Dan McSurley’s career as the head football coach at Clinton-Massie is in limbo.

McSurley said his position as teacher of health and physical education at Clinton-Massie is part of a RIF (reduction-in-force) as the school district tries to dig out of its current financial situation.

“The school district is in a financial crisis,” said McSurley. “They’re in a bind.”

When the 2023-24 school year ends, McSurley will not have a teaching position. McSurley is a teacher at Clinton-Massie as part of a retire/rehire, where the individual is able to collect retirement funds from the state of Ohio and earn a teaching salary from the school district.

But those positions are normally the first to be cut when a district must tighten its belt.

And Clinton-Massie is in major belt-tightening mode right now.

“We have financial challenges,” said Clinton-Massie Supt. David Moss. “Open enrollment cut, where we’ve cut out K(indergarten) through 5(th grade) open enrollment. It’s not something we want to do but financially we are forced to do.”

Moss said there are “ultimately eight positions” that will not be refilled next school year as the district follows procedure for a reduction in expenses. Moss added he could not comment on any “specific personnel” situations such as McSurley.

“All of our decisions are financial,” he said. “It’s awful. It’s not something we want to do. We are working with the state of Ohio.”

As the financial decisions continue to be made, Moss said, “We’re accounting for how we’ll continue to best serve our students.”

McSurley has been told the district wants him back as football coach. And McSurley wants to keep coaching.

“I’d like it to be at Clinton-Massie,” he said. “They’ll have the best team coming back that they’ve had in some time. I really don’t want to stop coaching.”

McSurley said he wants to continue teaching as well. He would be okay teaching in one school district and remaining as a coach at Clinton-Massie. While that’s possible, McSurley doesn’t see that as the most likely result.

McSurley said another possible but unlikely result would be coaching at Clinton-Massie without a teaching job somewhere. For now, there are multiple endgames to this but they are ever-changing and not likely to be final for several months.

“I’m going to let this play out and see what happens,” McSurley said. “It was a hard day at school (Thursday) with all this buzz. I understand the financial crisis. There are other issues. I haven’t resigned. I won’t formally resign until this all plays out.”

McSurley started coaching football at Clinton-Massie in 1996. He is 269-70 during that time. He was head coach at Graham four seasons prior to Massie and compiled a 20-20 record.

His career record is 289-90. According to the Ohio High School Athletic Association website, only 17 varsity football coaches have reached 300 wins in their careers. Steubenville’s Reno Saccoccia is the all-time winningest coach in OHSAA history with 423 wins.