How Weston Schartz found his greatest victory after 43 years of heartbreak
The clock was still running, but the suspense was long gone.
With Kapaun Mt. Carmel pounding Bishop Miege in the fourth quarter of the Class 4A state championship game, head coach Weston Schartz did something he had never allowed himself to do in 43 years on a sideline: He stepped away.
He slipped behind the bench at Welch Stadium and began walking the track, scanning the crowd for one person: Nancy.
His wife of 40 years had sat through bitter cold and bitter endings, through the missed kicks, freak injuries and last-second heartbreaks that had kept him from the big game. She prayed with players, hugged them after losses, led Bible studies and had woven herself in every program he ever led. She didn’t just witness his career, she carried the weight of it with him.
When Weston finally found her, he pulled her close and said, “We finally got it done.”
Moments later, Kapaun closed out a 56-21 victory, earning its first state title since 1987. A Gatorade bath soaked the 64-year-old coach — a celebration four decades overdue — and for the first time in his 39 years as a head coach, Schartz didn’t have to face a locker room of seniors in tears.
“It was a weird feeling,” Schartz would say later. “There was joy, rather than sadness. It’s hard to describe just how different it was. It was just amazing.”
It was the crowning achievement of one of Kansas high school football’s most storied careers, one that began with a young coach obsessed with winning who matured into a man who learned legacy isn’t defined by trophies, but by people.
And in a twist only sports can deliver, Weston Schartz finally hoisted the championship trophy he once craved the most only after he stopped needing it.
The heartbreak at West that fueled a championship run
In the 1990s, when Wichita West began its improbable rise under a fiery young coach determined to resurrect a moribund program, the City League hadn’t seen anything quite like Weston Schartz.
A Southeast alumnus who had won two titles as a player, he was molded by the old-school coaches he admired — relentless, uncompromising and convinced that greatness was within reach. West’s turnaround became one of the most remarkable stories in Kansas football: a forgotten program turned winner, then contender, then power.
And then came the 1997 Class 6A state championship game.
Leading Olathe North 26-20 late in the fourth quarter, West was on the brink of a stunning upset of the defending champions. But in the final 70 seconds, the Pioneers surrendered a long touchdown pass. Two missed extra points earlier in the game proved fatal. They lost, 27-26.
“That sting, it will always be there,” Schartz said. “I always felt like I let those guys down. If I was a little better coach back then, we could have won two or three championships. That part haunts me a little bit, I’ve got to be honest.”
He remembers the silence, the stunned faces, the blank stares on the seniors whose dreams had been ripped away in an instant.
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Heartbreak wasn’t done with him yet.
Four years later, another promising West run collapsed when quarterback Adam Rosenstiel suffered a freak playoff injury. In 2005, at Northwest, star running back Jeran Trotter went down during another deep postseason push. Another semifinal loss. Another chance gone.
Over the years, the list grew: great teams at West, Northwest and even Kapaun, where the Crusaders reached the 2023 championship game before falling short. So many seasons that could have ended with a trophy. So many that almost did.
“We have a lot of guys who understand the agony of those defeats and they know the blood, sweat and tears that it takes,” Schartz said. “It ain’t easy.”
The Weston Schartz football brotherhood
Whether they played for him at West in the 1980s and 1990s, during his second run there in the 2010s, at Northwest in the 2000s or at Kapaun in the 2020s, his former players belong to the same fraternity — the Weston Schartz brotherhood.
Even as adults with careers and families, they still show up at his games, text him after big wins and tough losses and talk about him with a reverence usually reserved for family.
Their loyalty isn’t rooted in nostalgia. It comes from how he treated them — the honesty, the accountability, the belief he had in them long before they learned to believe in themselves.
“Anybody who has ever played for Schartz, it’s like a brotherhood,” said Kapaun assistant coach Matt Riddle, who was a former player for Schartz at West. “We all have stories and we all know how he runs his program. No matter what colors he’s got on, it’s Weston Schartz football.”
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Schartz is demanding. He is gruff. He is unflinching in his ways. But his players know his investment in them extends far beyond the football field.
“He’s like the dad who knows how to yell at you when you need to be yelled at,” said Rosenstiel, now an assistant for Schartz at Kapaun. “And he knows how to lift you up when you need to be lifted.”
That’s why they stayed connected. Why they still root for him. Why some even drove to Emporia.
Nobody embodied that bond better than Dallas Horn, a 1997 West graduate with no attachment to Kapaun, who woke up Saturday feeling pulled toward Emporia.
“I just had this gut feeling that I needed to be there,” Horn said. “I wanted to be there if he pulled it off, so I could shake his hand, give him a hug and take some pictures. It was a surreal moment.”
