Pine-Richland bands together after turmoil
As Pine-Richland’s football team went through a practice Monday morning at its stadium, music blared from a speaker sitting on the field at the 50-yard line. A few players danced here and there.
But the music is in stark contrast to what Pine-Richland’s team and coaches would prefer. These
Rams would like to quiet the noise.
That noise around Pine-Richland’s program was thunderous in the spring when coach Eric Kasperowicz and his entire staff was let go by the school board and administration. The rest of the story is well-known. Kasperowicz’s ouster put the team and the Pine-Richland community into an uproar.
uproar. There were rallies for Kasperowicz, contentious school board meetings and even a lawsuit filed by Kasperowicz for defamation of character. But the school went ahead and hired Steve Campos as the new coach, and now it’s time for Pine-Richland football to move on with a new staff, preseason camp and a new season.
Monday was the start of five heat-acclimatization practices for all high school football teams in Pennsylvania, as mandated by the PIAA. Essentially, it’s the start of training camp. Practice with full pads and full contact begins next week. At Pine-Richland, Monday was the start of Camp Campos — and the Rams are liking some quiet time.
“The kids have been great,” Campos said. “The only time there were any issues was obviously when all the stuff was going on before. They were getting a lot of outside influences. They couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. But once we started workouts, coaches starting coming, everything calmed down.”
Probably no coach in the entire WPIAL will be under the microscope more than Campos this season, rightly or wrongly. He knows it, too. Kasperowicz won four WPIAL titles and two state championships in his eight seasons. The school said the reason for Kasperowicz’s removal was an investigation that revealed hazing and bullying in the program. Kasperowicz denied the charges.
“The noise is gone for now,” Campos said. “It’s going to fire back up soon when articles start to be written and we get close to playing Friday nights. There will be comparisons and the whole nine yards. People will say we won’t be doing this right or that right. But the bottom line is winning. Winning takes care of everything.”
Cole Boyd will be the starting quarterback this season. He is a promising senior who has been waiting his turn to take over.
“I think all the noise will be quieted when people see we’re not changing,” Boyd said. “We’re still the same PR that’s going to win a bunch of games. I hear the noise if I maybe wear something Pine-Richland out in public. People come up and ask a bunch of questions. They want to know, how’s the new coach or how we’re doing? I have the same answer. There was some adversity and we have to get through it. The group of guys we have is set and we’ll get through this.”
Campos has almost 40 years of coaching experience, much of it as an assistant coach at the small-college and high school levels. He had been the quarterbacks coach at Seneca Valley the past nine years. He is a 1976 graduate of New Brighton High School.
As his team practiced under a hot sun Monday morning, Campos stood on the track next to the field and talked about how he likes what he sees of his players and how his toughest task so far was hiring coaches.
“I’ve got these bags under my eyes from just getting coaches,” Campos said. “I was hired so late [June 3] that other coaches were hesitant to leave their teams. They had already made a commitment to their team and there aren’t a lot of coaches out there to begin with.”
Max DeVinney, a 2018 Pine-Richland graduate and former backup quarterback for the Rams, is the offensive coordinator. Zach Richert, a 2008 Pine-Richland graduate who also played for the Rams and then Duquesne University, is the defensive coordinator. (Richert is the son of well-known KDKA radio personality Larry Richert.) The line coach is Steve Buches, a former Pitt player who used to be an assistant at Penn Hills.
When asked if he feels any pressure, Campos said: “Yes and no. I’ve been down this road before. You’re going to have pressure no matter what, but you only have pressure if you let the pressure take advantage of you. I feel comfortable with what we have, but we open up with a brutal schedule.”
Pine-Richland has only a few starters back on offense and defense, but there is still plenty of talent.
“The bottom line is you have to believe in yourselves,” Campos said. “We know what we’re doing. It’s my job to coach these coaches up. Everything is getting done. The kids know if you can coach. Kids know if you can’t coach. It’s not an issue of that. It’s an issue of just accepting what is taking place.”
There are still signs of Kasperowicz’s imprint on his team, though. The players convinced Campos to let them play music during practice, just like the Kasperowicz days. The spread offense is pretty much the same. Even many of the hand signals used to send in plays are the same. The defensive philosophies are similar to before.
“We have three goals: Win the conference, win the WPIAL and win the state,” Campos said. “There’s no doubt we have kids who are great looking, but with no playing time, can they do it? Sure they can do it.”
Added Boyd: “We’re just trying to keep in our own bubble right now. We’ll have fans back in the stadium this year. This will all be fresh for a majority of our guys and we know we’ve got a lot of eyes on us this year. But we also know we’re not going to back down to anyone, either.”