Northridge football head coach Tom Wogomon announced Thursday he is retiring from coaching after head coaching stints at Northridge and Wawasee. InkFreeNews file photo by Mike Deak

By Mike Deak
InkFreeNews

MIDDLEBURY – One of the more affable and vibrant personalities in the Northern Lakes Conference called it quits on Thursday.

Tom Wogomon, who helped turn Northridge Raider football from a Northern Lakes Conference doormat into a perennial contender, announced he is retiring from coaching. He addressed his team and coaching staff Thursday morning and later made the announcement to the general public.

“Tom did an outstanding job of taking our program to the next level,” stated Northridge High School athletic director Dave Harms. “He came in with high expectations from the start and maintained them throughout.”

Wogomon served as a head coach in the NLC for two teams, Northridge and Wawasee. While at Wawasee from 2007-12, Wogomon took a program that won five games in three years to winning records in each of the next three, including a sectional championship appearance in 2012, it’s first such appearance since the program went to state in 2004.

In departing Syracuse to Middlebury, Wogomon immediately turned around a Ridge program that had won just one game in two seasons and led them to a 7-3 record in 2013. The following year, Northridge won its first-ever regional title en route to a 11-3 finish. The program went 9-0 in the regular season in 2017 as Wogomon was named NLC Coach of the Year, the only time in program history the team ran the table in the regular season.

The Raiders were 6-3 in 2020, his final mark in 15 years of head coaching. Overall, Wogomon went 77-71 in his 15 years as head coach of the two programs.

Before taking on his first head coaching role at Wawasee, Wogomon was a longtime assistant at East Noble, the Knights a two-time state finalist in 2000 and 2003, winning it all in 2000. Wogomon is a graduate of Goshen High School.

Harms announced Northridge has opened its coaching search and have a deadline of March 1 for potential candidates.