Nov 1, 2023 4 min read

Rossi resigns at South Fayette

Joe Rossi, one of the most successful football coaches in the WPIAL, announced Wednesday on the social media site formerly known as Twitter that he plans to resign at South Fayette.

Rossi has been South Fayette’s coach for 17 years. Under Rossi, South Fayette won 10 conference championships and qualified for the WPIAL playoffs 13 times. The Lions won four WPIAL championships and two state titles.

Eight times, South Fayette finished undefeated in the regular season under Rossi’s direction.

This year, South Fayette finished with a 4-6 overall record, including a 1-4 mark in the rugged Class 5A Allegheny Six Conference.

At South Fayette, Rossi had a 157-43 record. He started his coaching career at Riverview and has a career record of 183-66.

Rossi and his wife, Karli, have four children who range from a seventh-grader to a sophomore in college. Rossi’s son, Charlie, is a wide receiver at Princeton.

In the NFL

Cleveland quarterback Deshaun Watson returned to practice Wednesday after playing only 12 snaps in the past four games with an injured right shoulder that has become a daily topic of conversation for the Browns and their fans.

It’s a significant step for Watson, who didn’t practice at all last week because of the injury, which he sustained on Sept. 24 against Tennessee. It was his best game in 10 starts since being acquired by the Browns in 2022.

In the NHL

The Ottawa Senators made an abrupt change at general manager Wednesday after the NHL decided to dock them a first-round draft pick for their role in a trade between two other teams that was invalidated last year.

Owner Michael Andlauer announced that longtime GM Pierre Dorion had resigned and would be replaced on an interim basis by Steve Staios. Andlauer said the team being forced to forfeit a first-rounder in 2024, 2025 or 2026 was the last straw that led him to make a change with the organization’s hockey operations department.

“We were negligent,” said Andlauer, who took over control of the team in September after agreeing to buy the franchise in June. “Our duty of care was ignored. … At the end of the day, we were downright negligent.”

The league announced the punishment hours earlier, nearly 22 months since the trade in question led to an investigation and found Ottawa’s front office at fault.

The Senators traded forward Evgenii Dadonov to Vegas in July 2021 and failed to supply the Golden Knights with the player’s 10-team no-trade list. Vegas attempted to send Dadonov to the Anaheim Ducks in March 2022 before the move was nixed by NHL Central Registry because he had not waived his no-trade clause.

• Washington Capitals center Nicklas Backstrom is taking a leave of absence from the team because of what he called an “ongoing injury situation” after a slow start to the season on his artificial left hip.

In auto racing

After a mediocre NASCAR season with its current Mustang, Ford Performance said Wednesday it will use its top-of-the-line Dark Horse in the Cup Series next year.

The Dark Horse is considered the blue-ribbon model of the Mustang lineup, with a starting price tag for consumers close to $60,000.

Ryan Blaney will be in a Ford on Sunday at Phoenix Raceway when he challenges for the championship in the final race for the current model. The Dark Horse will make its NASCAR debut in the February exhibition opener.