About Our Ads Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement As a little kid, Mike Blaut spent Roger Bacon football games playing backyard football in the end zone at what is now Bron Bacevich Memorial Stadium .
Over four decades later, Blaut stood on the same field as the head coach of his alma mater, watching the final seconds tick away on a night that made school history.
Roger Bacon won its first regional championship in 2020 , securing the program's first berth in the state Final Four. For Blaut, who graduated from Roger Bacon in 1988 and spent the majority of his coaching career there, the moment was more than a football milestone.
It's also an accomplishment − winning a regional title at home − that will likely never happen again since regional playoff games were not held at neutral sites during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
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"To be a part of that is just an incredible memory for me," Blaut said. "I'm gonna have it forever."
After 12 seasons leading the Spartans, Blaut stepped away from the head-coaching position at the school he has called home for most of his life.
Roger Bacon finished its season on Friday, Oct. 23, closing Blaut's tenure after a 68-61 record from 2015-2026. Blaut said he considered retirement for around a year.
"Just the fact that I'm getting old. I've done it for so long," Blaut said. "I knew that I was on the back-9 of my career. I've been kicking it around and thinking maybe it was the right time. As the season was winding down, it became the right time for me to walk away."
Blaut began his coaching career with the Spartans as a defensive backs coach in 1988 shortly after graduating, starting a journey that would take him to multiple other programs before returning to Roger Bacon.
"I grew up there. I don't remember a time of not being there," Blaut said. "It is home. That's where my family has been. The hardest part is walking away from all of that."
That connection helped shape the coach he became. Blaut learned the program's traditions under Ron Henke, a fellow Roger Bacon graduate who coached the Spartans with a mentality rooted in the school's identity.
Mike Blaut was named Roger Bacon's head football coach in 2015. "Spartans never quit. Spartans never die," Blau said, recalling the mantra he carried into his own coaching career. "We played the same way that I was taught."
After a brief stint at Northwest, Blaut returned to Roger Bacon in 1993. After coaching stops at Oak Hills and North College Hill, he came back to his alma mater again in 2008 as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Becoming the head coach in 2015 fulfilled a longtime ambition.
"That was my ultimate goal," Blaut said. "If I got it, great. I got the chance, so I took it."
The program's defining stretch came in 2019 and 2020 with back-to-back 10-win seasons after moving to the Miami Valley Conference. The Spartans captured four MVC-Scarlet division titles and made seven playoff appearances under Blaut, who was named the division's coach of the year three times. He was also the Southwest District coach of the year in 2020.
The 2020 team, led by Ohio Mr. Football winner Corey Kiner , reached heights no Roger Bacon team had before. The season's historic finish came during a global pandemic, which brought uncertainty over whether teams would take the field at all.
"There was a lot of anxiety. It was bad," Blaut said. "Knowing how good we were, knowing how good that team was, we wanted to get the season in more than anybody."
The 2020 run was fueled by motivation from a year prior, when Roger Bacon's playoff loss to Valley View ended on a controversial no-touchdown call. Blaut believed that team was just as talented as the one that followed.
"They felt like they had it taken away from them in 2019, so they really wanted it in 2020," Blaut said.
That championship season remains a landmark, but Blaut hopes his players remember more than victories, playoff runs and division titles. His guiding principle was "Faith, Family, Football," a reflection of the school's Catholic principles and the relationships built through the program. Blaut coached brothers, cousins and multiple generations of families, developing connections that will last beyond his coaching career.
"I have a feeling that well into my much older years, I'm still gonna be in close contact with them. They're family now," Blaut said.
Roger Bacon Trojans head coach Mike Blaut speaks with players after a high school football game between the Roger Bacon Spartans and North College Hill Trojans, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, at Bron Bacevich Memorial Stadium in Cincinnati. Spartans won 41-0. That family was built in the everyday moments from weight-room sessions, conversations in the coaches' office and discussions about video games, life outside of football and plans after graduation.
"That's where I really got to know the kids and got to know the families," Blaut said. "I got to know them as people as opposed to knowing them just as football players."
Blaut isn't ruling out another coaching opportunity in the future. He said friends in the coaching profession have been blowing up his phone over the last few days.
For now, if football is not in Blaut's plans next fall, he'll have the chance to watch two former Spartans in the NFL in Kiner, who is with the New England Patriots and fellow 2020 graduate James Thompson Jr., who is with the San Francisco 49ers.
He may return to the sideline somewhere, but Blaut's place in Roger Bacon history is secure after wrapping up a career that began with a boy playing in the end zone and culminated with a championship on the same field.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: From end zone to sideline, Roger Bacon was always 'home' to Mike Blaut
Source: Sports
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