Championship high school football coach and longtime basketball official
He was a high school football head coach for 21 seasons at four different schools and won the only WPIAL title at old Bellevue High School. He also was an athletic director and officiated high school and major-college basketball for a few decades.
Obviously, Earl Ceh had a penchant for working with kids. But maybe there was no better example of that than what Mr. Ceh did when he retired as a coach, AD and official.
“He then went and drove a school bus for 20-some years,” said Mr. Ceh’s son, Bob.
Earl Ceh died Jan. 11 at UPMC Centers for Rehab Services in Zelienople of complications from COVID19. A longtime resident of Bellevue who lived the past few years in McCandless, Mr. Ceh was 89.
Mr. Ceh might be remembered for his coaching success, but those who played for him and coached with him remember his oldschool style and his love for sports — and kids.
Mr. Ceh (pronounced Check) was North Hills High School’s coach from 1974-77, and one of his assistants was a young, motivated guy named Jack McCurry. When Mr. Ceh retired from coaching, Mr. McCurry took over and had a legendary career, winning 281 games (fourth on the all-time WPIAL list).
“When I think back, the thing that Earl contributed to me wasn’t X’s and O’s,” Mr. McCurry said. “It was how to deal with kids — and people. Yeah, Earl could be tough, but all those coaches back then were. I still say his biggest attribute was how to deal with kids, and not just the star players, but all kids. He was a big influence on me as a young coach.”
Mr. Ceh and his late wife, Alice, had six children, but Mr. Ceh’s extended family included all those athletes he coached. Bellevue won its 1963 WPIAL title with a 10-0 record and beat Avella, 21-18, in the title game at Mt. Lebanon. Darrall Eskridge scored the winning touchdown on a 75-yard kickoff return after Avella had taken an 18-14 lead.
Ray Peters was one of the running backs on Bellevue’s 1963 team, and he tells of those days when the Bulldogs won a home game, the band would parade through Main Street in Bellevue after the contest.
Mr. Peters went on to be a head coach at Hampton High School and now lives in St. Petersburg, Fla., but he stayed in touch with Mr. Ceh for years.
When Mr. Peters came back to Pittsburgh in 2014 for his 50-year class reunion, Mr. Ceh showed up and sat with him.
“He changed my life when I was a kid,” Mr. Peters said. “I wanted to be an electrical engineer and go to Carnegie Mellon. When I started playing football and started playing for [Mr. Ceh], I said I wanted to play and then teach and coach.
“I remember he was real strict, and we used to scrimmage all the time in practice. But he made sure you ran everywhere. We ran a lot in practice, and I remember you always used to run out of the huddle to the line — and there was never any talking going on.”
Mr. Peters went on to play college football at IUP for legendary coach Chuck Klausing.
“If you have Earl Ceh and Chuck Klausing as two coaches, you’ve had a pretty lucky life, and you should probably turn out to be a pretty good person,” Mr. Peters said.
Mr. Ceh also played football at old Millvale High School and then at IUP. He began his head coaching career at Bellevue in 1957 and left after the 1964 season, compiling a 54-15-2 overall record. Mr. Ceh, who also spent many years as a schoolteacher, was then the first coach at new Keystone Oaks High School in 1965 and stayed there for three seasons before taking over Fox Chapel for one year. He returned to coach Bellevue in 1969 and had a 38-6-1 record before leaving for North Hills in 1974. In 21 seasons overall, Mr. Ceh had a 126-51-4 record.
“I know he loved his time at North Hills as coach and athletic director,” Bob Ceh said.
Earl Ceh was never one to hide an opinion, and Bob Ceh found that out often. Bob Ceh followed his father’s footsteps and got into coaching. He was Seneca Valley’s coach for four seasons in the early 2000s and chuckles at how his father used to offer coaching advice.
“Football sometimes brought us closer together and sometimes further apart,” Bob Ceh said. “I remember saying to him once, ‘OK, Dad, I’ll redesign my whole defense just because you think I should blitz more.’ ”
Basketball officiating was also a major part of Earl Ceh’s life. He is in a few halls of fame as a coach but was inducted into the Western Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame as a basketball official in 1980. Besides high school, he officiated Pitt, Duquesne, Penn State and other major-college games.
“He loved that officiating,” Bob Ceh said. “I remember he used to always talk about people who said to him, ‘Hey, that wasn’t the right call.’ He used to say, ‘Well it’s the only call I’m making, and it’s over.’
“He once told me that if a player said to him, ‘Hey, I didn’t foul him,’ he would answer back, ‘Well, you should’ve because I called it.’ ”
Those are some memorable lines from Earl Ceh, but he will be remembered for so much more.
Bob Ceh said, “I just know he left a big imprint on a lot of people.”
Besides Bob Ceh, of Mars, Earl Ceh is survived by five other children: Joann Fornadley, of Hershey, Pa.; Karen Humphries, of Ohio Township; Jim, of Greensboro, N.C.; Bill, of Allentown, Pa.; and Nancy Metz, of Richmond, Va.; 18 grandchildren and seven greatgrandchildren.
Funeral Mass was Friday; burial was private.