Don’t call high school football coaches disloyal, not dedicated, not willing to sacrifice. You couldn’t be more off-base on any of those three characteristics.

Two prime examples are two Butler County head football coaches who called it quits at their respective schools recently: Knoch’s Frank Whalen and Summit Academy’s Steve Sherer.

Their circumstances and schools are radically different.

Their passion for youth and football are exactly the same.

Whalen is leaving Knoch after only two seasons due to a work conflict. His job entails him driving to Philadelphia once or twice a week for business. It’s hard to coach a high school football team here while doing that.

Whalen probably would have resigned prior to this season — he learned of his new work duties during the summer — but the Knights were hit by a bevy of preseason injuries.

In his words, the Knoch football team was “reeling” and he wasn’t about to leave it in that state. So he sucked it up, put up with the travel and guided his team to a .500 season resulting in a near playoff berth. Knoch lost out on a tiebreaker.

Sherer had coached at Summit Academy for 18 seasons. While Whalen won five games this year, Sherer won five games at Summit only once. And that team missed the playoffs.

Sherer had a career winning rate of 28 percent at the court-adjudicated school. But he never had any returning players. Most of his kids had never played organized football or been part of any type of team.

His WPIAL opponents had youth programs in place and always had returning players to work with.

It was a disadvantage Sherer faced every year. He didn’t care about that. He cared about turning troubled kids’ lives around.

Whalen and Sherer recognize high school football for what it is — an extracurricular educational tool.

Sherer retired at age 67. Whalen had to commit to his job.

High school coaches come and go for various reasons

We should all appreciate their dedication and selflessness while they’re here.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle