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Pat Tarquinio is in his 70s and still going strong as a high school football coach, only these days he's the assistant head coach at Hopewell High School. Head coach Dave Vestal has said he's going to keep Tarquinio, and his wealth of knowledge, around as long as possible. There aren't many assistants with as impressive a resume. Tarquinio was the head coach at Ellwood City for seven years, then moved on to Beaver where he guided the program from 1966 until being forced to resign in 1999. When he left Beaver, he was the winningest coach in the WPIAL with 269 victories. His record at Beaver was an impressive 241-101-11 and included WPIAL titles in 1972, '81 and '82. At Hopewell, he helped the Vikings win WPIAL and PIAA Class AAA titles in 2002. A graduate of Stowe High School and Juniata College, Tarquinio was an outstanding high school and college quarterback. He sat down and talked about his coaching career over breakfast recently with the Post-Gazette's Rich Emert.
Do you like being an assistant more than being a head coach?
Tarquinio: It's a little different, but I just enjoy coaching football. I'm glad I have the opportunity to continue to coach. I haven't missed a beat as far as coaching. When I left Beaver, (then) Hopewell coach Andy Robertson asked me if I'd come over to Hopewell and the very next year Dave (Vestal) got the job and asked me if I'd stay and help and I said sure if he'd like me to. I regret not having the opportunity to continue as the head coach at Beaver. I wasn't ready to give it up and we had developed a rich tradition. It would have been nice to see how much more we would have been able to do.
Many guys who have gone from head coaches to assistants have said they like being an assistant better because they didn't have to put up with things like the media, booster clubs and the like. How do you feel?
Tarquinio: That part is true. There are a lot of pluses (to being an assistant). There are no minuses as far as I'm concerned, I just wasn't ready to end the head coaching part at that time.
Being a part of Hopewell winning a PIAA title had to be a kick for you.
Tarquinio: It definitely was. To go to Hopewell and be a part of a WPIAL championship and to be runner-up one year ... it has been a great experience. And working with Dave, he's a great coach and person and the Hopewell kids have been great.
Didn't you have other opportunities when you left Beaver?
Tarquinio: Geneva College and a lot of other high schools asked if I wanted to join their programs. Andy Robertson was just pretty persistent at Hopewell. Plus, it wasn't a long way to travel and I didn't want to coach against a team that would play Beaver.
Do you think 15, 16 games is too much for high school teams?
Tarquinio: I think it is. I think the season is too long and too many teams go to the playoffs. We went from one extreme to the other ... to being undefeated and not having enough Gardner Points to play for a WPIAL title and now you can be 4-6 and get in.
Did you ever want to coach college ball?
Tarquinio: I had some opportunities to do that at Geneva and when (Duquesne University coach) Jerry Schmitt went to Westminster he talked to me about that, but never a major opportunity. When I first started coaching I thought I'd coach high school for a couple of years and then coach college ball. But I don't regret the way things turned out.
Was there a college coach you admired when you started out?
Tarquinio: Naturally, at the time, Joe Paterno. He was an assistant at Penn State when I started and then became the head coach my first year at Beaver. Joe recruited my brother Ron and came to the house, but my brother ended up going to Cincinnati instead.
(Paterno and his staff were watching the PIAA Class AAA championship game on TV when Hopewell played Strath Haven in 2002 and Paterno caught a glimpse of Tarquinio on the sideline. He supposedly asked, "Who is that? Is that Pat Tarquinio? What's he doing still coaching?)
Of course, I coached with (former Rams and Seahawks coach) Chuck Knox at Ellwood City. We played together at Juniata, but he was a couple years ahead of me. He said if he got a head coaching job he'd call me, and he had the job at Ellwood City when I graduated and that's how I ended up there and I succeeded him there.
You were MVP in the Tangerine Bowl, now the Capital One Bowl, for Juniata. How did you manage that?
Tarquinio: We played Missouri Valley and we threw the ball a lot because they were a big team. I think we threw 25 times. It was a 6-6 tie and our score was a touchdown pass I threw to a guy from McKees Rocks. I was a T-formation quarterback or a tailback in single wing which is like a shotgun formation. We did throw quite a bit and I do get razzed for that.
If you hadn't been a high school football coach, what would you have done?
Tarquinio: Oh geez, I don't know. I always had a passion for football. I don't know what else I would have done. When I came out of college I had an opportunity to go with U.S. Steel. But then Chuck Knox called and my degree was education. I thought for a minute about doing something else, but I don't know if I would have been happy.
You used to sell kids on coming out for the team and being a part of that even though they might not ever start. Can you still sell kids on that?
Tarquinio: We always had big numbers (at Beaver) because I'd recruit within the school. I always believed that football was part of the total educational process and I didn't just pay lip service to that. I felt they could gain something from the game, plus it would help our program because the more kids you have the better you'll be able to practice. And some of those kids, if they stayed with the program, turned out to be pretty good players. And that was one reason we always had a lot of seniors.
Was John Skourpan the best player you had?
Tarquinio: Well, he was the one who went the furthest and played in the NFL. But we had a lot of good players.
Are you like Joe Paterno in that you don't have any hobbies and that's why you stay with football?
Tarquinio: I've got a little bit of that same feeling. My work was also my hobby. My wife (Marcie) feels as strongly about my being involved in football as I do. She feels that I need to have something that keeps me on the go and I still have the energy. If I felt I wasn't contributing or needed and I was hanging around just to be a part of it, I probably wouldn't do it. I want to be able to help.
Who was the toughest guy you coached against, either a player or a coach?
Tarquinio: Joe Namath of Beaver Falls, he was really good. No one coach in particular, but there have been a number of them.
Do you think putting regular-season games on TV is good for high school football?
Tarquinio: I think it's overdone. It's nice to have the championship games on, but sometimes I think that part is overdone. It's getting so you just play for the playoffs now and you don't play your schedule. Now people say it's a meaningless game if you aren't in the playoffs and you play a 10th game. I don't like to look at it that way. It's a football game and you go out and play it just like any other.
Were regular-season games more important when only undefeated teams made the playoffs?
Tarquinio: You had the pressure on you all the way. If you didn't win you had to get up the next week and say we're out of the playoffs, but we're going to go out and play because we enjoy playing football and we're going to do the best we can.A high school football coach for a half century, like Joe Paterno he's still going strong
First Published: September 18, 2006, 4:00 a.m.