Like so many, Horn still credits his former coach for reshaping the trajectory of his life when he was a teenager searching for direction.
“I knew I was at a crossroads in my life and football gave me a chance to be a part of something bigger than myself,” he said. “If it wasn’t for (Schartz), I don’t know where I would be today.”
How Weston Schartz learned winning wasn’t everything
When Schartz was young and hungry at West, the championship chase consumed him. It drove him through long offseasons, late nights, early mornings, every practice rep, every detail.
But time has a way of reshaping a man.
“It was the driving force when I was younger,” Schartz said. “But then I realized that the only thing that can fill my void is my relationship with the Lord.”
He still wanted to win — the competitor inside him never left — but his priorities shifted as he watched former players become husbands, fathers and leaders in the community. He began to measure success differently.
“I care more about what kind of men they become and what type of relationship they have with the Lord,” he said. “That’s always been more important to me than teaching them how to run the trap.”
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During this year’s playoff run, he was reminded how fragile life really is. When former West lineman and beloved Pioneer Scott Van Horn died last month, Schartz attended the funeral, then drove to the semifinal game that night. His team won 56-7, but he couldn’t stop thinking about his West High family.
Then there was Kyle Stevens, his childhood-best-friend-turned-assistant-coach, who retired in 2022 partly because of their legendary bickering. They would go to war for each other at a moment’s notice, yet were just as quick to argue like siblings — a pair bound by loyalty as fierce as their disagreements.
Stevens had seen every rise and fall alongside him and even he sometimes wondered about the cruel timing of it all.
“There’s no doubt he can coach football,” Stevens said. “He’s got a gift. But sometimes, you did wonder if it’s just not meant to be.”
When Schartz sensed the 2025 Crusaders had a real shot at a title, he convinced Stevens to return for one more run. With Stevens helping with the defense and Schartz running the offense, just like old times, Kapaun struck the perfect balance. Stevens’ unit allowed just 28 points in five playoff games.
But their partnership has always been bigger than football. For years, Stevens had teased Schartz that he could command a locker room with thunder in his voice, yet never muster three simple words for his best friends. But as time passed, Schartz knew that chances to say things out loud don’t last forever.
So when Saturday’s whistle ended a wait of 43 years, Schartz stepped through the celebration until he found the friend who had fought beside him since they were boys. And in that swirl of joy, he finally said the words he had never been able to say aloud to his best friend: “I love you.”
“It meant a lot to hear it,” Stevens said, taking a pause. “I was just so proud of him.”
The ultimate reward waiting for the legendary coach
Kapaun won the championship playing the same style of smash-mouth brand of football that’s become synonymous with Schartz for decades.
Behind a punishing offensive line led by Nick Anciaux, Landon Heise, Jack Runyan and Max Worrell with fullback Wyatt Sullenger and tight end Ethan Burr, running back Ken Huff was a home-run threat every single play. And with quarterback Cole Rapp orchestrating the offense, Axel Pondei was the home-run threat on the perimeter.
On defense, Cole Tarantino, Cal Purvis, Mason Collins, Pete Keller, Jude Porter and Preston Hamilton formed one of the state’s best units.
The Crusaders finished 12-1, outscoring five playoff opponents 301-28. Their defining moment came earlier in the season, when they erased a 28-0 deficit against Northwest, forced overtime and then went for two and the win — a 43-42 triumph that essentially clinched the City League title.
“There’s no way you can talk about the best without mentioning Weston Schartz,” Riddle said. “It lets people know his style, his brand of football, it’s still relevant in this day and age.”
After losing to Wellington in the second round of the Class 4A playoffs last season, Kapaun’s returners were driven to not let the same thing happen again. Many were on the 2023 team that lost in the Class 5A championship game to Mill Valley.
“Coming up short, it hurt so bad,” Purvis said of previous seasons. “We all had such a fire under us to get back. Because we knew once we got back, we weren’t going to lose again.”
After 248 career wins and 43 years of coaching, the championship didn’t complete Schartz. It didn’t erase the heartbreaks or heal the old wounds.
But it gave him something far better: a reward for every player who ever suited up for him — at West, at Northwest, at Kapaun. In Schartz’s mind, this was for all of them.
In the end, the trophy he lifted in Emporia was not the culmination of a pursuit, but a symbol of a lifetime poured into others. The banner will forever hang at Kapaun, but it no longer defines what success means to the man who coached them.
“We won’t know how successful this football team is until 15, 20 years down the path,” he said. “Sure, they’re state champions now, but who will they become? What kind of mark will they leave on society? That’s what it’s about.”
A championship crowns a season. A legacy shapes a lifetime.
At long last, Weston Schartz has both.
This story was originally published December 2, 2025 at 6:03 AM.
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