Charles “Chip” Otten just completed his 12th season as a head football coach at Middletown and Coldwater high schools.
His year-by-year records.
Year, School, Record
1995, Middletown, 3-7
1996, Middletown, 6-4
1997, Middletown, 6-4
1998, Middletown, 6-4
1999, Middletown, 3-7
2000, Middletown, 2-8
#-2010, Coldwater, 11-4
#-2011: Coldwater, 11-4
*-2012, Coldwater, 15-0
*-2013, Coldwater, 13-2
*-2014, Coldwater, 14-1
*-2015, Coldwater, 15-0
Totals, 105-45
*-State champion
#-State runner-up
The last time we saw Charles “Chip” Otten he was being run out of town after completing his sixth season as Middletown High School’s head football coach.
Middie fans said Otten couldn’t coach, wasn’t a winner and needed to be replaced, and after a 26-34 record, few outside the Otten house probably would have disagreed.
After his contract wasn’t renewed in Middletown, he spent one season as a defensive coach for Jay Niswonger at Valley View High School, then joined John Reed’s staff at Coldwater High School, where Otten’s family moved from Kettering in the mid-1970s. His father, Barney, instrumental in starting the football program at Fenwick, was an outstanding football coach at Coldwater.
As it turns out, so is his son.
Otten served as an assistant coach at Coldwater for eight seasons. He just completed his sixth season as head coach at Coldwater and led the Cavaliers to their sixth straight Division V state championship game and fourth state championship. In those six seasons under Otten, the Cavaliers are 79-11, pushing his 12-year career coaching record to 105-45, a .700 winning percentage.
In the same number of seasons, he lost three times as many games in Middletown as Coldwater.
So what happened between Middletown and Coldwater, just an 80-mile drive? How did Otten go from Mike Shula to Vince Lombardi?
Part of it, he said, is his maturity. He was 35 when he was named the Middies head coach. He’s 55 now.
“There has been a lot of growth,” he said. “I know how to handle everything I guess.”
But, he admits, he went to Coldwater at the perfect time. Reed, 64, who passed away from cancer after the 2009 season, had built the football program into a Midwest Athletic Conference powerhouse. And Otten was blessed with talented players, especially at quarterback.
“The timing was right,” he said. “I was at the right place, right time. The system was built. We have great leaders, really stable staff with guys who love Coldwater.”
Also, Otten said, there is a difference between the students in Middletown and those in Coldwater. And it has nothing to do with athletic ability. Middletown coaches spend too much time reviewing grades and scanning police reports. Coaches in Coldwater coach. The kids there take care of themselves.
“There are very, very few distractions,” he said of coaching at Coldwater. “I don’t check grades, or have attitude issues. Kids know how to work. This is a fun place with few distractions.”
Since 1998, Coldwater either has won the state championship or finished runner-up 11 times.
There are about 400 students in Coldwater, and 100 of them march in the band and 85 play football, he said. Otten estimates 90 percent of the student body is involved in extra-curricular activities.
He was asked whether he ever doubted his coaching ability during his stint in Middletown.
“Absolutely,” he said without hesitation. “That’s a lot of what coaches fear: failure. There were times when I said, ‘Gosh, can I be a head coach? Maybe I’m a better assistant than head coach.’”
He knows he won’t win 88 percent of his games at Coldwater like he has in his first six seasons. Or if he does, they better build him a life-size 5-foot-6 statue.
“My worth as a person doesn’t revolve around wins and losses,” he said. “Football is not the most important thing in the world.”
It’s not even close in the Otten’s family.
Chip, who earned that nickname as a youngster, and his wife, Diane, also a school teacher, have four children: Samantha, a teacher in Celina; Brady, a medical school student at Wright State; Troy, a student at University of Cincinnati; and Drew, a student at Bowling Green, where his father was a standout football player despite his size.
His parents, Barney and Pat, live in a nearby nursing home. His father attended this year’s state championship game, while his mother watched it on TV.
“Life is good,” he said.
Yes, folks, Charles “Chip” Otten is happy.
And he can coach.
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