Whalen

JEFFERSON TWP — The miles simply caught up to Frank Whalen.

Knoch's varsity football head coach is stepping down from that position after two seasons. The Knights were 9-10 during his tenure, including 5-5 this year.

Whalen, 54, works for a bio-technical company.

“I used to just work around western Pennsylvania,” he said. “At the beginning of last summer, my job changed and I was assigned the entire state.”

Once or twice each week, Whalen has to drive to Philadelphia to work on selling his company's products to hospitals in that area.

“I'd have to drive there after practice on those days. It was pretty brutal,” Whalen said. “I told Kurt (Knoch athletic director Reiser) that I'd coach this year and that would be it.

“It's not just the football season. Afterwards, you have weight room work, summer workouts, etc. I couldn't be around for all of that.”

Whalen has been coaching football for 32 years. He said he will not coach anywhere next season.

“If I get my new territory settled in work-wise, I may look for an opportunity,” he said of coaching. “But it definitely won't be next year.”

Preseason injuries to the Knights convinced Whalen to stay on and coach this season. Knoch lost defensive end Tanner Grassi, nose guard Saavon Mosby and cornerback Joey Wojciechowski during the preseason.

“That's six positions because all of those guys play both ways,” Whalen said. “We got Joey back late in the season and he made a difference in a couple of games.

“We were reeling as a football team in preseason. No way was I leaving those guys in that situation.”

The future of Knoch's triple option offense may depend on who takes over as head coach. A couple of Knoch assistant coaches are reportedly interested and applications will likely come in from outside the school district.

“I don't know what will happen with it, but you can't argue with the numbers,” Whalen said of his offense. “We averaged about 28 points per game and we dominated time of possession in pretty much all of our games.

“Matt Goodlin broke the school rushing record and quarterback Chase Mullen ran for 800 yards himself. Besides, no one else in our conference runs that offense, so opposing scout teams have two days to try to simulate what we do.”

Knoch's quarterback and main running back from 2017 — Jake Herrit and Ivan Stapchuk — are freshmen on the Gannon University roster this season.

“Despite all of our injuries and adversity, we won more games this year than Knoch has won since 2012,” Whalen said. “I'm proud of these boys and how they pulled together as a team.”