Coach with Cape May County roots helps resurrect Schalick football program

Posted: September 13th 2023

By BRIAN CUNNIFF

CapeAtlanticLive.com

Mike Wilson is a Cape May County guy through and through.

He graduated from Lower Cape May Regional High School. He currently resides in Rio Grande. His children attend Wildwood Catholic Academy. He once taught and coached football at Middle Township High School. His parents and his wife’s parents both live in the area.

But Wilson has also ingrained himself into a community about an hour’s ride away by automobile as the head coach of a Schalick High School football program that is on the rise.

The Cougars improved to 3-0 on the season with a 25-0 victory over Wildwood last Friday in a game that was closer than the final score indicates. Schalick led 7-0 midway through the third quarter before pulling away late.

Schalick’s fast start to the 2023 season comes on the heels of a West Jersey Football League Horizon Division championship last fall.

It wasn’t always this way at Schalick.

The Cougars went 0-7 in Wilson’s first season as coach in 2020. They made strides in 2021, going 4-5, before breaking through with last season’s 7-3 finish that netted them the division title.

“What we’ve been able to do, I think it’s what the West Jersey Football League wants,” Wilson said prior to Friday’s game at Wildwood. “The West Jersey Football League (through its two-year cycle of division realignment) gives you a chance to recuperate. That has helped us.”

Schalick’s recent success in a division designed to help rebuilding football teams hasn’t solely been based on a more manageable schedule, however. Wilson said the program finished his first season in charge with just 24 players. Now, there are 65 in the program, less than 10 of whom are seniors.

“It’s been great, seeing the interest grow,” he said. “Our junior class, most of them have been playing varsity football since they were freshmen, so they already have a lot of experience.

“It’s just nice to see the growth of the program numbers-wise. To go from 24 kids my first year to now being able to play freshmen football, that’s been great to see.”

This is Wilson’s second stint as a head coach. He directed Middle Township’s program for two seasons in 2010-11, then spent a decade as an assistant coach under Chuck Smith at both Oakcrest and Mainland. He did return to Middle as an assistant for one season in 2018.

Wilson said his first experience as a head coach and his subsequent many years as an assistant have put him in a better place as a leader of a high school football program.

“I look back at my two years as a head coach at Middle and all the mistakes I made,” he said. “I was 28 years old when I first started coaching there. I made a ton of mistakes. Then getting to work with Chuck Smith for 10 years was the best thing I could have done as a coach. Being around a good program, being around a great head coach and a lot of really good assistants, you try to emulate what you learned and take that and build it into what we’re trying to do here. No doubt, I was much more equipped this time around as a head coach.”

Wilson, also a history teacher at Schalick, has grown fond of the school’s community.

“The community up there is amazing,” he said. “Pittsgrove is a fantastic community. The youth football program up there is fantastic, the parents are fantastic, we have an awesome booster club and the school is just great. The outpouring of support … It’s always about, ‘What can we do for the kids?’ It’s been a great experience.”

But Wilson will always appreciate his roots here in Cape May County.

“It’s surreal to be here,” he said as he stood near the 50-yard line at Maxwell Field and surveyed the atmosphere prior to Friday’s game against Wildwood while being interviewed. “I played on this field when I was 8 years old. It’s nice being down here.”