Parrish takes the reins at Westlake football

Not long after guiding the Henry A. Wise High School football team to the 2023 Maryland 4A state title, Waldorf resident DaLawn Parrish decided to resign as head coach of the Pumas to pursue the same position at Westlake High School where his two daughters are current students.

Parrish, 47, a Wake Forest University graduate who previously coached football briefly at DuVal High in Prince George’s County, has been the only football coach in Wise history and literally built the program in Prince Georges’s from scratch. Unlike many football programs, Wise vaulted directly into a varsity schedule before the school had seniors enrolled and without two years of junior varsity teams to build the foundation for the program.

Before the program was 10 years old, however, Parrish had turned the Pumas into a county, regional and state powerhouse. Prior to recently attaining its sixth state title under his direction, Parrish led the Pumas to 4A state titles in 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019. They had also been to the state finals on three other occasions, something that Parrish recalled vividly.

“People are quick to congratulate me on the six stats titles that I won at Wise,” said Parrish, who went 179-36 (.833) during his 17 seasons at the Upper Marlboro school. “But we also got there three other times and got beat. But all of those losses actually help to make you a better coach. When we started at Wise, we didn’t have any junior varsity seasons to help get us ready.”

Parrish takes over for Tony Zaccarelli, who stepped down after eight seasons as the Wolverines coach which included a 6-6 mark in 2023. Zaccarelli had also previously played at Westlake while his late father, Dom Zaccarelli, the school’s longtime former athletic director, was in the midst of a long, successful coaching career that saw him go 148-34 including a 3A state title in 2008.

“I love the community at Westlake,” Parrish said. “My oldest daughter runs track for them and my youngest is a cheerleader and my wife is a proud Westlake alum. There’s a lot of talent in SMAC and there’s a lot of involvement from the community. You can tell that athletics at Westlake has a great tradition and not just in football. The track team is always good and the basketball team won a 2A state title a couple of years ago.”

Parrish joins a Southern Maryland Athletic Conference coaching fraternity that is already immensely talented in a conference that is genuinely underrated. Current Northern coach Rich Holzer, North Point coach Bill Condo and Patuxent’s Steve Crounse already own state titles at their respective schools and three teams — Calvert, Huntingtown and North Point — each reached their respective state championship games last fall.