Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Trinity coaching search

The Trinity School Board will meet Thursday and there is a chance the board will be asked to approve the hiring of a varsity football coach.

If the hiring occurs, it will put to rest weeks of speculation and rumor. Naturally, any time the Trinity football job is opened, the name Guy Montecalvo gets mentioned. Thanks to his incredible success at Washington and the respect Montecalvo earned during his distinguished coaching career, he's always had ardent supporters in the Trinity community.

File that rumor under wishful thinking.

According to sources, the interview process has intensified and Trinity brought on former Penn Hills and Shaler head coach Neil Gordon as a consultant to hire the replacement for Ed Dalton, who took over at Trinity in 1999 and recently accepted the athletic director and football coaching duties at McGuffey.

As many as nine candidates have been interviewed and a frontrunner is believed to be Mike Wall.

A former quarterback at Trinity who went on to play the position at Tulsa, Wall emerged as a candidate the last time the Trinity School Board opened the job during a long-standing clash between Dalton and members of the school board. At one point, Rich Piccinini was hired as Trinity's football coach, but the board elected to table the hire and retained Dalton later the same day. Piccinini is now the football coach at Peters Township.

Wall was a three-year starter at Trinity and started 11 games at Tulsa, where he also spent two years as a grad assistant. Wall lives in Texas, where he's a social studies teacher and an offensive assistant at Class 4A Georgetown High School.

One snag in hiring Wall could be financial. Another could be luring him away from coaching in Texas.

Other candidates include former Duquesne University offensive coordinator Niel Loebig, former Waynesburg and California coach Joe Kuhns and former McGuffey coach Derek Bochna. Former Washington coach Bill Britton, who served as an assistant at Trinity for Dalton, is a favorite of the players. Britton has head coaching history plus a knowledge of the program and players. According to sources, Britton has not been interviewed but it could be because of familiarity.

Washington & Jefferson offensive line coach Todd Young is believed to be a candidate. A dark-horse could be Washington's Mike Bosnic.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would have to think that Bosnic is a front runner. He has taken over a program that was in bad shape and has produced a winner. What do you think his chances are Mike?

mike_kovak said...

Definitely a decent chance.

Slash said...

Kuhns was hired at Waynesburg University to coach defensive line. Are you sure he is a candidate?

mike_kovak said...

Very solid source told me he interviewed. ... Great hire for WU. Good coach.

Slash said...

I agree, he is a good coach. Any chance Trinity gives him a shot?

mike_kovak said...

If they interviewed him, I'd say he has a shot.

Anonymous said...

Any news on if they hired someone?

Anonymous said...

Did they hire a coach?

Anonymous said...

Any word on who they are offerng the job after last nights meeting??

mike_kovak said...

Football hiring tabbed for April 5 according to story in Saturday's O-R.

One name to keep in mind is Westminster College cornerbacks coach Pat Colligan.

Anonymous said...

Another FB job is supposed to be filled tonight. Anybody hear who is getting the Fort Cherry job?

Anonymous said...

Mike
Are you serious with this westminster guy? Give me a break!

Anonymous said...

colligan didn't get a first interivew, let alone a second.

fort cherry is going to hold off hiring and may well re-advertise.

down the tubes said...

Most of the 10 interviewed wanted teaching jobs too which eliminated them. Westminster guy sounds like a default hire to me.

Anonymous said...

Probably gonna get yelled at but I have to speak my mind, sounds to me that the super and his buddy neil gordon are going to try and hand pick this one for the coyle kid.

Reasons
Loebig can't take it without a job for his wife and move from 2,000 miles away,
Wall can't take it without and administrator posititon and a speach pathology job for his wife which i'm sure would go over real well in the budget cut era.
Coyle can take the job with just a step 5 teaching salary. Bada Bing only in america hopefully the crazy board gets involved since only the ad and super were in the first round and decided who got first round interviews.

Anonymous said...

Fix Job Going on over there you think they would get the best guy to put the dalton thing to bed.

Anonymous said...

Fix Job Going on over there you think they would get the best guy to put the dalton thing to bed.

Anonymous said...

Who ever gets hired will be a teacher... No doubt !!