Finding stability as a football coach is no easy task but that is something that Garfield G-Men football Coach Mike Moser has achieved, having completed his 26th year of coaching the football team. In addition to having carved out a permanent coaching role, Moser has created an already impressive legacy, bolstered by earning his 100th career coaching victory in the 2025 campaign.
“It is quite an honor and I guess you don’t really think a lot about it when you are in it but I think at some point we will look back on it,” the 13-year G-Men coach noted. “I am certainly proud of it and certainly thankful and grateful to a bunch of assistant coaches that I have had over the years and administrators and so many great players.”
Moser achieved his 100th career coaching victory when Garfield bested Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference Grey Tier foe Southeast, his alma matter, on Sept. 26 in a home victory. Having already become the winningest football coach in Garfield history, Moser also now becomes the 13th coach in Portage County history to join the 100th coaching victory milestone club.
Despite not knowing much about the G-Men other than viewing them as a staunch rival of Southeast during his high school days, Moser has made a home for himself and his family in Garrettsville since he arrived as a football coach in 2001.
Before coaching at Garfield, Moser gained plenty of experience in the trenches, playing as an offensive lineman for the Pirates on the varsity team for three years. He can still recall some fierce battles between the programs during his playing days.
“I just remember them being close games and good games and I even remember playing them in freshman ball on a Thursday night up there under the lights,” he added. “I just always remember it being good competition and them having hard-nosed kids.”
For the 1990 Southeast graduate, football had been engrained in the fabric of his family as his uncle played football for Ravenna Township High School, his father competed for Ravenna High School and his cousin was a varsity player while attending Rootstown High School.
Ironically, most of Moser’s relatives were also offensive linemen, which fit the family legacy quite nicely.
“We are all pretty tough and are all pretty scrappy,” he added. “I think it made good sense for us to be linemen, but I do think it helps your overall understanding of the game when you play on the line.”
In Moser’s second year of college while studying at Kent State University, he landed his first coaching role by joining the Ravenna Rams Youth Football Organization. He coached in the program for 10 years before a former player of his, Matt Jordan, recruited him to join his coaching staff at Garfield in 2001 as the offensive line/outside linebackers’ coach.
After his first year, Moser became Garfield’s defensive coordinator and held the title through two coaching regimes before ultimately being promoted to head coach in 2013.
He acknowledged that the program was a long way away from reaching new heights, as the G-Men suffered an 18-game losing streak in his first two seasons on Jordan’s staff, but the program experienced a sudden revival as it captured a league title in 2004 and repeated so in 2005.
“They didn’t have a lot of history and had qualified for the playoffs one time in the school’s history,” Moser said. “I know they had a league title back in the 1970s but the one thing I knew going up there that it was going to be a tough work and was going to be a rebuild.”
After Jordan left the program after the 2004 season, Steve Wyllie took over as coach in 2005 and retained Moser as the team’s defensive coordinator.
After eight years under Wyllie, Moser’s time came when he was elevated to head coach after Wyllie’s departure following the 2012 season.
In Moser’s 13 years at the helm, he has amassed a 104-40 coaching record, while leading the team to eight playoff appearances, including owning a streak of the G-Men qualifying for the postseason in seven consecutive seasons starting in 2019.
As much as he has relished building a historic coaching legacy at Garfield, Moser said that he is more appreciative that all of these accomplishments have come with only one program.
“I have been fortunate,” he said. “I think it says a lot. I obviously enjoy the people; I enjoy the place and I enjoy the people that I work with. I enjoy my assistant coaches a great deal and have made lot of great friends over the year. Little by little, it just became home.”
