MOUNT VERNON — The Mount Vernon Board of Education officially accepted the resignation of head football coach Scott Spitler at its monthly meeting on Monday evening. Spitler unofficially resigned following Mount Vernon’s season finale loss to Pickerington Central.

The move didn’t come as a surprise to many around the program, including Mount Vernon activities director Jim Gastin, who saw the daily pressure Spitler was under.

“I wasn’t really surprised because he addressed this with me a while back,” Gastin said. “It wasn’t just recently. We meet every week and talk. He has expressed to me his side. When you work hard and not get the results you want, it starts working against you. ... I think it is more of a relief to him. He worked just as hard as the rest of them to get some results, but it just didn’t work out.”

In three seasons at the helm, Spitler held a 2-28 record, including a 0-10 mark in 2005. This past season, the Jackets finished 1-9 with perhaps their toughest schedule in a decade.

“I wasn’t forced out. I resigned on my own for personal reasons,” Spitler said. “I just felt that, as a head coach, I wasn’t making the progress with the team that the Mount Vernon High School program deserved, the community deserved and the kids deserved. I felt it was time to go in a different direction.

“Obviously, I’ve learned a lot. This was my first head coaching position and I learned a lot of things. Hopefully, I can keep my options open and look to continue to coach football. I don’t know what time down the road or where, but, obviously, I am taking a step back and re-evaluating things I’ve done as a head coach. I am trying to make progress myself with things that I did and decisions I made. I’m looking toward the future and will wait to see what presents itself.”

Despite his record, Spitler, who came to Mount Vernon as an assistant coach in 1997, values the time he spent in the program. Where the program goes from here, though, is out of his hands.

“I had some good assistant coaches that worked really hard. I had the opportunity that was given to me by the board of education and the administration at Mount Vernon to coach some fine young men. Now, the decision is up to them on what direction they choose to go with the next head coach, but I was fortunate to work with some good, quality assistant coaches and some fine young men.”

Spitler plans to remain at Mount Vernon as a teacher, while taking some time to enjoy life.

“I am going to continue to be the Industrial Technology teacher here at the high school,” Spitler said. “I have been in the process of getting my master’s the last couple of years so I will work on that. Like I said, I still have the desire to coach. I’ll just have to wait and see what presents itself.”

The Jackets, meanwhile, are in the midst of their 30-day no-contact period with coaches. When they are able to start in the gym in December, the other coaches in the program will be in charge of keeping things running until a new coach is hired.

“We haven’t progressed anywhere on this,” Gastin said. “I have to sit down with our administration and see what direction do we want to go and when we want to start in on this. Acting upon it right now doesn’t do us any good because we don’t have any idea what teaching positions will be available, what coaches are interested and things like that. Coaches right now aren’t thinking next year. They tend to do that over the winter. ... We’ll wait and try to get an idea of who’s talking about retirement and moving on.

“I don’t know what the other coaches’ status is right now. None of them have come to me and submitted any resignations. This is in its infant stages right now so it is almost too early to react to anything. It is one of those things you just have to sit back and let time tell you what direction you want to go. We’ll try to formulate our game plan from there.”