Jim Mashek

NELSON PLANNING TO STEP ASIDE AS DRAGONS PREPARE FOR PLAYOFF TILT AT HENDERSON COUNTY

He’s given them guidance, and stability. He’s brought patience, experience and attention to detail to the Warren Central High School football field house.

He’s changed the narrative on Morgantown Road, at least as far as the Warren Central football program is concerned.

It’s been another trying season for the Dragons, at least as far as the wins and losses go, but Mark Nelson has instilled a sense of pride and purpose with the WCHS football team. The Streak is over, buried on Opening Night in 2022. The Dragons have reason to embrace the future, and leave the futile past in the rear-view mirror.

In large part because of Nelson’s presence.

“My mentality is the wins and losses are secondary to human development,” Nelson said after a chilly practice session on Joe Hood Field on Tuesday afternoon. “I want these kids to fight adversity, daily, to keep things going to make their lives a little easier down the road.

“I told (Warren County Public Schools administrators) I’d stay three years, and it’s been three years.”

Nelson, 64, has seen it all in his coaching career.

He’s built a program from the ground floor, as he did at South Warren High School, and before that, when he spent nine years as the head coach at Greenwood. Nelson took the Gators to the KHSAA Class 6A semifinals in 2009, his final season at the school.

Nelson spent three years across the state line, as the head coach at Portland (Tennessee) High School, before coming back to take on the ultimate challenge at Warren Central.

A team mired in a losing streak dating back to the 2015 season.

A team in need of a spark, of discipline. A team in search of direction.

Check, check and check. The Dragons have not enjoyed the success they had last season, when they went 5-5 in regular-season play and dropped a 39-12 decision to Madisonville-North Hopkins in first-round play of the KHSAA Class 4A playoffs.

Turnout remains an issue, in large part because Warren Central’s unusually high percentage of international students. But the Dragons have forged ahead, and they’ve been competitive in several games this season. Last week’s 29-26 road loss to Todd County Central was a tough pill to swallow, and Warren East needed a strong second half to slip past the Dragons, 22-14, earlier this season at WCHS.

Warren Central takes a 1-9 record into Friday night’s first-round KHSAA Class 6A playoff game at Henderson County, and the Dragons will be a decided underdog for that game. Either way, Mark Nelson has made sure there are better days on the horizon.

That’s what Mark Nelson has meant to the school and its student body.

“Coach Nelson changed the program, the first day he walked in the building,” said Warren Central senior running back/linebacker Devontre Patterson.

He changed it by establishing accountability, by encouraging his players, and on some occasions, through sheer will.

Nelson, a WKU football letterman (1979-82) from Mercer, Pennsylvania, started his coaching career in the mid-80s, and he’s seen it all over the years. He was the first head coach at South Warren High School, and his successor, Brandon Smith, has guided the Spartans to three KHSAA state championships over his 10 seasons at the helm.

When he inherited a squad saddled with a 51-game losing streak, to start the 2021 season, he convinced the Dragons that they could put the losing behind them. They’d find a way, if they believed in each other, more than anything.

“Working with these kids,” Nelson said, “has been a blast … We’ve had young men who were leaders, who just HATED to lose … They’ve worked hard, in the offseason, they’ve put in the time.”

That’s true, for the most part, but the reality is Warren Central has just eight seniors on its roster for Friday night’s game at Henderson County. A half dozen or so decided to leave the team at some point during the season. The good news, however, is that the Henry Moss Middle School’s eighth-grade team had a memorable season, and those players can help Nelson’s successor keep the Dragons moving forward in the future.

“That eighth-grade team started the season 5-2 and lost to Bowling Green by six or seven points,” Nelson said.

Sophomore quarterback Dominique Anthony has had his moments, throwing the football, and senior all-purpose back Devontre Patterson leads the Dragons in rushing yards (437), rushing touchdowns (four), as well as receptions and yards receiving (17 and 297, respectively). Defensively, Patterson is second to Dragons teammate Yzir Gray with 49 overall tackles.

Gray and WCHS senior linebacker Blake Harrison have given the Dragons defensive presence, too, but Harrison had to work his way back from a preseason knee injury, which kept him on the sideline for the first half of the season. Some talented players have left the team since it opened the season with a 57-14 loss at Logan County on August 17, but Nelson and his players have stayed the course

They’ve left their mark at the school, and some of them compete in other sports, like basketball. Warren Central is the defending KHSAA Sweet Sixteen state champion, and longtime WCHS coach William Unseld visited with Nelson after Tuesday’s practice before his team hit the weight room.

Devontre Patterson, Demetrius Bennett and Omari Glover were part of the Dragons squad that broke through the 61-game losing streak last season, and then went on to get Warren Central to the finish line in boys basketball. Warren Central went 36-1, defeating George Rogers Clark High School 64-60 in the championship game less than eight months ago in Lexington.

Patterson said the opening night victory in 2022 — the Dragons stopped Bullitt Central, 13-0, to snap the 61-game losing streak — changed everything within the Warren Central program.

It was anything but pretty, but it was pretty awesome. I made the trip to Shepherdsville that night because I had a hunch, a big hunch, that the Dragons would put the losing streak to bed that night. They nearly did it in Nelson’s first season, a couple times, including a 27-26 loss to Marshall County on October 21, 2021 at Joe Hood Field.

Last year, I made the roadie to Marshall County to see the Dragons defeat the Marshals, in decisive fashion. Senior quarterback A.J. Jean Aime passed for 191 yards and a touchdown, while adding two rushing TDs, as the Dragons whipped Marshall County 35-21.

Ten minutes after the game ended, before the stadium lights dimmed, one of the Marshall County assistant coaches and senior quarterback Connor Nix walked across the length of the field to congratulate the Dragons’ players individually.

Nelson and his coaching staff were touched by the sportsmanship. (And I was, too.) Nix and some of the Warren Central players even posed for a couple photos.

Mark Nelson and the Dragons will square off with Henderson County on Friday night, in Henderson, but Nelson’s influence will continue when they go their separate ways. I reached Omari Glover, a freshman basketball player at Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky, about Nelson on Wednesday morning, and Glover was effusive in his praise of Nelson. On

(And Glover is on the understated side, almost quiet, to say the least.)

“Coach Nelson always had a positive attitude, toward his players, and coaches,” Glover said in his text message. “He always left the building, smiling, or happy, and he leaves an effect on his players and coaches, to do better, not only as a player, but a man.

“Coach Nelson prepares you for real life. He’s impacted so many kids’ lives, and change them in a good direction.”

Mark Nelson has done it the right way, and he’s made a big difference at Warren Central High School.

All the best, Mark.