LATROBE — It would have been easy for BobColbert to stay nestled in the warmth and success of Bridgewater, Va.

The temptation to remain there was great. After all, in six years with the Bridgeport College football program — the last as the associate head coach — the Eagles went 64-11 and made a yearly pilgrimage to the Division III playoffs.

But something stirred in Colbert. Something drove him to take on a challenge few have tackled: starting a football program from scratch.

SaintVincent College offered him that test.

After a 45-year absence, Saint Vincent will field a football team this season and Colbert is the man at the top.

"I had a retirement job in Bridgewater," Colbert said. "We were winning. I had a nice place to live. My wife had a nice job. But I wanted do something different in my career."

Saint Vincent has 108 players on its roster, but very few who have played football at the collegiate level. Only six players are seniors.

Most of the rest are freshmen and sophomores, including Butler County recruits Steve Schnaubelt (Seneca Valley) and Joe Titler (Butler).

Colbert's recruiting pitch was simple: be part of something new and unique.

"That's what we preached to our recruits: do something different in your life," Colbert said. "We always make right-hand turns in life. Go out and make a left-hand turn."

The program started last season when the team conducted 29 practices, but played no games.

"It was very hard," said junior captain Matt Robinson, a 5-foot-9, 236-pound offensive lineman. "We went through grueling practices like any team would, but there was nothing at the end of the rainbow."

"It was like taking a test and not getting a grade," Colbert said.

The Bearcats will get their first grade Sept. 1 when they open the season at home at new Chuck Noll Field against Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf located in Washington, D.C.

Colbert was pleasantly surprised by the practice habits of his newly formed team last season.

He said they practiced as if they were preparing for a playoff game.

"That blew me away," Colbert said.

Success will not be measured in wins and losses for Saint Vincent this season.

The school joins the Presidents' Athletic Conference as a provisional member and will play a full conference schedule. The Bearcats won't be eligible for postseason play until 2010.

"How we are going to measure (success) is did we get this launched? Did we get this launched right? Did we get people in the stands? Did we get the college and Latrobe community excited? Did we build a foundation?" Colbert said. "If we do that, that's what we are going to term success."

Colbert, whose brother, Kevin, is the director of football operations for the PittsburghSteelers and a Butler County resident, said the pressure is on his brother nonetheless.

He went on a radio show recently and said the bar for success in the Colbert family is high.

"He better succeed," Kevin said, jokingly. "We have high standards in this family."

Kevin Colbert has been coming to Latrobe with the Steelers, who hold their training camp at the school, for eight years.

This one will be unlike the others, he said.

"When the Steelers leave this year, football won't be leaving with them," Kevin Colbert said.

While the Steelers were sweating it out on the practice field, Bob Colbert was waxing about the virtues of Division III college football.

"There's a great world of football out there that's not onESPN," Bob Colbert said. "I hope to be a part of that here."