Sherwood Haydock is set to return to the sidelines of the SAC at Wayne, pending Fort Wayne Community School Board approval.
That is what was being reported on Tuesday night around media outlets of Fort Wayne. The timing is unfortunate, with Outside the Huddle having learned that Haydock has yet to tell his team at Woodlan that he is departing.
Haydock told OTH on Tuesday night he would not talk about the job until he is approved “in a few weeks.”
OTH learned several weeks ago that Haydock was a candidate for the Wayne Generals head coaching job, vacated by Derrick Moore after an 0-10 campaign in 2019.
Wayne athletic director Gary Raber went silent after the SAC Holiday Tournament, likely in an effort to keep the search for a head coach quiet.
That effort ended Tuesday as Haydock was confirmed by a media outlet via secondary sources without his approval.
Haydock spent nine years at Woodlan, turning the Warriors program into a perennial ACAC contender. In a three-year run from 2015-17, Woodlan went 35-5 and twice reached the semistate round. In 2017, the Warriors advanced to the Class 2A state championship, falling to Southridge 15-14 as a late lead slipped away.
The last two seasons have been a struggle for Woodlan, with the team going 7-13, including 3-7 this past season.
Previous to his time in Woodburn, Haydock coached Harding High School for nine years until the school was closed in 2011. The highlight of his time with the Hawks came in 2006 when the program won the 2A state title with a 20-7 victory over Southridge.
Overall, Haydock holds a 195-161 career coaching record over 32 seasons. He will have a rebuilding project on his hands at Wayne, but will surely command the respect and attention of the same kinds of kids that he coached up at Harding, turning that squad into one of the more dangerous SAC opponents year after year.
Pretty crappy that you would post this if he hadnt told his players yet.
To be clear, OTH was not the first to report this, nor the second. Once it was clear that Haydock will be the new head coach at Wayne and others were reporting it, OTH felt it had to post something as well.
Frankly, OTH believes it is bush league that the original media personality that broke the story did not confirm with Haydock that it was OK to report the news, but instead went off a family member.
Basically, OTH wanted to respect Haydock’s timeline for when to report it, but once the original media report released the news, the cat was out of the bag so to speak.
To follow up, OTH puts its relationships with coaches and players above being first to report something. We make sure to respect our sources and gain their trust by honoring what they say when it comes to things being on the record, off the record or news that cannot be released until a certain time.
It is unfortunate that not all media entities in this area have that same respect.