Norwalk Fostoria grad Mora as next football coach

NORWALK — Keith Mora has built a career of taking challenges head on. That will continue with his next coaching stop, as Mora was announced as the new varsity head football coach earlier this month. Mora has been the head coach at Danbury High School — a Division VII program that has fielded 8-man football teams for the past three seasons — since 2015. He has also been the school's athletic director since the 2018-19 school year. Not only does the 2007 Fostoria graduate have a big step up in school size, but he's also taking over a Norwalk program that has gone 1-19 over the past two seasons. "Not one thing I've done in my career hasn't involved someone saying, 'that is going to be a challenge,'" Mora said. "So for me, it's just another one of those challenges. I have coached with big roster and bigger programs before, and I've coached 11-man football more than twice as long as eight-man. "So going back to 11-man football and having a big roster compared to a small one … these are all things I feel like my experience will allow me to jump in and hit the ground running." Mora noted the obvious differences will center around planning and time periods of things as a result of having more kids working through a practice or a drill. "Those will take longer, and those are the types of things I've already started working through between myself and others," he said. Josh Schlotterer, the NHS Director of Student Activities, talked about what led the school to Mora. "We had a great pool of candidates to choose from, and as we got the know Keith and talk to him, we loved his knowledge of the game," Schlotterer said. "But first and foremost, his leadership attributes, the excitement for the position — and the hunger he had to be a Norwalk Trucker, is what set him above the rest. "He's been a head coach for eight years, and we love that he has been an administrator and athletic director and understands that side of things. But his leadership qualities were what stood out more than anything." After high school, Mora, 34, attended Wright State University, where he was involved in the National Club Football Association. Unlike most schools, WSU funded and sponsored the team. Mora worked in various coaching positions along the defensive line, then as coordinator, and eventually associate and interim head coach of the WSU club team, which took on some NCAA Div. II-III as well as NAIA schools. After an internship in strength and conditioning at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2012, Mora finished his schooling at WSU — then went to Pittsburgh to become the director of football development for the NCFA to help build more teams throughout the U.S. Admitting he hated not having a whistle and coaching, Mora didn't last long in the role. He returned to UAB as a graduate assistant in November 2013, but when a coaching change took place the following February, all positions were up in air. "I chose to leave at that time and come back to Ohio and reset myself," Mora said. That is when Mora landed on Beau Carmon's staff at Port Clinton in 2014 as a linebackers and special teams coach. He was then hired at nearby Danbury prior to the 2015 season. Before switching to 8-man football in 2020, Mora compiled a 15-35 record in five seasons with the Lakers. That included the greatest season in program history, when Danbury had a 7-4 record. The Lakers qualified for the Div. VII state playoffs as the No. 8 and final seed, which resulted in a loss to longtime state power McComb. "It's an emotional thing when you've put in a lot of time at one place, because it makes it hard to leave," Mora said. "It has been very difficult, but as I look at Norwalk, I see a town that kind of speaks to who I am as a person. I'm a kid from Fostoria, and we used to play Norwalk (in the Northern Ohio League). "It's a city I'm familiar with and that I know has the ability to have very strong traditions in a sport like football, he added. "So when I ask myself where would I want to be if not at Danbury, it has to be a place that can embrace athletics, especially football. The father of modern football (Paul Brown) was born in Norwalk, Ohio. This is a place that drew me in for those reasons." As for his first message to his new team on Thursday, Mora said he kept it simple, and focused on the reason every kid goes out for football. "I want football to be fun," he said. "Why are you doing something like this where you invest so much time if you're not going to have fun? So first and foremost, I want them to have fun. Winning is fun. "We're always going to be geared toward finding ways to win games and all of that," Mora added. "But the first thing I think they will see is I'm a high-energy person. I'm someone who gets excited about positivity. They are going to see someone who will come in and talk about having fun and changing the culture in the way we go about doing things." Mora said the team motto will center around work, team, and will. "We are going to be a team of workers," he said. "The amount of work we have to put in is greater, because right now we're at the bottom of the league, not the top. We have to be workers who come in every day with a growth mindset. "As a team, we have to be together at work. We have to be all together, all the time, working as a family and really build. 'We will', to me, means we will persevere. We will work for everything and will come out better at the end of the day."