Brad Seiss will get to be closer to home while also becoming a head football coach.

A pretty  good deal for the former Warsaw Community High School football star.

Seiss, who played tailback and linebacker at Ball State University from 2002-06, was recently named as the new football coach at Muncie Central High School. Seiss replaces John Hochstetler, who resigned to take the position as football coach at Monroe Central High School after going 78-72 in 13 seasons at Muncie Central.

Seiss, who turned 29 on June 17, had been serving as an assistant football coach at Ida S. Baker High School in Cape Coral, Florida since graduating from Ball State in 2007. He also served as the boys basketball coach and was involved in coaching track while at Ida S. Baker HS.  While at the Florida school, Seiss coached under former Concord High School standout and Ball State quarterback Brian Conn.

“The job kind of popped up, and I think a lot of their ideas of the direction of the program should be going and my ideas were very similar,”  Seiss told the Muncie Star Press newspaper in a story after being hired earlier this month. “Coach Hochstetler had a lot of good things in place, so hopefully the transition for me will be as smooth as possible.”

Muncie Central athletic director Mike Schuck was impressed with much more than Seiss’ knowledge of the X’s and O’s of the game.

“There’s a lot of coaches out there that know football, so you don’t look just for knowledge of the sport,” Schuck  said in the Muncie Star Press article after hiring Seiss. “That, to me, is not what makes you a good coach. It’s how you deliver it, how you teach the kids. To me, he’s a teacher that’s teaching football.”

Seiss was honored as one of the state’s top prep football players after a sensational senior season for the Tigers in 2001. He rushed for 1,586 yards, had 308 receiving yards and scored 29 touchdowns while helping coach Phil Jensen’s squad post a 10-1 mark. Seiss was an All-NLC pick three times in his football career as the Tigers went 32-11 and won three conference titles.  He finished his career with 3,900 rushing yards, 715 receiving yards, 68 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

Seiss earned four letters in both football and track at WCHS and three in basketball. He helped the Tigers reach the Class 4-A State Finals on the hardwoord  as a sophomore and qualified for the State Finals in track in the high jump.  During the 2005 season as a linebacker for  Ball State, Seiss started every game and  recorded 81 tackles.

Seiss, the son of Stan and Linda Seiss, will teach PE at Muncie Central. He and his wife Lauren, also a Ball State graduate, have a son Robert who was born in March.