Mac Stephens watches his Cleveland Heights football team Friday, Sept. 23, 2022, in Strongsville. Stephens resigned Tuesday as the school's football coach.John Kuntz, cleveland.com
CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — After 10 seasons as Cleveland Heights’ football coach, Mac Stephens is stepping down to pursue a new challenge.
Stephens turned in his resignation Tuesday, but not before meeting with some college coaches about recruitment of his players. He then spoke to his team, informing them of his decision.
“This was a very tough decision moving forward,” Stephens said. “I think part of it was looking forward to a new challenge.”
Stephens, who finished 71-36 in his 10 years leading the Tigers, expects to have that new challenge laid out soon. His resignation from Cleveland Heights comes on the heels of being named the Browns’ high school coach of the year, which came with a $5,000 donation to the school’s football program.
A year ago, he earned All-Ohio co-coach of the year honors after leading the Tigers to 10 wins, a Greater Cleveland Conference championship and run to the Division I regional semifinals.
“I couldn’t realize any of that without the phenomenal kids we’ve had at Cleveland Heights,” he said. “They really bought into the philosophy that we tried to instill there, and the kids have been great all 10 years.”
They won four Lake Erie League championships through 2022, before joining the GCC in 2023 and taking that crown in their first year of membership.
His team this year brought back three Power Four recruits in running back Marquise Davis, who committed last week to Missouri, defensive end Brandon Caesar (West Virginia) and defensive lineman Jay’Quan Stubbs (Minnesota). They finished 6-5, playing a large chunk of the season without Davis at running back because of injury. Caesar missed the season because of a wrestling injury and Stubbs missed the final stretch.
Stephens said at the end of the season, following a first-round playoff loss at Strongsville, that he saw it as an opportunity to develop the Tigers’ up-and-coming players. That could help the next staff, as Heights is slated to return shutdown cornerback Henry Perrymond Jr. and a pair of freshmen running backs in Elijah Harris and John Morris.
“The Cleveland Heights administration and Joe D’Amato, the athletic director, were always very good to me,” Stephens said. “I’m so thankful to have been there for 10 years. I felt like at least now, when you talk about Cleveland Heights, people think about the football program. I’m proud of that.”
When Stephens took over the Cleveland Heights program in 2015, the Tigers were coming off a 3-6 season under Jeff Rotsky. Their school also underwent renovations at the time, leaving the football team without conventional locker rooms for Stephens’ first few seasons.
They produced several big college football prospects, including receiver Jaylen Harris and defensive end Tyreke Smith. Both went on to Ohio State, and Smith did it while learning football from Stephens after having not played the game for several years.
Stephens’ background includes two years in the NFL as a linebacker for the New York Jets and Minnesota Vikings. He is a 1986 graduate of Firestone in Akron and played college football at the University of Minnesota.
Stephens returned to Northeast Ohio as Lutheran East’s head coach in 2003 and spent 11 years as an assistant with stints at Euclid, Villa Angela-St. Joseph and Glenville before taking the Heights job.
He lives in Euclid with his wife, Belinda, and has two sons, Linden, a defensive back for the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League, and Collin, who graduated from Bowling Green. Stephens is the city director of recreation in Euclid and owns Coach Mac’s Speed, Power and Fitness, located at the Euclid Sports Plant.
Contact sports reporter Matt Goul on X (@mgoul), Threads (@mgoul) or email (mgoul@cleveland.com).
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