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Reasons away from football pushed Hash to end tenure at Washington

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. — Washington football coach Mark Hash recently resigned from his position with the Patriots, ending a six-year tenure as the program’s only coach.

The resignation comes after Washington enjoyed the most success it has had on the football field during its short history as the Patriots won seven games and qualified for the state playoffs for the first time.

Reasons away from coaching the game ultimately drove Hash’s decision to step down.

“Washington High School is a hard place to work,” Hash said. “There are just a lot of things that you have to go through and deal with. I’m a football coach and I always wanted to be a head coach since I was in the eighth grade. But when you’re a head coach, you can’t coach the game of football – at least I don’t feel you can.

“There’s too much stuff that you have to deal with administration (wise),” he continued. “You have to deal with parents on a daily basis. That takes the fun out of it – I’m a football coach and I like to get in there and get dirty, coach defense and come up with schemes, which we still did. But you always had that other stuff as a head coach that you had to deal with and they are things I don’t want to have to deal with anymore.”

Washington made the playoffs for the first time in school history this past season.

After Washington’s season came to an end in the playoffs to Cabell Midland, Hash took some time over the next few months to weigh his options.

“Right after Christmas break, we started back in the weight room like we normally do,” Hash said. “I just kept waiting on the day to where I thought, ‘yeah I want to do it.’ But that day never did come. We got the school up and running and that’s been a very tough task to do. They did away with all freshmen sports in Jefferson County when they split the schools and it’s been hard on those kids when they come in.”

The Patriots graduated 19 seniors from this past year’s team, more than double what Hash had in seniors when he first took over the program.

“From where we started at to where we are now, we’re real proud,” he said. “It was a very hard decision. We have great kids here at Washington and kids who are going to work hard for you.”

Hash still plans on coaching football in the fall by joining a coaching staff elsewhere.

“I’m going to coach football,” he said. “It just won’t be at Washington High School. I have a couple of places that are pretty good options, but right now I just don’t want to say.”

Hash, who also serves as Washington’s baseball coach, said he plans on remaining in that position with the Patriots. Washington entered Wednesday with a 17-4 record.

“We’ve had a very good pitching staff with a team ERA just under 1.00,” he said. “We’ve been doing a good job of hitting the baseball and playing good defense. We’ve had a very good baseball season and that’s something we’re real proud of as well.”

Hash’s resignation makes a couple of Class AAA eastern panhandle schools that now have head coaching availabilities as he joins Hedgesville’s Rich Thomaselli who stepped down there late last month as well.





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