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By Rick Cassano
HAMILTON – Brad Specht believes he’s ready for the challenge.
Badin High School’s boys soccer team earned a Final Four berth for the first time in program history last season and now has a new head coach in Specht, who was selected for the job after Eric Hickey chose to end his 13-year tenure at the helm.
Specht, a former head coach at Edgewood, said the transition has been “wonderful.”
“The relationships, the support system that’s in place here … the more time you spend around here, it’s evident why every sport across the board is successful,” Specht said. “It starts with your administrators, then you have the maturity and the communication skills of the young men. The willingness to be coached, the willingness to show up every day and invest and work their tails off and be challenged, it’s been unbelievable.”
Specht, 36, said last season’s success set a high bar that he’s fine with facing on a daily basis.
“To be honest, that’s part of the reason I was interested in the job,” Specht said. “You kind of naturally crave it. I want expectations to be high. If expectations weren’t high, this wouldn’t be the place for me. The pressure to be successful is what pushes you every day. There’s the old thing that pressure creates diamonds, and we’re trying to make something special.”
Specht is a 2008 Edgewood graduate who’s beginning a new day job as a physical education teacher at Wilson Middle School in Hamilton.
He spent the last four seasons as an assistant under Neil Craft at Kettering Fairmont after directing the Edgewood program for eight years. Specht was also an assistant for two years at his alma mater.
Badin finished 17-4-3 last season and made a historic run to the Division III state semifinals, losing to Columbus Watterson 1-0 in overtime at Wright State University.
Hickey, 57, won 204 games in a head coaching career that’s spanned 23 years. He won 105 games at Badin, having previously led girls programs at Talawanda, Edgewood and Middletown. He was also an assistant at BHS for one season.
For Hickey, this may be a temporary retirement. He coached his son Luke at Badin the last four years and now plans to be in attendance for all of his games at Marietta College, where former Ram standouts Colt Long and Rowan Brown are also playing.
“As soon as I hung it up at Badin, I got offers for jobs,” Hickey said. “I need to take at least a year to go watch Luke play and hang out. I think coming back to be a head coach would be tough. I think being an assistant coach might be something to look at.”
Hickey said it was “an easy decision” to step down. Certainly part of that was not wanting to shortchange the program while he’s a full-time Marietta spectator.
“It was time,” Hickey said. “Last year was such a fun season. I was glad that senior class got to play in the new stadium. Playing with that group of seniors and my son and then doing as well as we did, I didn’t want to come back and redo that. We couldn’t have redone it.
“I think we built a legacy. We had the best years of Badin soccer ever, and I hope the next guy continues to do the same thing. But I have not missed coaching this summer. I enjoy watching my kids. I enjoy going to the pool. I enjoy golf. I’m enjoying low cholesterol right now. I’m happy that I made the decision. It was perfect timing.”
Hickey said he’s proud of his time heading the Badin program — the Rams are 61-21-17 over the past five years. He noted that when he took over, the soccer team had a number of guys who were playing simply to get gym credit.
“I told the school we would make this program one of the top ones in Southwest Ohio, and we accomplished that,” Hickey said. “We wanted to be tougher. We wanted to outwork people.
“We practiced harder in preseason scrimmages to see players in live action. We didn’t stand on the hill with our arms crossed watching them scrimmage. That isn’t coaching … that is babysitting. We didn’t want players who were not team players. Everything had to be earned. That is how we climbed to the top.”
Specht said he knows he has a solid foundation to work with.
“The culture that was built and the work ethic that Coach Hickey established over his time makes the transition that much easier,” Specht said. “I’m not here to rebuild. I’m here to build upon what’s already built.”
Specht, who lives in Wayne Township with his wife Allison and sons Emmitt (5) and Elliott (1), has a bachelor’s degree in exercise science from Miami University. He was a left back in his playing days and played at Wilmington College for one year before transferring to Miami to complete his studies.
Specht endured some tough years coaching at Edgewood, but he called the overall experience “the greatest thing in the world.”
“It’s a special place,” Specht said. “It certainly set me on a path that changed my life. Getting that job pushed me into education. I was a strength and conditioning coach when I took the head coaching job and ended up getting into education. I am the person I am because of those eight years.”
