Feb 12, 2018 3 min read

When Jason Cardillo resigned as head coach of Canon-McMillan’s wrestling team at the end of last season, there was concern about finding his replacement.

Canon-McMillan has a great pedigree in the sport and draws the most notice of any other wrestling team in the area.

Cardillo’s replacement would have to have a good background in wrestling, be able to handle the demanding fan base and, most important, be a fine tactician from the corner chair.

Jeff Havelka, Cardillo’s replacement, was the perfect choice.

Havelka is the son of Terry Havelka, who was the longtime wrestling coach at Burgettstown High School, so he had a solid background.

Havelka was a two-time NCAA Division II national qualifier at the University of Findlay in Ohio. He was a four-year letterwinner, a two-time captain and three-time NCAA Academic All-American.

So he had the skills and the smarts to be a coach.

He honed those skills more as an assistant coach under Ron Headlee at Waynesburg University and head coach at Chartiers-Houston High School before going to Canon-McMillan.

But a proper résumé can be useless if a coach can’t handle a team. Havelka showed he could do so with these Big Macs.

A good, but not great, team, the Big Macs reached the finals of the WPIAL Class AAA Team Tournament, where a favored Kiski team needed all 14 weight classes to win the title.

In the state event, the Big Macs won two dual meets on the final day that could have easily been lost.

The first came in the consolation quarterfinals against a strong Central Dauphin team. A 25-24 win was secured when Logan Macri won by technical fall in the last match.

Canon-McMillan did not wrestle well in the consolation semifinals. But Havelka made the moves needed to win the match: putting Macri on Louis Newell, a state runner-up last season. Then, Jacob Gardner won a 2-1 decision in the final bout to ice the dual meet, 27-23.

The only losses in Hershey came against Erie Cathedral Prep, which had the type of firepower at the top of the lineup that the Big Macs could not match.

Despite the loss in the third-place match, the Big Macs were in a celebratory mood with lots of smiles and laughter. Maybe they understood that this team went deeper into the tournament than some believed possible.

Now, the emphasis changes with the individual tournaments ready to get underway. It’s a different type of coaching than in the team event.

Havelka has shown the ability to handle this job and, with more talent coming from the middle school program, the future looks bright.

The Big Macs face that future with the knowledge the school hired the right man for the job.

Assistant Sports Editor Joe Tuscano can be reached at jtuscano@observer-reporter.com.