Carter steps away from Clyde football after 13 years, state championship

Ryan Carter met with his Clyde football team Monday morning and told the Fliers that he's no longer their coach. It wasn't easy. "It was important to me that they not hear it on social media or in some announcement," Carter said. "I was able to tell them to their faces what it meant for me to coach them. It was extremely hard when you try to tell kids 'it's not about you guys'. Every group is special to me. "I make the joke that I'm not good at many things, but I was OK at coaching and I was able to do that in my hometown. We had great support and I was just proud to be a small part of the Clyde-Green Springs community." Carter, 49, is stepping down after leading the Fliers to a state football championship and winning more than 100 games at his alma mater. He was in charge of one of the top programs in northwest Ohio, compiling a 108-46 record in 13 seasons as a head football coach. Carter's teams won 20 playoff games, qualifying for the postseason every year he coached. Five of those wins came in 2019 when Clyde — which barely qualified for the playoffs as a No. 8 seed in its region — rattled off five straight victories to win the Division IV state championship. The Fliers put a punctuation mark on their playoff heroics with a 42-14 rout of Licking Valley in Canton. It was a sweet championship run for Carter, who as a player at Clyde was a standout on a football team that lost in a state championship game. "To go back after losing as a player, I was able to get it done as a coach," he said. "That is a memory I'll always have with my best friends and a great group of kids in my hometown. We won that championship with Clyde-Green Springs kids who grew up in our system and there's something to be said about that. It was pretty special." Ryan Lozier, the quarterback on Clyde's 2019 championship team and now head coach at Lakota, said he's used Carter as a model while building his own program. He knows firsthand what Clyde football means to his mentor. "With about two minutes to go (in the championship game) I looked over at him and he had his hands in the air and tears in his eyes," Lozier recalled. "I know what that meant to him as much as he cares and as much as he's vested in Clyde football. It was a special moment." Lozier grew up as a ballboy and waterboy in the Clyde program, so he watched Carter at work for years. "His energy is contagious," Lozier said. "He's a guy you'll go to battle for every night. Clyde will forever be in his debt for what he's done for this town." Carter, who will remain as a teacher at Clyde High School, said the coaching profession has become increasingly challenging. "The outside noise is just getting too loud," he said. "I love our sport, but our profession has some major issues right now. The ways that others are coaching now and the methods schools are using in their programs is just not the reasons I started coaching in the first place. By not doing those things I have put our program behind the times, and I have come to terms with that. "I feel like we did it the right way for a long time and had some success. I'm proud of our program and our communities of Clyde and Green Springs for that." Carter thanked the Clyde administration, including superintendent Lucas Messer, high school principal Anthony Panfalone and athletic director Ryan Greenslade. "I had the privilege to work for the best administration that a coach could ever ask for," he said. "The amount of support they have given me and my staff is unmatched. I have always said I have had the best staff in the state of Ohio. That was true for my entire career." In addition to winning on the field, Carter led a program that consistently finished in the top 10 percent academically among football teams in Ohio. "Coach Carter's impact reaches far beyond wins and championships," said Greenslade in a press release. "He built a program that demanded excellence in the classroom and on the field and in the community. His legacy will be felt for generations." Carter had five seasons of 10 or more wins at Clyde. The Fliers finished 4-7 in 2025. Carter's last game was a 12-6 overtime loss to rival Bellevue in a first round playoff game. One of his biggest wins came in 2019 when the Fliers had to get a Week 10 victory against Bellevue to qualify for the playoffs. Clyde won that one, 28-20. Carter's Clyde football teams won four Sandusky Bay Conference championships. Before coaching football, Carter was a successful basketball coach at Clyde and is one of only two coaches in Ohio history to reach 100 wins in football and basketball. He led the Fliers to 151 basketball wins in 12 years and is Clyde's all-time winningest coach in both sports. He also coached girls softball for five years — the first stretch in 25 straight years as a head coach in three sports. Carter was an All-Ohio football player for the Fliers, who lost to West Branch in the 1994 Division III state championship game. He played college football at Ball State University. The CHS graduate also was a basketball standout and played on a Clyde team that advanced to the state semifinals in 1995. Carter said he won't totally close the door on returning to coaching, but for now he is satisfied to take a step back. "I've run my course for a while. I have many things I'm going to do," he said. "I'm still teaching and I'm at Clyde and will help out behind the scenes. I will watch from a distance and will help out with whatever they want me to do."