice in 10-man pods,” Edwards, who was previously a defensive coordinator at Pickerington North, said. “Even after we got cleared, we had to stay in the pods for so many days. We did get a scrimmage in (against Watkins Memorial), but we only had 11 practices.”

Despite the short window of time to get all of the things done a coach expects prior to launching a new season, Edwards felt as good going into last week’s game as he had in any he’d coached previously.

“I am usually on edge all week leading up to a game,” Edwards admitted. “I was calm last week because I was just so confident in our kids. I knew we were more athletic and our leadership was really strong. We had done everything we could do with the time we had to prepare.”

Now, Edwards hopes his team can build on the foundation it laid for itself.

“We’ve been preaching the Mike Ditka quote, ‘success is not permanent and failure isn’t fatal,’ this week,” Edwards admitted. “We’ve seen some success, but we made a lot of mistakes we need to improve on. We had a great practice on Monday and you can just see the kids really starting to believe in themselves.”

When you consider the pre-seasons both Picetti and Edwards dealt with, and everything their teams had to overcome, it’s a safe bet that regardless of the outcomes last week, both former OVAC All-Stars would have been more than pleased with their teams.

Throw in the outcomes and it’s not hard to tell where the surreal feeling came from.

SETH’S SCOOPS

EDWARDS IS assisted by former Bellaire head coach John Magistro, who runs the defense; Bellaire graduate J.J. Schmidli, who coaches the line. Michael’s father, Dave, also serves on the coaching staff for game nights as the Wolves “get-back coach.”

BOTH teams are in action again this week. Thomas Worthington heads to Dublin to take on Jerome, while Kilbourne is at home against Dublin Scioto tonight.