Wade Vogan

CHERRY TWP — Wade Vogan has resigned as head football coach at Moniteau High School, citing family reasons.

Vogan, a Sharon resident, was 13-20 in three seasons with the Warriors, including 1-3 in the District 9 playoffs.

He is leaving the football program to take over as junior high coach at Sharon. Vogan’s son, Michael, will be a seventh grader and a lineman on the Sharon junior high team.

Vogan will continue in his position of guidance counselor at Moniteau.

“I wasn’t planning on stepping down as coach,” he said. “Just the other day, we were preparing for and talking about next season.

“This position opened up at Sharon in the last couple of days. They let go of a coach and the junior high job wound up becoming available. Some guys I know up there reached out to me ... It was something I just couldn’t pass up.”

Vogan said he put 22,000 miles on his car last year, not getting home until 2 a.m. on game nights.

“Now I’ll be home by 9:30 at night and I’ll be around family a lot more,” he said.

Moniteau finished 3-7 last year, but will return nine starters on offense and defense this fall.

“We started eight sophomores and a freshman last year,” Vogan said. “Believe me, this is not a situation I was planning on walking away from.

“Whoever takes over here will have an excellent opportunity to follow through and finish what we got started.”

Athletic director John Stoughton said the job will be posted immediately and he hopes to be receiving applications by Jan. 30.

“We’ll go through a couple of weeks of interviews and hope to have a new coach in place sometime in February,” Stoughton said.

“We’re not going to rush this. We want to take our time and hire the right person for the job.”

He admitted that Vogan “will be tough to replace. Wade did a tremendous job working with our kids.”

Moniteau will have its fourth head football coach in six years with its next hire. Jeff Campbell coached the team for seven years before Cecil Blauser took over in 2013. Vogan’s first season was 2014.

“It’s very difficult for me to step away from this program,” Vogan said. “The kids played hard for me. It was fun working with them.

“But this junior high job is the perfect (coaching) opportunity for me. It’s definitely a family thing.”