St. Henry District High School has a face for their football program that’s continuing to ramp things up.
The school named Tim Odom as their inaugural head coach on Monday, a move that’s been in the making for months when they announced they were moving their football timeline up.
Originally slated to begin varsity football in 2026, the Crusaders will field a junior varsity team in 2024 with their first varsity season coming in 2025.
“Tim is a perfect fit to start our program here at St. Henry,” Crusaders Athletic Director Jim Demler said. “His leadership and extensive experience will provide a solid foundation for sustained success. Tim is a tremendous leader, and he will work hard to establish a football program that the St. Henry Community will be proud of.”
Odom has a long coaching history, is a Moeller (Ohio) grad and lettered for two seasons at Ohio State University. He’s coached at Moeller, Simon Kenton, Glen Este (Ohio) and Lakota West. At Simon Kenton, he led the program to their first ever playoff win.
“Words cannot express my excitement at being named the first Head Football Coach for St. Henry District High School. St. Henry’s commitment to academic excellence and its strong foundation in faith make this opportunity truly special,” Odom said. “With proven athletic success across the board, and now with football, the program has the potential to be one of the finest in the Commonwealth.”
The interest in football at the high school, middle school and youth levels drove the timeline up. They had 260 kids first through eighth grade participate in the spring flag football league earlier this year.
Prior to the Crusader Youth Football League that sped things up, a turf field was installed on campus in August 2022. The administration developed a football committee with principal Grant Brannen, school administrators and parents, the stakeholders and R.J. Riegler, the director of football operations for the program.
“We know there’s a lot that goes into this,” Riegler said back in June when the committee was formed. “We’ve been able to identify the things we need and finding solutions, funding for equipment, any options or adjustments to the stadium and so on and so forth.”
The committee opened up the application process for the head coaching job in November. Jim Demler took over the Athletic Director job this school calendar year and is no stranger to starting up a football program, doing so with Ryle in the early 90’s.
Helping with the timeline decision is the way the current KHSAA football realignment schedule is set up. Come 2025, more realignment decisions will be made and St. Henry wants to be a part of that. They’re expecting to be in Class 2A based off enrollment, which could line them up with the current Class 2A, 5th District with Beechwood, Walton-Verona, Bracken County, Carroll County, Gallatin County and Owen County. No district in the state has seven teams, so depending on where enrollment numbers shake out, the current alignment could look a lot different than what the new one will be.
“That’s part of the reason in moving up the date. With the scheduling process and new alignment we figured it would make sense for us the next time the new alignment comes out, we’d be put in a district right away,” Brannen said.
St. Henry held their first football camp in June and continued with the Crusader League in the fall. With the coaching hire, they’ll start aligning with the KHSAA football calendar in the spring ready to field a JV team for the fall of 2024.
“St. Henry is a school with a rich tradition of excellence, not only in academics and athletics but also in fostering a community grounded in faith,” Brannen said. “I have the utmost confidence that Tim will instill our core values of Faith, Respect, and Grit to our SHDHS students and community.”