This will be head coaching job No. 11 for Bill Bohren.

He thinks.

“This will be 11, or so they tell me,” Bohren said, laughing. “I keep seeing them listed. I’ve got to count them. I can’t remember them all.”

His record over nearly 50 years of being a head coach is no laughing matter.

As the 86-year-old Bohren prepares to lead the Mathews Mustangs football program in the 2021 season, he does so with a career record of 295-171-6. People can scoff at his age, but one of the most veteran high school coaches in the country knows how to win.

While he is only five wins shy of 300 for his career, his motivation doesn’t stem from milestones.

“The idea on how many wins you have, that’s really not important,” said Bohren who will take over for John Protopappa, who didn’t have his contract renewed after five seasons. “I’ve never paid much attention to that. People say, ‘Would you like to have this many wins this year?’ Well, what I would like, I would like the kids that you’re coaching to have that many wins that year.”

His kids have won all over the map.

Bohren started his coaching career in Illinois in the mid-1960s before coming back to Ohio. He made stops at Ottawa-Glandorf, Steubenville, Portsmouth, Lakeview, Boardman, Butler (Pennsylvania), Salem, Niles, LaBrae and Southington, his last head coaching job in 2017. His 295 wins are 17th in Ohio high school history.

Mustangs athletic director Mike Palumbo, a former Mathews football head coach himself, believes Bohren and assistant coach Kevin Haynie, both hired at a board meeting last week, can revamp a football program that had just 23 players on its initial roster last season.

“Between these two guys, they are going to help get the numbers up and get the football program back up and revitalized,” said Palumbo at the board meeting.

While winning would help, Bohren’s emphasis isn’t solely focused on improving Mathews’ record.

He enjoyed the last three years as quarterbacks coach at Niles under coach Jim Parry. The camaraderie with the players and coaches was fun to be around on a daily basis. Watching the players grow and develop was gratifying. But something was missing, and Bohren began to covet another head coaching gig.

“During that time, I had looked into a job at Lowellville, probably in my second year (at Niles),” he said. “I was interested in getting one more head (coaching) job. You know, when you’re an assistant, you have to keep your mouth shut, and that’s tough to do.”

Bohren, not surprisingly, prefers an old-school approach to the game.

He said the run game will be the focus of the offense. He wants the Mustangs, who are coming off a 3-7 season, to be a team that wins games through defense, field position and a hard-nosed style of offense. He sees flaws in the modern-style spread offenses.

“If you’re going to rebuild a program, you’re much better off now coming out with some type of run offense,” he said. “I know everybody likes to throw the ball around like it’s 7-on-7, but what you’re seeing on defense is, in practice, you can’t tackle anybody because you don’t want to hurt your receivers, so it’s almost like touch football. If anyone runs the ball like the Air Force Academy and Army and Navy, they really have a great advantage now. You have six or seven defensive backs on the field on defense, and it’s pretty hard to stop the run.”