New Butler football coach Jim Rankin wasn’t kidding when he said the other day that he wasn’t looking forward to competing against his colleagues in the Quad North. What a collection of coaching legends!
Of the seven coaches in the conference, all but two — Don Holl at Seneca Valley and Mark Soboleski at Erie McDowell — have coached in the PIAA championship game.
The list includes two — Shaler’s Neil Gordon (Penn Hills) and North Allegheny’s Art Walker Jr. (Central Catholic) — who did it at other schools, plus Pine-Richland’s Clair Altemus, North Hills’ Jack McCurry and Rankin (North Allegheny).
Gordon, Walker, McCurry and Rankin are state title game winners, and Altemus nearly did it, losing in a snowstorm in 2003 to Manheim Central in double overtime.
