May 24, 2013 3 min read

Paul Kreuzer believes one of the key factors in the success of West Greene High School football team is communication.

He’s not just talking about getting the right play called on offense or the correct alignment on defense – though both of those are important. Kreuzer also means communicating better with the players, parents and community.

That will be high on his to-do list after Kreuzer was hired to be the Pioneers varsity football coach at Thursday night’s West Greene School Board meeting. Kreuzer replaces John Coss, who led the Pioneers to a 4-5 last season but resigned at the end of March.

“My theory is to get to know the parents and develop a relationship with them through communication,” said the 44-year-old Kreuzer, who works for Erie Insurance. “Each year that I coached junior high for football and basketball, the numbers increased. We got them to do things they hadn’t done before. We have to develop a relationship without walls to the players, community and parents. I think when the proper messages are not conveyed back and forth, it leads to a lot of misunderstanding.”

Kreuzer has an extensive coaching background. After graduating from West Greene in 1986 – he played quarterback and defensive end on the football team – Kreuzer attended Washington & Jefferson College, where he played defensive end under John Luckhardt for two years. He was an assistant coach at Waynesburg High School under Scott Orndoff and a junior high coach under Dave Sarra. Kreuzer spent four seasons as an assistant coach at West Greene under Larry Piper and has been the junior high coach at WG for the past five seasons.

“I’d like to stay with a pro-style offense, but we’re not set in stone year to year,” Kreuzer said. “We’ll evaluate who we have and what fits. We have speed and a lot of kids on the honor roll, so they’re smart players.

“On defense, we’ll adapt. We’ll play a lot of (four-man fronts) but we could change to a three or five with our adjustments.”

West Greene loses five seniors from last year’s team, but they were some of the better players. Quarterback Dalton Wildman returns, as does much of the line.

“I see a lot of talent, and I see a lot of potential with these kids,” Kreuzer said. “I think we can get a lot out of them. They are passionate about it, and they haven’t reached their full potential yet.”