Apr 3, 2018 3 min read

With fewer than five months until the high school football regular season, Ringgold is still without a head coach.

After its third application process ended last Wednesday, Ringgold athletic director Laura Grimm is hopeful that a hire will be made at the district’s school board meeting April 18.

“We accepted applications and got a really promising pool of applicants,” Grimm said.

“I was pleasantly surprised with not just the quantity but quality.”

Ringgold began its search in November after Nick Milchovich resigned following the Rams’ final game of the season against Trinity. Milchovich was the head coach for four seasons, and the Rams qualified for the WPIAL playoffs three times.

Ringgold was close to hiring a coach at its mid-January board meeting, but the candidate who was expected to be hired removed himself from consideration only days before the meeting, citing personal reasons, Grimm said.

“It would have done nobody any good for him to get a few months into the job and then be forced to pull out,” Grimm said. “It’s not ideal. It wasn’t ideal. It hasn’t worked out as well as we would’ve liked. Hopefully, someone is in by the end of April.”

Grimm and others are expected to start interviewing candidates by the end of the week.

The weightlifting and conditioning programs after school are being supervised by Luke Trocchio, a teacher in the district who also is an assistant football coach at North Hills High School.

The biggest problems potential coaches encountered, including in-house candidates who chose not to apply for the job, were logistics and availability.

“We had some really quality people who would have loved to take the position but can’t be there in the afternoons until 4:30 p.m.,” she said. “We only have one field. We don’t have a practice field. It would have a ripple effect on other sports.”

Grimm, however, doesn’t feel pressured about making a decision in a hurry, admitting that teams with coaches are doing the exact same thing Trocchio is while volunteering his time. She is hoping to have a hire finalized soon to give a coach enough time to formulate an offseason plan.

“If we felt our backs were against the wall, we would have went a different direction,” Grimm said about opening up the position for a third time March 14.

“We know where our program is right now. We are looking for the demonstrated appearance of building a program. We want someone that will have a meaningful impact on the middle school and youth levels. It’s a much bigger picture. If we lay the foundation, we are going to really set ourselves up to be super successful in the future.”