ACCHS coaches familiar with playoff ride
Earlier this year, Rob Melosky got to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his Parkland state championship football team.
A few weeks later, Dan Kendra Sr. had his own special reunion with members of his undefeated 1972 Allentown Central Catholic football team.
Both Melosky and Kendra enjoyed those occasions because they got to relive some special memories from the past.
But as assistant coaches on the current ACCHS staff, Melosky and Kendra are getting to make more memories that they will be able to relive during future reunions.
The two veteran coaches are part of an all-star coaching staff head coach Tim McGorry has assembled, a brain trust that figures to have the Vikings as prepared as possible for the challenge posed by WPIAL powerhouse Aliquippa on Friday night.
It’s a mix of guys who McGorry coached with or coached as players and even a few he played for.
“There are a lot of guys who are Central Catholic guys, which I think is important because you need to understand the place and the things that are unique like having to go other places to practice,” McGorry said. “So you have me and Mike Cerimele, Paul Hagadus, Deionte Wilson, Alvin Pacheco, and Jason Dankel who all played at Central. These guys know that we don’t always get to walk out to our practice field. We have to be creative sometimes. That part is huge.”
McGorry said he loves having guys such as Melosky, Kendra, and Hagadus around who have all been on championship staffs before and know what it takes to make a run like the current Vikings are on.
“I’ve known most of these guys for years in some capacity, so there’s a familiarity with everyone on the staff and that makes it easier,” McGorry said. “One thing that’s been great with our staff is that everybody understands their role and no one complains about their role. That translates more than anything when you’re talking
about teamwork.”
McGorry said a great example of the unity is how everybody has pitched in after Don Leauber, team’s equipment manager, underwent back surgery and has been out for more than a month.
“Guys have stepped up from driving the van to games and to practice and making sure we have everything we need,” McGorry said. “Everybody is coaching all the time. We don’t have a lot of guys standing around and just BS’ing on the side while things are going on. Everybody is coaching on every snap whether it’s offense, defense or special teams.”
McGorry remembers being on the Moravian University coaching staff with Scot Dapp as a young coach.
“In his coaching manual, he stressed that everybody could have input,” McGorry said. “Everybody can talk and give their ideas and that’s important because everybody can feel valued. Not every idea is going to get used, but every idea gets heard. I’ve been on staffs before where you really weren’t allowed to talk. But I’ve also been an assistant on staffs where your opinions are heard and I felt more valued. That’s an important piece, especially with younger coaches.”
Melosky, who has been a head coach at Freedom, Nazareth and Pocono Mountain East in addition to Parkland, said he feels fortunate at this phase of his career to be working on such a well-rounded staff.
“I really enjoy working with Hags [Hagadus] on the offensive line,” Melosky said. “I’m his right-hand man during the week and then on Friday nights I’m up in the booth. Me, Hags, Mike Cerimele and Timmy work well together. We’re on the same wavelength and when you know that going in it really is a plus when you’re trying to move the ball and get first downs. Whenever everyone is speaking the same language, you can really get things clicking and that makes me feel good.”
Melosky said that the PIAA landscape has changed since Parkland made its run two decades ago.
“When they made the change to six classifications it came down to a numbers game and in 4A, there are not as many teams in the east and we’ve had to go west,” Melosky said. “Do I think it’s fair? Look, this is what we have. I think it has helped us in terms of preparation not knowing who you’re getting every game since we met Jersey Shore in the first round. We knew more about the North Penns or the LaSalles of the east in the old days. We didn’t know much about Meadville, but it’s helping us. Going west keeps us in the mindset of being focused and prepared.”
The coaches share the same belief that if you want to win a state championship, you have to prepare like a state
champion every day.
Hagadus has never won a state championship but had two cracks at it while with Jim Morgans at Parkland in 2007 and 2015. Both of those teams lost in Hershey.
He was involved in the building of the 1998 ACCHS state title team that was quarterbacked by McGorry. Even though he left for a teaching job at Pennridge that fall, he spent a lot of time in the weight room with those guys to the point he received a state championship ring.
