Brian DeLallo has retired as head football coach of the Bethel Park High School football team, effective immediately.
Bethel Park Athletic Director Dan Sloan made the public announcement after DeLallo informed his team on Friday morning, a week after the Black Hawks’ season ended with 17-7 loss versus Upper St. Clair in the WPIAL Class 5A semifinals.
DeLallo, who also teaches at the school and is not retiring from that position, was a longtime assistant coach before taking over the program reins in March 2019. In four seasons as the Hawks’ head coach, DeLallo had a record of 22-19 overall and 13-9 in league play.
This year, just two seasons removed from a winless pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign, Bethel Park shocked many WPIAL fans and writers with a 10-2 record en route to a section championship and a WPIAL Class 5A semifinals appearance.
Ultimately, health considerations mostly drove what DeLallo termed “a very difficult decision.”
“I love this school, this community, and our players and staff,” he said. “We have created a very special culture here where there is mutual respect and affection between the coaches and the players and between the players themselves. That isn’t easy to walk away from because those relationships mean so much to me.
“That said, my health is not good, and it, like many other things, always seems to take a backseat to football, and I just can’t do that anymore,” said DeLallo.
Under DeLallo, 19 Bethel Park football players earned First Team All-Conference honors. He was also named the 2022 Allegheny Six Coach of the Year in a vote of his coaching peers.
The football team also made national headlines last winter when DeLallo tweeted out to his players to eschew that day’s scheduled weight-training session to shovel the neighbors’ sidewalks and driveways instead. That simple gesture, and his players’ fantastic response to it, landed Bethel Park in the spotlight as an example of good people doing good things for others. The story appeared on the Today Show, Inside Edition, the Washington Post, and Fox & Friends, among others.
Sloan said while he’s sorry to lose Coach DeLallo to retirement, he supports his coach’s decision.
“We were all shocked and disappointed when Coach DeLallo first informed us of his intention to retire,” said Sloan, who asked his coach to sleep on it before making a final decision. “But as our dialogue continued, and he explained his reasoning, it became increasingly clear that he was doing this for all the right reasons.”
“Stepping away from the game he loves to coach, especially here at Bethel Park, had to be a tough decision for Brian,” said Sloan. “We know that replacing him and all of the wonderful things he stands for both on the field and off it will be next to impossible.
“Still, we are committed to continuing his legacy of excellence moving forward, and we will try to find someone who shares some of his coaching philosophies as well as his commitment to our student-athletes and our community,” he said.
The athletic director said a thorough search for DeLallo’s replacement will begin soon as the position will be posted on the school district’s career site,
https://www.bpsd.org/Employment.aspx, with a review of applications beginning in December.
DeLallo became the 14
th head coach of the BPHS football program on Dec. 20, 2016. Before ascending to that position, he had spent 13 of the previous 17 seasons as an assistant coach under the legendary Jeff Metheny, Bethel Park’s all-time winningest coach.
A Pittsburgh native and 1992 graduate of John Carroll University, DeLallo began his coaching career in Arizona before returning home to coach and teach at Bethel Park.