High school football: New Lorain coach Damion Creel has learned from the best

Damion Creel has experience working with some of the top coaches at the top programs in Ohio and more recently has experience building a program to its highest level. Lorain is hoping he can use both as their new head football coach. Lorain made the announcement Monday afternoon. "We're obviously extremely excited," Lorain athletic director Bryan Koury said. "I think he cares for kids first and foremost. He's going to do things for our kids that are going to extend well off the playing field. Wins and losses take care of themselves. If you have talent — if my X's are bigger than your O's — there's a pretty good chance that I'm going to win the game." Creel has learned how to care for his players and build up his X's at multiple stops during a lengthy coaching career. After playing football at Hiram College, he joined the coaching staff at Marion-Franklin (1998-2001), Bedford (2001-03), Cleveland Heights (2003-06), Richmond Heights (2007-09) and St. Edward (2009-10) before spending six years at Glenville. "Being under Coach (Ted) Ginn — who's obviously legendary, everyone knows him — for six years as a coordinator, offensively and defensively, when you're a coordinator there you're pretty much a head coach, because Coach Ginn lets you run your side of the ball," Creel said. Creel got his first actual head coaching experience at Beachwood in 2015. The Bison reached the playoffs in 2019 to end an 11-year drought, put together its first undefeated season, hosted its first playoff game and won in the postseason for the first time under Creel's guidance. "I think my whole journey has prepared me for this," Creel said. "Being a head coach and getting the experience at Beachwood I think really helped me, but the St. Ed's experience, the Glenville experience, my first stop in Columbus at Marion-Franklin, Cleveland Heights … all experiences that I can take and can help me be successful and get this thing right." Creel takes over for James Boyeas, who was hired a year ago but never coached a game as Lorain decided to cancel its fall sports seasons due to safety concerns regarding the coronavirus pandemic. Koury declined to comment on why Boyeas was replaced and Boyeas didn't return a text requesting comment Monday night. Koury did give Creel his full backing and believes the new coach's resume shows why he will be successful at Lorain. "He's been in different settings and if you look at the programs that he's been in, you can say that he's had an inside look at a lot of different programs, whether it be the demographics, whether it be the size of the school … all those things play into how you formulate your philosophy and how you want to approach your program," Koury said. "So him having all those different views, I think is extremely important." Creel found his way west thanks to a former Lorain High football coach. "I had a good conversation with Coach (Dave) McFarland, who is on the committee, and I was asked to apply," he said. "He had gotten some recommendations from close friends of mine that are guys he's close with. We just talked about the job and what a hidden gem it is, how much work is going to be needed to get it back on its feet since they didn't have the opportunity to play last year. The more I researched and talked to people, I just realized it's a pretty good job." Going through the rebuild at Beachwood was demanding and satisfying, and one of the big reasons the Titans job was so appealing. "It wasn't easy the first couple years there, you're building that foundation," Creel said. "You have a lot of kids these days — you call in the microwave generation — where they want things now. They want to take the elevator instead of walking up the stairs. It's a situation where if you want something to be successful and you want it to sustain, you have to bypass the elevator and walk up the stairs … once you get there it's more meaningful. "That's what we were able to do at Beachwood and it'll be the same thing here." Creel said it all starts with creating a positive atmosphere for the players and helping them improve on and off the field. He's also excited about continuing the social justice initiatives he's been part of over the last year. Creel is the president of the African Americans Football Coaching Alliance, which was established last spring, and he's an executive board member of the Build the Bridge program, which aims to unite players of all races to foster success through social, emotional, educational and athletic advancement. "No. 1, my job is to build a relationship with these kids," said Creel, who will also teach at Lorain High next year. "It doesn't matter if you're Black, white or Latino … that's my job — to find a way to build a great and positive relationship with these kids. At Beachwood, my team was 85 percent Black and the rest were white, so we dealt with issues within our own team along with issues playing in our conference, playing as the only team that was mostly Black. "I am excited when talking to the administration, they were excited to continue it at Lorain. We're going to push forward, we're going to find a school to match up with — I was working with Columbia, with Jason Ward, a great friend of mine, and we might keep working with Columbia if he's up to it. So I'm excited to get with the kids, talk about life and how things are, and help them navigate through their journey." Contact Shaun Bennett at 329-7137 or sbennett@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him @ShaunBennettct on Twitter.