“I work with Robbie on the O-line and with all of the prep and film work we have to do nowadays it’s really tough for one guy to do it, so we work together and I enjoy working with him,” Hagadus said. “I told my wife that getting this far is my reward for all the time I am away from home and going to the weight room and to passing camps and other stuff. This is the reward. Everyone talks about how special it is to be practicing on Thanksgiving. For me, it’s even more special to be practicing when the Christmas lights are on. When I’m driving home from practice and I’m seeing the lights and listening to Christmas music, that’s pretty cool.”
Hagadus said he sees a team that doesn’t want the season to end.
“Make no mistake, Aliquippa is going to be a great challenge,” Hagadus said. “But I truly believe that our kids believe they’re going to go out there and let it rip and see what happens.”
Hagadus said the coaches don’t want it to end either.
“I’ve been on a lot of good coaching staffs with people like Tommy Filipovits, Sam Senneca, John Quinn, Rich Sniscak and let me tell you this one is right up there,” Hagadus said. “It’s not just the coaching knowledge that makes it so great, but it’s also the camaraderie we have. You have a lot of successful guys here and sometimes egos can play a part, but you don’t have that here.”
McGorry said that ever since he was hired as head coach in March 2019, Hagadus, Cerimele, and Jeff Laird [the team’s coordinator] “have been with me every single day.”
“Whether it was in the weight room in the winter or in the summer, no matter it was, they were there every single day,” McGorry said. “With guys like that it’s more of a partnership than me being the head coach and they’re just part of the staff.”
The hard work and the credentials of the coaches carry weight with the players.
“We told the kids that on this staff we have coaches who played in state title games, they have coached in state title games and we have coaches who have won state titles,” Hagadus said. “I don’t know if you’re going to find that on too many staffs.”
Kendra was on the first Lehigh Valley coaching staff to win a state football team. He was with the legendary Bob Stem in 1988 when Bethlehem
Catholic was one of the first state champs crowned.
“We ended up playing in Altoona that first year,” Kendra said. “We thought next year we actually had a better team, but we lost in the semifinals to Montoursville on a freezing day up at Blue Mountain. Then the third year, 1990, we ended up winning it again in Hershey. But that was a long time ago.”
Kendra said he was a coach and teacher at Becahi and then worked in the medical field for 12 years and retired. He was looking for something more to do and he found it as a substitute teacher at Central. When Dan Dolphin, who led the Vikings lacrosse team to a PIAA gold in the spring of 2021 retired, the school had an opening for a gym teacher and Kendra took it and is in his second season working with the ACCHS quarterbacks.
“I go a long way back with Tim,” Kendra said. “When I was a player here in the 1970s, Pete Krah was the equipment man and he was our guy. We all loved Pete and Pete was Tim’s grandfather. I remember when I played for West Virginia we had a game at Syracuse when they played outside. I’m warming up on the sidelines and I get a tap on my shoulder and it’s Pete. I was talking with Bobby Bowden and here Pete comes up and taps me on the shoulder and wants to give me a cup of hot chocolate. Security tried to get him away and I said ‘Hey, that’s my father. He’s fine’ Those were the days.”
Kendra is hoping that the current Vikings players are making memories that they will want to tell decades down the road.
“We had our reunion for the 1972 team and when you think about 50 years, a half-century, it puts a lot in perspective and so many guys returned,” Kendra said. “It was great to see so many guys I hadn’t seen in years and we went out to Volpe’s afterward and we talked about so many things, things that they remembered but I didn’t. I try to convey that to these kids. They’re going through a similar thing and I tell them to take it all in because one day they’re going to talk about beating Jersey Shore in Williamsport in overtime in the snow. That’s something they’ll always remember.”
When Kendra was on the state-title staffs at Becahi in 1988 and 1990 the state tournaments were new and no one knew the lasting impact of being a state champ.
“Now you know what it’s all about and what it takes,” he said. “Now you know how tough it is to do it. So, when you get an opportunity like this you want to take advantage of it. We were 5-5 coming out of the regular season, but all of a sudden we’re playing with a lot of energy. The senior leadership on this team is spectacular. They grab the kids and pull them up. They don’t want this to end. When you get kids like that, it’s special.”