Ohio State Hall of Famer John Bluem brought his passion to Muskingum

John Bluem retired from coaching at Ohio State in March 2018. It was time to relax after 21 seasons in Columbus. When Bluem exited the pitch for his final time with the Buckeyes, he did so as the winningest head coach in OSU men’s soccer history with 206 victories.

He spent his first year of retirement as a volunteer assistant at Wittenberg because he wanted to coach, but without all of the demands of being a head coach. At the time, it was good for Bluem, but it didn’t last long. Bluem entered full retirement in 2020.

He stayed connected to the sport by flipping through the pages of Soccer America Magazine. Then this August, Bluem scanned the jobs column when something caught his attention.

“I saw that Muskingum was looking for a head coach, and I thought ‘Well, that can’t be right. Not at this point in time,’ ” Bluem said.

Muskingum was just a week from the start of its preseason. Bluem was curious as to what happened, so he made a phone call to athletic director Kari Winters.

The call went to voicemail. Bluem left Winters a message, telling her who he was and why he was calling.

Winters called Bluem back and explained that the team's previous coach, Adam Ponder, was now an assistant at Chicago State, a Division I school that plays in the Mid-American Conference.

Soon Bluem was on his way to a job interview. He met with a committee that Friday, and on Saturday he accepted the job. By Monday, Bluem was again running a soccer practice as a head coach.

It happened rather quickly. Bluem admits it.

“The No. 1 reason that I probably went back to work at Muskingum was the opportunity to coach again and take a team, and be in charge, and be on the field training players,” Bluem said. “The second reason that Muskingum interested me was just the difficult situation (it) was in.”

The Muskies didn’t have the best track record as a program. Over the previous six years, they had won only one game in conference play. They were rough around the edges and known to cause a stir. The Muskies often picked arguments with officials, opponents and each other.

Bluem wanted to change that.

On the Monday when Bluem introduced himself to the team, he told them he’d started his career at Hartwick College, a small school much like Muskingum. And he made it clear he was there to teach them the right way to do things – in soccer and in life.

“I saw it as an opportunity for a fresh start,” senior Thomas Rooney said.

All of the Muskies were receptive to the new coach. They didn’t really have a choice. There were a little under two weeks before their first game.

As for the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame inductee? He had to adjust his ways a bit to coach Division III.

“It’s been hard, I won’t kid you,” Bluem said with a chuckle. “But I love the guys, and they’re giving me everything they got. They really are working so hard to be a better team and try to do things the right way.”

While that has yet to show up in their 2-10 record (1-4 in the Ohio Athletic Conference), there is a sense that improvement will eventually come for the program because more is being demanded.

“The fact that he had come out of retirement just because he saw our story and didn’t want us to go without having a coach for the season just tells you right there, let alone what he brings to the field every day,” Rooney said. “He’s not going to let anybody drop under a certain level of what his expectations are for a second, and he’ll let you know. I think it’s good to have that passion. That’s what our team is built on is how passionate we are.”

And for his part, Bluem is glad he decided to work with the scrappy young men at Muskingum.

“You know, it’s funny. When you retire, you sometimes just sit around too much, and I actually do a lot better when I am busy,” Bluem said with a chuckle. “I think I have ... a tremendous passion for coaching, and I have missed that since the day I quit.”

“I missed being on the field for two hours a day, working with the kids, and then those two hours when you play a game and managing the game and managing your team during the game.”

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Former OSU coach John Bluem came out of retirement to save Muskingum