A new, but familiar face will be at the helm when the Portage varsity football team takes the field next August. Wally McCormack has been named the new varsity head coach, replacing Jeromy Flowers, who resigned to take a job as an assistant at Homewood-Flossmoor High School in Illinois. McCormack has deep Portage roots, having lived in the city his whole life, played football for the Indians, graduated from PHS and started his coaching career at Fegely Middle School.
“I started coaching here, and I kind of always thought in the back of my mind that someday it would be cool to end up back here,” McCormack said.
McCormack has a track record as a successful head football coach. He piloted Andrean to a 14-1 season and the Class 3A State Championship game in 2002 before accumulating a 56-37 record during his eight years as the Hobart Brickies head man.
“I’ve done it for 20 years and you learn something at all the different stops, all the different places, so you kind of end up being a product of all of those things added together. I don’t know that I could pinpoint something, but it’s just kind of a process,” McCormack said.
Last season McCormack worked with the Portage freshmen football team as an assistant while doing color commentary for Lakeshore Public Television’s Saturday Night Lights high school football broadcasts. One of the games McCormack called was between Portage and Chesterton at the Warpath.
“That was kind of fun, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but I never thought it would happen. When they called, the guy that I did it with [Brian Jennings] was a guy that I went to college with, so that was interesting,” McCormack said.
The 1987 Portage graduate jumped at the chance to return to his alma mater as a coach and a teacher. He will now work in the city that he lives in, was raised in and in the corporation where he will send his children to school.
“For me, I’ve always lived here,” he said. “I never moved, I’ve lived here forever. As my kids got older and started to be involved with Junior Miss and biddy-basketball and those types of things, I realized that there are a lot of good people here.”
Portage High School made an impression on McCormack and the teachers and coaches that he had there molded him into the person and coach that he is.
“I was looking at the thing on the wall with pictures of all the teachers down in West, and there are a lot of teachers that went to school here, and I think it’s a credit to our coaches and teachers that people want to come back,” he said. “There were a lot of great people that worked here then. It was just something you wanted to be a part of. It’s where I want to spend the last 20 or so years that I teach.”
PHS Interim Athletic Director Kelly Bermes, who served on the committee that selected McCormack, said that his Portage connection helped distinguish him as the ideal candidate for the job.
“He’s a Portage guy. If you ever meet him, you’ll realize he’s passionate about football, he’s passionate about kids and he’s a good teacher,” Bermes said.
McCormack will be officially approved as the head coach at the Portage Township School Board meeting on Monday, May 21.