Justin Thelen brings playoff memories, goals to Saginaw Heritage football - MLive.com

Justin Thelen tried to shake his Saginaw Township demons by coaching in Indiana and then Kalkaska.

But the only way to soften the memory is to win a state title for the same city that cost him one.

Thelen, who quarterbacked Pewamo-Westphalia in a 56-26 Division 7 state championship loss to Saginaw Nouvel in 2011, was introduced as the new head football coach at Saginaw Heritage, according to Heritage athletic director Justin Thorington said.

“During the interview, he said his goal was to bring Saginaw Township its first state championship since the one he lost to Nouvel,” Thorington said. “He has some pretty lofty goals for the program.”

Thelen, 26, played four years of college football at Alma College, then was a defensive backs coach for two years in Indiana for Division III teams Manchester and Anderson. He returned to Michigan to coach Kalkaska’s varsity football team last season. It was 0-9.

“Kalkaska is a total rebuild,” Thelen said. “We did a great job of growing the program in one year. We had over 50 kids sign up. We were able to have a JV team. It’s going to take a few years, but we had a great response.

“This is a different situation.”

Heritage was 4-5 and 5-4 in the past two seasons under former coach Matt Peterson. It continued a string of near playoff misses. In the 12 seasons since last making the playoffs in 2007, Heritage has seven 5-4 or 4-5 records.

“Heritage is a football program that’s been on the verge of success … the potential to get over that bump is very exciting,” Thelen said. “I’m a coach who won’t be outworked and who believes wholeheartedly that the weight room is the backbone of any great football program.”

Thelen plans to stay with Heritage’s spread option, but he may tweak parts of it to fit the personnel.

Thorington is familiar with Thelen’s history. As the Kalkaska athletic director, Thorington hired Thelen before leaving to take the Heritage job.

“He was able to double the numbers in Kalkaska in one year,” Thorington said. “It says a lot about his ability to relate to kids. Even though he’s young, given his playing career and coaching career, he’s really well-connected.”

Thelen’s age was not a negative, according to Thorington.

“My philosophy for coaching in general is that in the NFL and college, coaching is changing and getting younger,” Thorington said. “It will trickle down into the high school game, and we’re getting ahead of that.

“Society is changing, so coaching needs to change too. The focus in the past was the transfer of knowledge, teaching the Xs and Os. But the focus is changing to building relationships first, then Xs and Os. With so many sporting options and other things for kids to do now, you have to build those relationships as a coach.”

Thelen’s strengths include both building relationships and football knowledge, according to Thorington.

“We had a really strong candidate pool, and anyone we brought in we wouldn’t have had any hesitation from an Xs and Os standpoint,” Thorington said. “We had a panel involved in the interviews, including former football coaches. There were some very good Xs and Os questions that went somewhat over my head.”

But they weren’t over Thelen’s head.

“I just presented my vision for Saginaw Heritage football and tried to demonstrate every ounce of football knowledge I had,” Thelen said. “I have a lot of experience from playing at Alma … I came in as a quarterback and moved to defensive back. I learned a lot from good coaches. I grew in a lot of different ways there.”

Thelen, who also has a masters degree in business, teaches personal finance and English at Kalkaska. He has credentials to also teach history and physical education and hopes to eventually find a teaching job in Saginaw Township. He is engaged to Morgan Pelach, with a summer 2021 wedding planned.

“Given the new playoff points system, the schedule and the talent we have … playoffs are an achievable goal,” Thorington said. “Our visions and goals are the same.”

Thelen hopes his own playoff experience helps, even if it wasn’t pretty. In the game, Nouvel scored 56 points in the first half before settling for a 56-26 win in the Division 7 state final. Bennett Lewis led Nouvel with 200 yards and five touchdowns rushing.

Thelen was 10 of 21 for 176 yards and two touchdowns, but he was intercepted once and sacked four times.

“That Nouvel team had to be one of the best D7 teams of all time,” Thelen said. “That Nouvel team had a running clock in a win over a Flint Powers team that won the D5 championship that year.

“We worked hard to get to the state final, but our timing wasn’t very good.”

Heritage also named two other varsity coaches. Ross Gibson will coach the boys soccer team, while Lacey Tolfree will return to her alma mater to take over the softball program.

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