He admitted missing soccer right away after his EHS tenure ended, so when Craft contacted him about being an assistant at Fairmont, it was an opportunity that he was ready to take.
The Firebirds won two Division I district championships while Specht was on staff.
“Having a son obviously changes your life and that became the most important thing,” he said. “I went to Fairmont with the idea of being a part-time assistant coach and it quickly turned into a full-time assistant. I was very fortunate to have four years under Neil. He really taught me a lot.
“I had the itch to get back in as a head coach. Nothing came open and felt like it was right, but when the Badin job opened, something felt different. The location was big. To be able to get my family to the games conveniently was important to me. After my first conversation with Mr. (Geoff) Melzer and (Nick) Browning, it was pretty evident this is where I was meant to be.”
Specht said defense is the key for highly successful teams, so that has to be the tactical focus. He said the pillars of his program are joy, selflessness, commitment, integrity and toughness.
“Traditionally I am the guy that brings the juice every day,” Specht said. “I think the game of soccer is the most beautiful game in the world, and the teams that are willing to be the toughest night in and night out are the ones that are successful. Craft taught me that the game honors toughness, so that’s what we talk about every day.
“We have to play hard-nosed, physical defense. We’re going to deny shots. But we’ve got some guys that are very creative on the ball. We’re going to do some things that are going to create opportunities, and we’re going to be dangerous on set pieces. If we’re the toughest team in the box, we’re going to like those opportunities.”
Specht’s varsity assistants — Rick Watson, Sean Barker and Jake Hiatt — all have Edgewood connections. Kieron Boyle is the JV coach with assistance from Dalton Slusher.
2026 OUTLOOK
There’s no question that Badin lost some key players to graduation. Four guys from the 2025 squad are playing at the next level – Luke Hickey and Colt Long at Marietta, Cole Parr at Capital and Tanner Questa at Gloucestershire in England. Max Snellgrove will be running track at Miami.
The Rams return three players who had double-digit points last year – juniors Charlie Hall (12 goals, six assists) and Parker Young (10 goals, three assists), and senior Cooper Hilgeman (five goals, three assists).
Junior Greyson Kelley was a standout center back last year and said he’s expanding his game to the midfield this season.
“I’m a little bit of everything,” Kelley said. “I’m trying to be more creative and attack this year. I’m trying to move the game at my pace. I know when to attack and when to not.”
Senior Nate Von Bargen looks to be one of the guys up top for Badin. He’s been more of a defensive player through the years, but started to turn his focus to offense last season.
“I feel like it’s a whole new ballgame for me because I played a couple games as a striker last year,” Von Bargen said. “In prior years I was always defensive, so I need to change my mind-set to an offensive player and attack the ball more. I’ll just play hard and outwork everybody and have a good mentality about it.”
Junior Ian Long returns after totaling 9 points last year and senior Vinny Greene should be an offensive factor after not playing last year. Senior Maguire Francis is another guy to keep an eye on with his versatility.
Junior Jacob Aichele is the new goalkeeper after seeing limited varsity time behind Parr last season.
“We’re going to be pretty strong up the middle,” Specht said. “If we can keep the spine of the field strong, we’ll like the results. It’s definitely going to be a shared wealth when it comes to scoring. These guys will scratch and claw and fight. They want to be challenged. They want to be pushed. They want to be the best versions of themselves.”
Kelley believes there’s no reason why the Rams can’t be a high-achieving squad this season, though they may look a little different.
“We’re attacking different ways and defending different ways,” Kelley said. “Last year was a more physical, fast, strong team. This year I feel like we’re more of a technical team, a move-the-ball-around kind of team.”
“I like the way it looks and how it feels,” Von Bargen said. “I feel like we’re a lot more connected. We’re using each other’s talents to better all of us and attack the game in a different way.”
Von Bargen said Specht’s coaching style is working well with the team.
“Brad has more of an outlook including the whole team,” Von Bargen said. “He knows how to put what he wants to say into his words, and he actually means it. He will build off our energy and help us win games.”
Badin opens the season at Elder on Aug. 14.
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