A tall country boy from tiny Lucas, Ohio, has accomplished big things in a girls basketball coaching career at one of the most respected Division I programs in the state. He won’t be giving up the whistle soon, either.
Wadsworth’s Andrew Booth is the Gazette Winter Sports Coach of the Year. RON SCWHANE/GAZETTE
But even after 242 wins, 10 Suburban League titles, eight district crowns, two state tournament berths and a state championship in 11 seasons at Wadsworth, Andrew Booth, The Gazette’s Winter Coach of the Year, has never forgotten his roots.
Fifty miles southwest of Wadsworth lies Lucas, a town of 600 people that is less than a half-marathon’s run east of Mansfield. The community is working class at its core and perhaps best known for being a location for scenes in the 1994 movie “The Shawshank Redemption.”
The Booths didn’t live in the village proper, but on a 74-acre farm on the Lucas-Mansfield Madison High border. It was a place where Andrew, who goes by that name instead of “Andy” professionally solely because his mother prefers such, baled hay and tended to a couple dozen animals. He is the son of two special education teachers, so it’s easy to see why he holds the same position at Wadsworth.
Along with a strong work ethic and hallmark laid-back country personality, Booth takes the most pride in something else when he looks back at his childhood: The sense of community that Wadsworth is known for.
Coaches of the Year
Andrew Booth (W) 2016
Joe Mackey (Bru) 2015
Matt Saunders (Buc) 2014
Darcy Ranallo (M) 2013
Andrew Booth (W) 2012
Chad Gilmore (M) 2011
John Gramuglia (W) 2010
John Gramuglia (W) 2009
Mark Savoia (H) 2008
Paul Gerycz (Bru) 2007
Andrew Booth (W) 2006
Connie Rummell (Buc) 2005
Julie Solis (C) 2004
John Martin (W) 2003
Joe Mackey (Bru) 2002
Phil Gregor (Buc) 2001
Jody Peters (M) 2000
Steve Borgis (Buc) 1999
Keith Sooy (M) 1998
Todd Osborn (W) 1997
John Gramuglia (W) 1996
Fred Pollock (H) 1995
“Growing up, Lucas was kind of the Mansfield version of the unwanted stepbrother,” Booth said. “People made fun of Lucas — you’re a little podunk from Lucas — and we were the butt of a lot of jokes. After you get older, you start taking a little bit of pride in that’s where you came from.”
Unsurprisingly, sports were a huge part of Booth’s youth, especially basketball. He grew up inspired by the 1976 Miracle-of-Richfield Cavaliers, listening to the radio broadcasts and dreaming of not playing but instead replacing Joe Tait as play-by-play man.
Booth’s basketball coach at Lucas, Jim Stimmel, remembers a 6-foot-5 mullet-rocker who was much more of a slashing scorer (1,018 points in his career, including a 24.7 average as a senior) than back-to-the-basket center.
Stimmel didn’t agree with Booth’s assessment that he was a below-average defensive player — something totally ironic given how much Booth cares about defense now — and instead remembers his star player was so even-keeled and intelligent they became close right away.
“Anytime anybody asks me about Andy, he was the best player I’ve ever coached,” said Stimmel, who left Lucas in 1987 for Hilliard Davidson and coached the varsity there from 2000-02. “Not only because of his ability, but he was a coach on the floor for me.
“It doesn’t surprise me at all he’s had success. I love talking basketball with people, and even as a high school student, I talked to Andy as if he was an adult coach. I’m serious.”
Stimmel couldn’t have been happier when Booth and the Grizzlies won the state title. He attended the semifinal against Reynoldsburg and watched the final against Mason on television.
“I don’t know if you live through that, but you feel there’s a little connection because hopefully I was able to at least pour something into him,” he said. “You feel like that’s part of you there — not that I had anything to do with it because Andy was such a great player. It’s like it’s one of your own kids.”
After graduating in 1985 in a class of 47 — “I tell people I was in the top 20,” he joked — Booth went to Malone and played basketball for hall of fame coach Hal Smith. He graduated as the 10th all-time leading scorer (1,267 points) and sixth all-time leading rebounder (655) in school history.
It was there that Booth became inspired to coach. Smith made him a graduate assistant as a fifth-year senior, and Booth used that experience to get the junior varsity boys position at Mansfield St. Peter’s, then a small-school powerhouse coming off a D-IV state semifinal appearance.
