Salvino resigns as Monessen football coach
Joe Salvino gets an ‘A’ for effort, even if his stay as football coach for Monessen High School’s football team did not go as planned.
Salvino resigned as the Greyhounds football coach at Wednesday’s school board meeting, ending a two-year stay that produced a 6-13 record, 1-9 this season.
“It was one of those things where I didn’t plan to stay that long,” said Salvino. “There were other factors, such as the time I had to spend and my age.”
The 65-year-old Salvino will remain as the varsity boys basketball coach, a position he has held for 33 years and won more than 600 games.
“It’s hard to take on two varsity sports,” Salvino said. “I’m not sure football was the top priority. The last two years, we struggled with numbers. It’s hard to have rules for kids who know they have to play. I felt it was time to step down.”
Salvino replaced Andy Pacak, who was not retained after a 4-5 season in 2014. The Greyhounds went 5-4 last season, finishing tied for fourth place with Springdale and out of the playoffs in the Class A Eastern Conference. This year, Monessen went 1-9 and tied Jefferson-Morgan for last place with 1-6 records in the Tri-County South Conference.
“Football and basketball go all year round now,” said Salvino. “It’s very time consuming and that makes it hard.”
Salvino supports Mike Blainfield, an assistant on his staff, to replace him as football coach. Salvino said he would be open to returning as an assistant coach at some point.
“Numbers are the big thing,” Salvino said, whose roster shrank by about a third from the 34 who broke camp. “We have some numbers in the middle school coming up. One of the big things was that in the past year, we only had one father, who played football at Monessen, whose son played on the team. There are more in the middle school. That’s a big thing.”