Seth Wilson has been diagramming football plays since he was a child.
“It’s something I’ve always done — I remember as a kid I had five or six notebooks filled with plays,” Wilson said. “I’d draw every single play from every single formation that was out there. It’s something I kind of got lost in when I was a kid. I’d be off thinking for hours about it.”
Constantly plugged into the game since growing up outside of Pittsburgh, he has wanted to be a head football coach since he was 11 years old.
Wednesday he got that wish, becoming Covenant’s head football coach after serving as the Eagles’ defensive coordinator the last three seasons. Wilson replaces Dave Hart, who in three years guided Covenant’s football team to a its first playoff berth since 2008 back in 2015, ending a seven-year drought. Wilson’s defenses that seemed to have a knack for coming up with turnovers played a big role in that resurgence.
He’s also shown a particularly progressive approach to the game. Looking to stay on top of football’s latest innovations and developments is a habit that also dates back to his childhood.
“All my family is from central West Virginia and so we would drive by Glenville State where Rich Rodriguez got his start so I would read up on him, stop by and watch some of the things he was doing when I was 12 or 13 years old,” Wilson said.
A couple of years ago, he implemented a rugby-style approach to tackling championed by Pete Carroll of the Seattle Seahawks. It’s intended to decrease head injuries, specifically preventing players from absorbing blows to the head with a focus on wrapping up at the legs and using the shoulder.
That technical proficiency, dedication to the strategic principles that Hart has put in place to jumpstart the program and his familiarity with the school helped him meet the exact criteria that Covenant was looking for in its next head coach.
“After considering nearly 40 candidates with a very thorough interview process, we are very confident we found the right person for the job,” said Covenant athletic director Clark Walker in a release.
On a day he looked forward to since he was 11 years old, Wilson put a cause that’s near and dear to his heart, well, right next to his heart. As he was introduced as the new head coach, Wilson wore a button on his lapel from the National Stuttering Association that read “If you stutter, you’re not alone.” Wilson has embraced his stutter, choosing to not see it as an impediment.
“For me, this button means a lot because there’s so many of us that suffer in silence, that look at it from a negative standpoint,” Wilson said. “But I took a different turn on it six or seven years ago when I found the best therapy is to change the way you view it. It’s not a curse, it is a blessing. It has shaped my entire personality and it has given me so many things like how to fight and how to be courageous, how to overcome and how to put yourself out there and how to be vulnerable.”
The button itself was a clear message to other stutterers including those in the local chapter of the NSA that he’s involved with.
“I just want to wear this to let all the people that I’ve met here in the local chapter that I’m there, speaking up on their behalf and I want them to see me and let them know you can empower yourself with this,” Wilson said.
It’s clear the role football has played in helping Wilson embrace and manage the stutter, including the fact that it seems to disappear when he’s immersed in coaching a game.
“Football gave me value, it gave me something I was good at and whenever I talked about football as a kid I didn’t stutter,” Wilson said. “I get sad at the end of games not whether we won or lost but because there’s no more time on the clock. I just want the game to keep on going.”
Before coming to Covenant, Wilson spent three years as an athletic intern at Fork Union. He’s a graduate of the University of Georgia, where he earned a Bachelor’s in Sports Management while serving as a student manager for the Bulldogs’ women’s basketball team. He also worked as a basketball development instructor with the Atlanta Hawks for three years.
