Wagner hired as Charleroi girls basketball coach
The last few months have been marked by coaches and staff leaving the Charleroi High School athletic department.
Former football coach Don Militzer had his position opened. Kevin Lee, the varsity girls basketball coach, stepped down. And longtime athletic director Bill Wiltz was bumped from his full-time position by a 4-3 vote not to extend his contract.
That’s not the case with Bill Wagner.
Wagner – a former four-year starter for the Cougars boys basketball team, a 1,000-point scorer and an inductee in the Charleroi Area High School Hall of Fame – was hired to coach the varsity girls basketball program.
“I enjoy coaching,” Wagner said. “When there was an opening and an opportunity to help my community (as the coach), I figured I would give it a try.”
Wagner, 39, has spent the last two seasons as an assistant for Lee on the varsity team. He has been the boys and girls middle-school coach for five years, giving him the advantage coaching most of the same players twice.
“Familiarity is a huge factor,” Wagner said. “They already know my coaching style and what to expect. I know what (coaching) techniques work for certain players and what doesn’t work for others. Every kid is different.”
Mickey Hornack, Wagner’s coach at Charleroi when he scored 1,463 points in his high school career before graduating in 1997, and Trey Tilghman will remain as assistants.
“That makes my job so much easier,” Wagner said. “We know what one another is thinking. We have the same philosophy. Most of what I do came from Mickey. We are on the same page with everything, whether it be expectations or offenses and defenses we are planning to run.”
A senior-dominated team this past winter with Kaitlyn Riley, Maria Claybaugh and Sierra Short, Charleroi went 19-3 before getting upset in the first round of the WPIAL Class 3A playoffs by Apollo-Ridge. Two seasons ago, the Cougars went 19-6 and qualified for the WPIAL and PIAA tournament.
The process of maintaining that success and building a program is what Wagner plans to focus on.
“That group of seniors was tremendously talented,” Wagner said. “It has to start at the youth level. I have to go into the youth level and go from there to build a foundation. It’s going to be tough these next couple of years. Our numbers aren’t great, we don’t have much size and aren’t going to be very deep. I will need time to put my plan and my program in place. It’s going to take a couple of years.”