Kapaun Mt. Carmel hires City League legend as next football coach
.jpg "Weston Schartz, Wichita West athletic director and football coach, has been hired as the next football coach at Kapaun Mt. Carmel.")
With 37 years of City League football coaching experience, Weston Schartz has accepted his third and what he said will be his final job in Wichita.
Kapaun Mt. Carmel announced Schartz as its fifth coach in school history Friday. Schartz was previously the athletic director and football coach at Wichita West.
Schartz is the second winningest football coach in City League history with 195 victories across 26 years at West and 10 with Northwest. He takes over for Dan Adelhardt, who was at Kapaun for 15 years before the school announced he wouldn’t be back for the 2020 season.
This will be his first job at either of Wichita’s two Catholic high schools. He said leaving West was “horribly hard. No easier to leave this time than it was last time.”
Schartz has never taken a coaching job outside of Wichita Public Schools. He said he has never had any interest in coaching in a one high school city.
“It’s like the old saying, ‘Who wouldn’t want to coach at Michigan?’” Schartz said. “It’s Kapaun. Who wouldn’t want to coach at Kapaun.
Kapaun has won 10 state championships but none since 1987. This past season, the Crusaders finished 2-7, seventh in the City League and 16th in Class 5A West.
Schartz is an alumnus of Wichita Southeast. When he was in high school, Kapaun was one of the best teams in Kansas. He said with his first youth football program providing a feeder to Kapaun and what he called “Weston Schartz football,” he said he hopes to bring consistency back to the program.
Along with following Adelhardt, Schartz comes to Kapaun behind former coaches Gary Guzman, Ed Kriwiel and John Knolla.
“All four are outstanding men and outstanding football coaches,” Schartz said. “I hope to be able to be in that category.”