Alumni: Marsh moves back into head coaching role at F/E

Former Salamanca boss hopes to continue Titans’ success

The Franklinville/Ellicottville football program didn’t have to look far for an experienced candidate to fill its coaching vacancy.

Nor should the Titans have to look far to fill out their coaching staff. F/E happened to have a long-tenured former varsity coach with recent experience on staff when Chad Bartoszek chose to step down and accept a job at nearby Salamanca, his hometown, and coach the Warriors. In his place on the Titans’ sideline in 2019 will be a former Salamanca coach, Jason Marsh, who assisted F/E the last two seasons.

Marsh hopes to keep as much continuity as possible after watching F/E’s rise since the schools’ football merger in 2014.

“We just keep doing what we've been doing,” Marsh said of how to continue the Titans’ success. “Obviously what the Titans have done in the past worked pretty well. We're just going to continue functioning in the manner that we've been functioning.”

Marsh said he expects Chris Mendell, Mark Blecha, Scott Palmatier, Reed Mitrowski and Harley Butler to return to the team’s coaching staff.

“I believe the rest of the coaching staff will remain the same,” he said. “Obviously we'll be minus Chad, and I believe we'll be looking to add one other guy. But the rest of the coaching staff will be the same.”

Over nine seasons at Salamanca, Marsh’s Warriors teams went 40-39 from 2005-11 and 2013-14. But Marsh clearly didn’t feel he was done with coaching after the end of his tenure there.

“It's a great opportunity for me,” he said of coaching F/E. “I love the game of football. I always have. The game has given so much to me and this is just my way of being able to give back to the game and hopefully provide the same type of experiences for the kids that I always had. It teaches a lot of valuable lessons. I just really love that about the game and I'm looking forward to the opportunity to hopefully provide that type of opportunity to the players up at Franklinville/Ellicottville.”

Marsh, who works for the Salamanca City Central School District as a physical therapist, also coached varsity baseball as an assistant this year. In his nearly five years since last serving as a varsity football coach, Marsh said he learned different ways of setting up a coaching staff by working with the Titans.