Staley pick no shock to many

Chargers new head coach has been committed to game ever since his young days at Perry

Young and impressionable eyes were on the Perry football team as it sweated through fall practice at Alumni Stadium back in the mid1990s.

As the Pirates went through their daily practices, Coach Bob Ritley and his staff noticed two boys sitting in the bleachers watching every move the players and coaches made.

The boys weren’t causing any trouble. In fact, they were attentive and deeply engrossed in what was going on in front of them.

“I think Rit finally just asked them if they wanted to be ball boys,” said Pat Giannell, a Perry assistant under Ritley.

Those two boys were Brandon Staley and his twin brother Jason.

Brandon Staley has been an attentive student of the game ever since his days at Perry. Two-and-a-half decades later, Staley is now 38 years old and the new head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers.

The Chargers announced Staley’s elevation from defensive coordinator to head coach late on Jan. 17.

It’s a move that surprised few — if any — who has known Staley since his days growing up in the Perry community.

“Those boys were always around, always wanted to play catch, run routes and know what was going on,” said Tim Ritley, son of legendary Perry coach Bob Ritley, who was a high schooler when the Staley boys religiously came to his team’s practices. “My dad loved those boys. Looking back, now it’s like, ‘Yeah, this makes sense. Brandon is right where he should be right now.’ “

Mike Ryan, another former Perry assistant who worked with Staley, agreed.

“I’m not really surprised,” Ryan said. “He’s such a student of the game. He’s such a sponge — he soaks in knowledge like a sponge. His brother, Jason, was the same way. They knew the numbers and names of every one of their opponents. And they knew what every single person on their side of the ball was supposed to do on every play.”

Athletically and academically, Staley was pretty much the All-American boy growing up in Perry. He was an outstanding athlete, starting for Ritley at quarterback on the football field and starting for three years on Cliff Hunt’s basketball team.

Academically, he was brilliant.

“He was all business,” Giannell said. “He got A’s in my world history class. Always attentive and focused.”

Of course, he produced on the football field and on the basketball court.

But it’s what he did OFF the field and OFF the court that got the attention of his former coaches.

Staley was preparationplus.

Perhaps he got that from his father, Bruce, who was the youth football coach of the Staley boys and served as an assistant high school coach in basketball for Hunt for a while.

These were the days before the Hudl app online. It wasn’t like clicking with a mouse to call up scouting reports.

The Staley days were all about VHS tapes and maybe a CD or two.

“He’d sit there an analyze film,” Giannell said. “That was in the days of videotapes. Coach Ritley would give him tape and Brandon would study them.”

Staley did not play defense in high school, nor in college when he played at Dayton. However, since he was such a meticulous student of the game, he KNEW what defenses were going to attempt to do against the offenses he was leading.

How to attack defenses is probably what made him such an advanced mind in the NFL, Ryan said — he knew what teams would try to do to attack his defense and fixed those holes.

“I’m sure that played into his success,” Ryan said. “He was always prepared. He knew what WE were going to do, but he also knew what the other team was going to do.”

Hunt chuckled when thinking about that type of meticulous detail Staley had then and likely still has today.

The self-discipline Staley had was different than most teenagers Hunt had ever encountered.

“I remember picking him and my son Chad up from a five-star basketball camp in Pittsburgh,” Hunt said. “Brandon’s side of the dorm room was in perfect order. He’s just so organized. His locker at the school was always the neatest. He has such a mind for organization, and that’s very important if you’re going into coaching.”

Hunt noted that Staley was always working to get an advantage over the opposition.

“He was always a very meticulous kid,” Hunt said. “He did everything right. He made sure of it. If you wanted to know the most recent cool move or how to do something, let me tell you, he made sure he knew how to do it.”

There’s no doubt Perry Village is leaving a mark on the NFL.

The son of former Perry quarterback Dave Trubisky, Mitchell, is the starting quarterback for the Chicago Bears.

Tight end Luke Farrell just finished his final year at Ohio State and is expected to be selected in this spring’s NFL draft.

Now Pirate Nation can boast having one of only 32 head coaches in the NFL in Brandon Staley.

“That’s pretty rare stuff,” Hunt said.

Said Ryan: “I’m a Chargers fan now. With those late games, it looks like, I’m going to be losing some sleep now.”

SUBMITTED Brandon Staley in high school.

Staley