John Wentzell is an active participant within the Westborough community. He is a substitute teacher and has been coaching several WHS teams over the past six years. He recently finished coaching the Girls’ Freshman Basketball Team. Wentzell greatly enjoys coaching girl’s teams, as he claims, “Girls will run through the wall for you and give you 100 percent.” Although he enjoys his career today, it was not his ultimate objective.

Wentzell graduated from UNH where he earned a degree in business. He then had a change of mind and pursued a career in athletics. Upon graduating, he took a two year break to work in the Athletic Department at Clark University. After being an assistant coach for the baseball team, he was accepted to Springfield College where he earned his Master’s Degree in Physical Education. He graduated from Springfield College and accepted an opportunity to become the Assistant Athletic Director at Harvard University.

For the first 21 years of his career at Harvard, “It was like a hobby.” He loved working with the Athletic Director, Bill Cleary, who valued Wentzell’s passion and personality. However, once Cleary retired and the leadership role changed, “money became more important than people.” After two years of experiencing trauma working for the new athletic director, Wentzell realized it was not the type of environment that suited him. “It went from quirky academia to corporate academia,” Wentzell explained. He realized that the new athletic director’s values did not correlate with his own, causing him to change his career and become a high school physical education teacher and coach.

Wentzell currently enjoys working as a substitute teacher at Westborough and Grafton High Schools. He loves Westborough High because “there is mutual respect between students and teachers.” From 2007 to 2009, Wentzell was a part time physical education and wellness teacher at WHS and hoped to get hired full time. However, the budget was cut and he lost that opportunity.

Today Wentzell has been married to his wife Nancy for 31 years, and has two sons, Peter and Jack, both alumni of WHS. Wentzell continues to contribute to the community by coaching the Freshman Basketball and JV Softball teams as well as working as a substitute teacher. Ten years from now, Wentzell hopes to be teaching full-time in Central Mass and retire by age 67. “It is tough to get hired at age 57,” Wentzell explains. For now he is grateful for his opportunity to “be able to do things not for money, but for enjoyment.”