In Booth’s two years and despite a head coaching change, St. Peter’s twice reached the regional finals at the Canton Memorial Fieldhouse. Booth quickly became hooked on coaching.
“It spoils you because Mansfield in the ’80s and ’90s was a really good place for high school basketball, and there was plenty of talent in all the schools,” Booth said. “Pete’s was well known all around Ohio. While it was a good place to be one step from state, it didn’t take long to figure out that wasn’t really reality.”
That set in when Booth couldn’t land a full-time job as a history teacher, so he took two years off to get certified in special education. He had a two-year stint as a boys assistant at Crestline and then was offered the varsity gig at his alma mater, but Lucas couldn’t guarantee a teaching job and Booth declined.
Instead, he looked into the open girls position at Mansfield Madison— his wife Rachel’s alma mater — but only for a friend. Booth became interested, applied on a whim, got that full-time teaching job he coveted and won close to 100 games before replacing Scott Callaghan at Wadsworth in 2005.
“I was crazy about sports and I knew I wanted to do something, but just didn’t know what,” he said. “When I went to college, it dawned on me this would be a pretty good career route and I wouldn’t have to give up what I loved.”
Flash forward almost 11 years and Booth’s impact shined when his players executed every step of the way en route to Wadsworth’s second state championship.
Booth’s sense of family — the one he loved in Lucas — was evident in the way the team had great chemistry on and off the court. His work ethic — the one helped by farm chores — was evident in the way the team paid attention to detail. His never-rattled demeanor — one that made him a standout high school and college player — was evident when the team played out its mind in the first half of a 60-51 state final win over Mason.
The bright lights of Value City Arena and potential distraction of winning a regional title after four straight failures didn’t faze the Grizzlies in the least.
“I didn’t have to do any selling in terms of focus,” Booth said. “They were ready, and like (Gazette MVP) Jodi (Johnson) said, ‘It’s strictly business.’ They all really felt like that. They weren’t happy to be down. They wanted to win a state title.”
Wadsworth had that ability because it perfected a philosophical switch that began in 2013-14. The gaggle of 3-point shooters had graduated, and the Grizzlies re-invented themselves to play old school.
No one in Ohio played a better mid-range game, something Booth honed by adjusting practices to open with three players going through shooting drills at each of the six baskets. Quite often the only 3-pointers hoisted at practices were when Johnson shot by herself during water breaks.
Sure, the traditional 2-2-1 and run-and-jump presses remained factors and having stars like Johnson and Sophia Fortner was a luxury, but the Grizzlies became so efficient offensively that packing in a 2-3 zone and forcing them to shoot threes didn’t work anymore.
That was evident in two games at the state tournament, as Wadsworth scored 118 points while shooting .447 (34-for-76) from the floor, .353 (6-for-17) from 3-point range and a ridiculous .863 (44-for-51) from the foul line. The Grizzlies also made 11-of-20 shots in the first half against Mason, including a layup five seconds in when Lexi Lance tapped the tip forward to Laurel Palitto, who fired to a streaking Johnson.
Wadsworth never slowed down while taking a 30-14 lead into the locker room.
“Our whole point of emphasis (against Mason) was, ‘Let’s be aggressive and let’s attack them because we have nothing to lose,”’ Booth said. “We really were hammering that home. That tip, we probably did that 17 out of 29 games. It wasn’t a set call. We just did it. That set the tone for everything we preached that day.
“You saw kids making plays that typically maybe wouldn’t have. But just to let it all loose? Holy smokes, they followed that to a ‘T.’”
Nearly four weeks have passed since seniors Palitto, Johnson and Jenna Johnson hoisted the D-I state championship trophy. Booth has been blown away by the attention that has followed. He continues to get congratulatory cards in the mail.
The notoriety has included radio, newspaper and television interviews and team visits to the Wadsworth elementary schools. The Grizzlies also will travel to the Ohio Statehouse on May 4.
Booth has had a lot more to juggle in the offseason than even he prepared for, but he wouldn’t trade anything.
Of course, he doesn’t care much about personal fame. His parents and the town of Lucas made him that way.
“The way I was raised, everything else is secondary until you build relationships and earn trust,” Booth said. “You have to care about them more as a person than as a basketball player.”
That’s how state championships are born in Booth’s world, and it’s hard to argue with the results.