Fort football coach will not return

Veteran football coach Dale Spitzer will not be returning to the sidelines at Fort Defiance High School next season, The News Virginian has learned.

Fort Defiance Athletic Director Jack Tucker and principal Larry Landes confirmed that Spitzer will not come back for a 26th season but would offer no further comment.

“All I’ll say is that we have a head football position open and, because it’s a personnel matter, I prefer not to comment,” Landes said on Tuesday night.

When asked if he resigned his post, Spitzer said, “my signature does not appear on any piece of paper that says resignation.”

Spitzer coached for 25 seasons at Fort Defiance and was the longest tenured coach at a single school in Augusta County.

Waynesboro High School football coach Steve Isaacs was surprised by the news.

“Tell me it ain’t so,” Isaacs said. “Dale is good people. That’s something you don’t see, is a guy staying at one school for so long. Dale is good people. ... He was looking forward to the sophomore class he had.”

Landes said that Spitzer’s sudden exit from the football program would not affect his teaching.

“It has nothing to do with a teaching contract,” he said. “It has nothing to do with your [Spitzer’s] teaching performance.”

Landes also said that the future of the rest of the football staff was up to the future football coach.

“Obviously, whenever you got a sport with a coaching position you leave the person in charge with the task of having to support an assistant staff,” he said.

Spitzer accumulated more than 130 wins at Fort Defiance, but the Indians have only won one game in each of the last two seasons and have not made the postseason since 2003.

In June, Fort let go of another long-time coach — Terry Waters — who was in his 14th year as a wrestling coach.

The News Virginian staff writer Corine Gatti contributed to this report.