Walled Lake Central football enters 2024 with a new, but familiar, face at the helm

Jeff Penrod has been a mainstay in the Walled Lake Central football program for nearly two decades, but this season he can add a new role to his resume as this is his first as the Vikings’ head coach.

“It’s been a very, very seamless transition having been here 17 years already,” said Penrod. “I know the kids, they know me, and the facilities, and the administrators, and the teachers, so I’ve gotten a lot of good support so far.”

While Penrod has held multiple roles within the program, he’s most recently coached his current players as their junior varsity head coach.

“Everyone loves Penrod,” said senior offensive lineman Ben Bisbikis. “We’ve all had him through JV and as we all roll up to Varsity, we have him again.”

“It helps a lot (having Coach Penrod),” said Corey Wahls, who plays both wide receiver and linebacker for the Vikings. “We all got around him, we believe in him, and we just believe in each other.”

The Vikings are coming off back-to-back three-win seasons, and they’ll be first to admit they are hungry for more.

“We’ve changed the tempo, we’ve changed how much effort we’re putting in practice,” said junior lineman Dylan Akers. “We got a scrappy team, we got a team that’s going to want to get out there and win, so the energy is different. I think that this year we have guys that want to play football and want to hit.”

“If you want something that you’ve never had, you have to do some things you’ve never done,” said Penrod. “We have to do more, we have to work harder, we have to maybe put in a little more time, we have to study film more, we have to get stronger, we have to do things we haven’t done in the past to get something that we’ve never had before, and that’s the next step we want to take.”

Walled Lake Central opens its season on Thursday, August 29, against Berkley, which is the Vikings’ lone non-league opponent of the season.