“Middletown is a very proud city, and they love their football. So when you’re not successful in football, you hear it throughout the community, and these young men have heard that over the last three years. They want to be back where Middletown football was at some point in time.”
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The Middies were 10-2 and made it to the Division I playoffs in 2011 — beating Centerville and losing to Moeller — but there hasn’t been a winning season since.
Middletown is 14-46 over the last six years, 1-19 over the last two. The most recent coach, Lance Engleka, quit after two seasons.
Enter Simpson, who left his position as defensive coordinator at Princeton to become a head coach for the first time.
“Our buzzwords right now are culture and confidence,” Simpson said. “We’re trying to build both of them. Confidence comes with success, and we haven’t had much success around here.”
His message to Middie fans?
“Be patient. It’s coming. True change is coming. I see it in the works. It’s not going to come overnight, but we’re building this thing piece by piece and we’re doing it the right way. I don’t have a five-year plan or a three-year plan. My plan is a right-now plan. I’ve got to make an impact right now.”
Middletown has three scrimmages — at Centerville on Aug. 7 at 10 a.m., at home against Northwest on Aug. 10 at 11 a.m. and at Fairfield on Aug. 17 at 7 p.m.
Simpson, who lives in Forest Park, has left his job as a Hamilton County adult probation officer supervisor and will be a linkage specialist at Middletown.
“The job is kind of a liaison between the assistant principals and dean of students,” Simpson said. “I’ll be taking the past 19 years as a supervisor of adult probation and try to see how we can incorporate that with things like attendance and truancy and make it into my own thing.”
The Middies will kick off the year at home against Western Hills on Aug. 24.
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