Aug 20, 2019 4 min read

Another long-time, Washington County high school baseball coach has retired.

Frank Pryor, baseball coach at Beth-Center for 31 years retired Monday night. The school board accepted his retirement by a 7-0 vote.

Pryor, 64, who will remain as a teacher in the district, was with the Bulldogs’ baseball program for 33 years. He served as an assistant coach to Romaine Howell in 1986 and 1987 before taking over the program in 1988.

In June, Peters Township High School baseball coach, Joe Maize, retired after 35 years, 422 victories, and two WPIAL championships.

They were the deans of high school baseball coaches in Washington County. Bentworth’s Dion Jansante is now the most tenured with 30 years at the helm.

Pryor won more than 275 games in his coaching career at Beth-Center.

The 1972 Beth-Center graduate thanked his family, wife, Patty, son, Nick, and daughter, Frankie, for their love and support.

“I also am thankful to the Beth-Center School District, to my assistant coaches and all the coaches in Washington, Fayette and Greene counties I coached against all of these years.

“It’s been a lot of fun and I have a lot of good memories.”

Under Pryor, Beth-Center won four section championships and qualified for the WPIAL playoffs 10 times.

One of his best teams was the 2011 Bulldogs, who went 13-4 overall and shared the section championship with California.

Beth-Center defeated Vincentian in the first round of the WPIAL Class A playoffs before losing to Neshannock, 7-6, in the quarterfinals. The Lancers defeated the Bulldogs twice that season and won the WPIAL title.

The Bulldogs have moved in classifications multiple times during Pryor’s tenure, going from Class AA to Single-A and back to Double-A and currently are in Class AAA.

Pryor and Maize have a relationship that dates back to their high school playing days. Maize is a Waynesburg Central High School graduate. The two competed against each other in college; Pryor at West Virginia University, Maize at Slippery Rock.

Beth-Center and Peters Township played for more than 25 years during the coaching tenure of Pryor and Maize.

Maize also worked at Pryor’s Washington-Greene County School of baseball, along with current and long-time Jefferson-Morgan coach John Curtis, during the summers for about 10 years.

“One thing about Frank, he wears his heart on his sleeve,” Maize said. “Frank is a tremendous person and a quality coach. Frank loves the game of baseball. His teams were always well-coached and disciplined.”

As a player, Pryor was a strong performer for the Bulldogs then walked on at WVU, where he earned a baseball scholarship from former Mountaineers’ coach, the late Dale Ramsburg.

Pryor, an outfielder, played for WVU from 1973-77. He received a tryout from the Pittsburgh Pirates, who he trained with for a few weeks in Bradenton, Fla.

He later served as a graduate assistant to Ramsburg and was part of the Mountaineers’ 1982 squad that was two outs away from advancing to the NCAA College World Series in Omaha, Neb., before losing to South Carolina in the East Regional.

WVU won the Eastern 8 (later known as the Atlantic 10) Conference in 1982 and qualified for NCAA tournament for the first time since 1967.

“I’ve been blessed,” Pryor said of his baseball playing and coaching career, “truly blessed.”

Pryor has served as a physical education, health education and driver’s education teacher at Beth-Center. He also was an athletic director for the Bulldogs.

He taught one year in the Brownsville School District, where he was an assistant football coach for one season under Tom Doman.

Pryor pointed to three players during his reign at Beth-Center: Matt Waugh, Matt Sabatini and Scott Swinchock, who all enjoyed successful collegiate careers. Waugh played at Pitt. Sabatini was a catcher at LaRoche and Swinchock was an All-American at Allegheny College.

Swinchock was part of the Gators’ NCAA Division III Word Series team in 2000, considered the school’s greatest baseball team. Allegheny finished third in the World Series.

“They all had stellar careers,” Pryor noted.

In addition to his baseball prowess, Pryor was an outstanding basketball official at the high school and collegiate level, before retiring from it about 10 years ago.

He worked NCAA Division I and II games – 13 years in Division I and 26 years in Division II.

Pryor and fellow Beth-Center graduate, Rich Kotarsky, were two of the three officials for Kobe Bryant’s last scholastic game in the PIAA Championships at Hersheypark Arena.

He currently serves as an evaluator of officials for a number of conferences and organizations, including the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, Eastern College Athletic Conference and PIAA and WPIAL.