WELLINGTON — Think of soccer hotbeds around the area and Wellington probably doesn’t come to mind.
But after a decade of extraordinary success, maybe folks need to mention Wellington and soccer in the same breath.
Dukes boys teams have completed a 10-season stretch in which they crafted a combined record of 135-36-17. That amounts to going undefeated in 152 of 188 total matches. It was a stretch in which the Dukes won six conference, nine sectional and four district championships.
They were district finalists four times and regional finalists once. The 2006 district champs put together a program-best 18-2 record after going 10-0 in the first year of the Patriot Athletic Conference. The 2004 regional finalists went 18-2-1 overall and 11-0-1 in the old Lorain County Conference.
The Dukes also produced several players who received All-Ohio and All-Greater Cleveland district honors. Several have also earned academic honors.
Wellington’s record is not only impressive, it compares favorably with Northeast Ohio’s elite programs. It also raises an obvious question: How did it happen in a sports-minded community perhaps better known for football?
Easy. Wellington had Bill Little, who became Wellington’s head coach in 1998.
But it wasn’t that easy, said Little.
“It was the kids’ hard work,” he said. “I gave them the opportunities to do as much as they could possibly do.”
Having done that, and with all those championships in the book, Little has resigned as the Dukes’ coach. A seventh-grade math teacher at McCormick Middle School, Little announced at the beginning of the school year he was retiring as a teacher. He delayed his decision about the coaching job until late last year.
“I thought about it long and hard,” Little said. “I didn’t tell the kids until the week before Christmas vacation and I don’t think I made up my mind until the night before I talked to them.
“I decided that on that date I was going to go talk to them, because one way or another, things had to be done,” he said. “Our program works from January on. We’re in the weight room, we’re conditioning, we’ve got open gyms, we play indoor at Lodi, and somebody had to be in charge.
“So I decided I had to tell the kids. I couldn’t fairly let them dangle and wonder about what was happening. It got to the point where I’d say, ‘Today I am, tomorrow I’m not.’ I finally decided that if I was having that much trouble making up my mind it was time to be done with it.”
Bill Bogan, boys head soccer coach at Southview, has been named his successor. Bogan lives in Wellington, and his wife Amy, like Little, teaches at McCormick Middle School. Bogan’s sons, Daniel and Benjamin, have played for Little at the high school. Benjamin will return for his senior season in August.
“Bill has done an outstanding job of promoting soccer in a small community,” Bogan said. “He took advantage of the talent we had and the love for soccer he helped develop in the community. He got the most out of every kid he had over the years. And he had tremendous support from the kids, the parents and the community.”
Little’s Dukes teams have been known for being in top physical condition.
“I always told the kids, ‘The harder you work, the harder it is to lose,’” Little said. “So they worked hard, they really did. I’m not sure we’re a hotbed of soccer. I’ve just had kids who were really, really willing to work. I’ve told them, ‘We might be able to find teams that will beat us because of skills, but we’ll never be beaten by a team that outconditions us.”
Contact Bob Daniels at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com. 

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