Mack movin' on up

New Berlin — New Berlin West will never be confused as a burgeoning football hotbed with so many players seeping out of the cracks the coaches don't know what to do with them.

But, considering where first-year head coach Aaron Mack has been the last three seasons, it might feel that way to him.

Mack, 32, who has replaced Jeff Grabo, spent the previous three seasons as head coach at tiny Iowa-Grant High School, the Southwestern Wisconsin school with yearly enrollments typically around 250 students.

New Berlin West, usually between 700 and 800, has provided Mack with options he's never had before.

"Take wide receiver," said Mack, who will teach physical education in the district. "I feel pretty good with playing five or six kids at wide receiver and rotating them in and out. I've never had that before. Where I've been, we've had one, never the balance we have. That's intriguing to me.

"I wanted to find a place where numbers could grow and I could build something and make it my own. The trouble at Iowa-Grant, we were a school of 240 kids. I played varsity football last year with 22 kids. It's tough and it's not what I wanted to continue to do. I thought this was a challenge for me professionally. I was going to get an opportunity to do what I wanted to do."

Mack was a college quarterback and finished his playing career at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville in 2002. He coached quarterbacks and wide receivers at the school for one year before taking an unpaid volunteer position with the University of Wisconsin Badgers. Though he wanted to remain in the college game, he needed a fulltime, paying gig to, as he said, "start paying some bills and showing some maturity." That brought him to Iowa-Grant.

In his first season, the Panthers went 3-6, but in the second season, the team made the fourth level of the playoffs for the first time since 1977. A year ago, the Panthers won the Southwest Wisconsin Activities Conference despite being picked to finish last.

"I think I learned to become who I am as a coach," Mack said. "At Wisconsin, you're doing what other people want you to do. (Coaching at Iowa-Grant) allowed me to put my stamp and my identity on a program and I was (darn) thankful for that opportunity."

Mack inherits a group that went 5-5 a year ago and made the playoffs for the first time since 2006. He has 22 seniors on the squad and says the program is up to 97 athletes among all three levels. He'd like to get that number up to 120 in the near future.

In the interim, Mack intends to make other changes to the program.

"The biggest challenge will be to change the culture around here," he said. "I'm a big believer that kids think they deserve it but aren't willing to earn it any more. It was no different here. We need to get better turnout in the summer and get better in the summer. We need to be different than other programs because we're not going to just show up and beat you with talent. With that said, I've had a great group of kids to start out with that are buying into that. It can't happen overnight. It's not going to happen overnight, but we're on the right path to changing that here.

"We're going to focus on the process of preparation, not the outcomes. I don't know if we're going to win more games than last year, but we're going to bust our butts to do it the right way around here. Hopefully in the end when they've invested themselves into this program, they walk out with quite a bit of success."

West schedule

(all games 7 p.m. unless noted)

AUG. 27: at South Milwaukee

SEPT. 3: vs. Whitnall

SEPT. 10: at Wauwatosa West

SEPT. 17: vs. St. Thomas More

SEPT. 24: vs. Cudahy

SEPT. 30: at Pewaukee

OCT. 8: at St. Francis

OCT. 15: vs. Brown Deer

OCT. 20: at New Berlin Eisenhower, 6:30 p.m.