After capping off their respective seasons golf, cross country, boys soccer and football all parted ways with their head coaches.
The first of these announcements was WJ’s cross country coach, Tom “Marty” Martin. After 30 years, Martin decided to retire and finish his coaching career. In his time as a coach at WJ, Martin led the Cats to many achievements, most notably the more than a dozen combined state championships for both boys and girls, including leading the girls team to five consecutive state championships and four in a row for boys.
“I was very sad to hear he retired because I love him, he’s very funny, and he made practice fun,” junior Alissa Eapen said.
In the upcoming season, recent years’ assistant coach Steven Hays has stepped up to replace Martin starting fall of 2026. Hays spent the past year working as an assistant for WJ under Martin, and has also previously coached for Whitman and Seneca Valley.
Similar to Martin, golf head coach Tom Wheeler also retired in October at the end of the ‘25 season, marking the end of an era for golf. As the winningest coach in WJ history, Wheeler has left big shoes to fill. Nevertheless, basketball teacher and new coach Chad Beswick is ready to try.
“Mr.Wheeler was a legend. He was an amazing coach, but all good things come to an end,” Beswick said. “[Head golf coach] is a job that I’ve been interested in for a long time, but it finally came open and I’m really excited for the opportunity.”
Unlike golf and cross country, whose coaches had already told the teams they would be retiring this year, two other teams found themselves in the unexpected need of a new coach.
The first to step down was boys’ soccer coach Guido Zucconi, who, in his 10 year tenure, led the Cats through multiple significant playoff berths and helped many WJ players pursue college soccer. On Friday, Dec.12, Samuel Sasu was appointed as the new boys’ soccer head coach and will look to take a more tactical approach to proceedings, using his coaching experiences at Seneca Valley and Montgomery College.
“I was thankful for the three years that I had with [Guido], but I’m sure WJ soccer will continue doing great,” senior Christian Bird said.
Just a week after Zucconi stepped down, football head coach and health teacher Aaron Fiddler met with the Cats at lunch to announce he would also be stepping down in order to be able to spend more time with his family.
“Fiddler did a lot for us. He was always on call, always available for his players, so I’ll always be very thankful for what he did for the program and I wish him the best,” senior football captain Hank Amaditz said.
As of now, football is the only of the four teams without an appointed replacement, though they have plenty of time with many months before the next season. While it is possible that the football program could take a similar approach to soccer making an outside hire, WJ’s football staff is already filled with many coaches who could potentially replace Fiddler.
