Bethel Park’s Metheny resigns
Wants to watch son play in college
Another longtime WPIAL high school football coach who enjoyed plenty of success is walking away from the job.
Jeff Metheny told his Bethel Park team Tuesday morning that he has resigned as coach. Metheny coached Bethel Park for 25 seasons. He coached 33 years overall, and this past season became the 26th coach in WPIAL history to win 200 games.
Metheny’s decision comes a month after Upper St. Clair’s Jim Render retired after 49 seasons. Render was the winningest coach in WPIAL history. Also, West Allegheny coach Bob Palko resigned after this past season. His eight WPIAL titles are more than any coach in league history.
Metheny also coached at Waynesburg and Hampton before coming to Bethel Park. His all-time record is 205-144, including a 164-104 mark at Bethel Park. He won a WPIAL title at Bethel Park in 2008 and also made it to the PIAA championship game that season.
But Metheny, 56, made it clear that this is a resignation and not a retirement.
“There’s no question I’m not done with coaching,” Metheny said.
The main reason Metheny resigned was so he could watch his son, Levi, play more in college. Levi was a starting linebacker this past season at Albany.
“It’s the right thing for me to do at this time,” Metheny said. “I told the kids that I’m not done coaching, but right now I need to get up there [to Albany], watch my kid play and enjoy the whole process. My wife [Cindy] deserves that, too.”
Metheny expects to return to coaching when his son finishes playing.
“Some people in this community I’m sure are clapping up a storm that I’m leaving,” Metheny said, with a laugh. “It was a really tough decision. First of all, I have a couple more years left as a [physical education] teacher before I can retire. Secondly, I have a really good team coming back. I would’ve had 27 seniors on the roster next year and a lot of them played a lot, and some of them made allconference. They were kids I really liked. But that might be a reason to go now. The program is in good hands. It’s not a situation where I left when the cupboard was bare.
“This has more to do with just family and personal things. My wife is great. She’s taken care of our [two] kids all these years. I just coached the same way as when we didn’t have kids.”
Metheny had an interesting comment about Render and his time coaching at Upper St. Clair.
“Render made us better,” Metheny said. “There’s no question his program elevated Bethel Park because when we came here, no one beat Render in the conference.”
Metheny never has been one to name the best players he has coached. But when asked the best players he coached against, he quickly rattled off a few names.
“Aaron Donald [of Penn Hills] is right up there at the top and so is Sean Lee [of Upper St. Clair],” Metheny said. “I still remember [Pitt assistant coach] Bob Junko coming in here and asking what I thought of Donald. I told him he was one of the best players I’ve ever seen. Bob said Pitt wasn’t really interested in him at the time. It proves it’s not always about height.
“I’d also say the quarterback from Pine-Richland [Phil Jurkovec] was a pretty good one, too. I think he’s going to be a special kid.”