For more than two decades, Bill Marsh, 52, had built up a successful resume of coaching high school football in the Puget Sound area. After a few seasons in the assistant coaching ranks, Marsh took over the head coaching position at Eastside Catholic in 1999 and compiled a 66-27 record over 10 seasons at the private Bellevue school. 

Then after a short tenure at Everett’s powerhouse Archbishop Murphy High School, Marsh took on the challenge of building up the small football program at Cedar Park Christian School in Bothell starting in 2014.

But in 2016, Marsh was forced to put coaching high school football on the back burner as Bell’s Palsy — a rare form of facial paralysis — took hold, bringing with it excruciating headaches and limiting his ability to communicate, read and sleep.

Marsh stepped away from Cedar Park Christian at the end of the 2016 season, thinking his career in the high school coaching ranks was over.

But now eight years later, Marsh is ecstatic to be back on the sidelines and looking to make a mark leading the Edmonds-Woodway Warriors football program.

“This is a dream come true for me,” Marsh said. “I didn’t think I’d be a head coach again; obviously I wanted to. It wasn’t about the right thing opening up, but the right thing did open up.”

“After all these years since I’ve been coaching and after having gone through a serious illness, coming back and just having the chance to be with young men again is fantastic,” Marsh said.

While Marsh has mostly recovered from his long stint with Bell’s Palsy (he says he still has some paralysis in his face), he has made the 482 days he was stricken with the disease a jumping-off point for sharing a message of personal importance and overcoming adversity to anyone who will listen. Whether it’s at a public or private speaking engagement or inside a football locker room, Marsh is not shy about sharing his struggle with the disease, how everyone is to be valued and how one can get past the various obstacles to success in their own lives.

After leaving the coaching ranks and eventually recovering from the most serious aspects of Bell’s Palsy in late 2017, Marsh started giving motivational speeches to groups at schools, churches and businesses. But football was always in the back of his mind, only with a slightly re-formed emphasis.

“A few years ago … I started thinking I might not ever coach again,” Marsh confessed. “But if I ever get to, (then) the mindset I’m going in with (is) that I’m not out there to just be a coach; I’m out there to be the human that’s helping these kids — like I’ve always had, but now football is a secondary component to it.”

While not many have experienced a rare neurological disease (Bell’s Palsy affects less than .06% of the U.S. population), Marsh believes everyone has difficulties holding them back from being confident and emotionally strong. As for the student athletes in his prior football programs and now for those at E-W, Marsh points to issues of self-esteem as a major factor ensuring proper emotional development into adulthood.

“Kids are kids,” Marsh explained. “They want to feel wanted, they want to feel loved, they want to know they matter and that we care about them. So that’s what I do. I’ve never claimed to be the greatest X’s and O’s guy, but I’ll always be someone that I think players will look back and go, ‘Man, I’m glad I played in that program for him.’”

While character development in their players is nearly always a goal for high school coaches, Marsh believes it is harder now for coaches to relate to young people because of COVID. 

“No coach had ever coached kids or had played through the lens of eyes that had played through a pandemic,” Marsh said. “So all of us are coaching teenagers who are pandemic kids — but we didn’t play as pandemic kids; none of us know what that’s like.”

“I understand mental health issues,” Marsh continued, “and have gone through those types of crises. So I think I’m in that wisdom stage of life where I can be that fatherly figure that I couldn’t be at age 30 or even 40. But now I can because I’ve experienced the stuff that I have.”

While the first two weeks of Warrior preseason practices have been filled with learning new plays, systems and strategies, Marsh has also emphasized with players that he will be available for any issues that they want to talk about, football-related or not.

“Like I told them yesterday, for a long time I wanted to make a difference; now I want to be a difference maker,” Marsh said. “When I shared that with them, (they) went silent. But what I wanted them to recognize is that this guy is more than ‘Coach.’”

“(Kids) want to know that you’re going to be there,” Marsh emphasized. “I’ve always come by the mindset of caring about kids and they only care if they know that you care, but (more than ever) they know you’re genuine and that you have empathy.”

While more than happy to talk about his history recovering from Bell’s Palsy or about the importance of providing emotional support and character-building to teens, Marsh also knows that many players, parents and fans will judge his effectiveness as the E-W head coach by the results on the field.

At Edmonds-Woodway, Marsh is following in the footsteps of John Gradwohl, who led the program for 28 years and whom Marsh referred to as “a legend,” not only for Gradwohl’s similar viewpoints of caring for his players but also because of a strong win-loss record throughout his career.

“I’m not here to replace anything,” Marsh said. “I just want to come in and enhance a program that has great facilities, great kids, great support.”

But Marsh also knows that there will always be pressure on coaches to lead their team to victories.

“If we’re not successful (on the field), it’s 100% on me,” Marsh continued. “So I’ve got to build this program in every single phase and every single way: get the best coaches, making sure everything is efficient.”

And Marsh has lofty goals for this first season at the helm of Warrior football.

“My number-one goal for these kids is that we are practicing on Thanksgiving morning,” Marsh shared. “And I said that on day one. Because I don’t think they have heard something like that. They’ve heard ‘win league, win state.’”

“But if you’re practicing on Thanksgiving Day, that means you’re in the final four,” he continued. “Well now it’s a crapshoot — anybody has a shot at it; I’ll take our shot with the guys we have.”

While having visions of playing in the final weeks of the 2024 season, Marsh is thoroughly enjoying the rush from these initial stages of the year, something he hasn’t experienced as a head coach since 2016.

“I think I’m more amped than (my players) are right now,” Marsh said, “just because it’s been so long and because I’ve missed it so badly.”

The Marsh-led Edmonds-Woodway Warriors play their first game of the 2024 season on Friday, Sept. 6, with a road game against the Kingco Conference Lindbergh Eagles. Kickoff at Renton Memorial Stadium is scheduled for 7 p.m.

— Story and photos by Doug Petrowski