Father figures: These coaches teach more than skills; they serve as role models for their players
Fathering comes in all forms. For many dads, it means getting involved with their children’s sports activities.
But for fathers who go even further and become coaches, they are impacting more than their children’s lives. They are serving as father figures, as role models, for groups of kids.
Meet local dads who are impacting young athletes’ lives through their dedication, mentoring and coaching contributions.
‘Bigger than me’
Rich Eboli, 50, of Penn Township was raised in a single-parent household.
“I grew up with a single mom and didn’t have much contact with my father. Two of my best friends’ fathers were like surrogate dads to me,” said Eboli, a health and safety manager for Philips.
Eboli has two hockey-playing sons — Anthony, 11, and Domenic, 14 — and volunteers coaching for four teams, two with Penn-Trafford inline hockey and two with the Steel City Shockwave travel organization.
Coaching year-round for more than eight years, Eboli said the hockey world is a close-knit crowd, with families working together to provide the best sports experience for the players.
“Hockey has almost its own fraternity of families that understand the financial restraints, long hours, and everyone supports each other,” Eboli said, adding that he played every sport but hockey as a youngster.
Eboli serves as president of the Penn-Trafford inline organization.
He said balancing the dad vs. coach role has been difficult at times.
“You want to be a coach and treat everybody fair,” he said. “It took me a few years of coaching — good times and bad times — to understand that every kid on that team deserves enough attention as much as my kids. It’s a difficult task at times because you have to separate being a coach and a dad.”
Eboli’s coaching skills didn’t go unnoticed by one of his elementary players.
Franklin Regional elementary student Jordan Azzarello, who plays for Penn-Trafford, penned an imaginary award in Eboli’s honor for a school project. In his assignment, Jordan was tasked with giving an award to someone they admire.
Jordan wrote about how Eboli taught him that “teamwork makes the dream work,” and he described Eboli as “nice … and good at hockey.”
“His mom sent his work to me, and I still have it on my desk,” Eboli said. “It reminds me that this is always bigger than me.”
Harder on your own
As many coaches do, Denny Little went to sit on a softball bucket during a scrimmage. Just as he leaned back to plant himself and put full trust in the pail, someone plucked it away. The coach went crashing to the ground in a dugout at a Plum municipal field two seasons ago.
The person behind the hijinks was Emma Little, Denny’s cheeky daughter, then a sophomore on the Penn-Trafford softball team coached by her dad.
She thought it was funny. He didn’t.
“I sent her to another field and she ran, by herself, for about four innings,” Little said. “I wanted the other girls to see that, to send them all a message. At that time, I was her coach, not her dad.”
The coach’s message was received, loud and clear. He and Emma later laughed about it.
“I may have coached my daughters, but they were always just another kid on the team,” Little said. “If you saw me talking to No. 6, you wouldn’t know she was my daughter.”
His top assistant, Mike Cleland, was the same way when he coached his daughter, Brooke, who just completed her freshman season at Seton Hill.
The Griffins made it to the NCAA Division II World Series for the first time.
Brooke Cleland was a power-hitting outfielder at Penn-Trafford and has stayed in character at Seton Hill.
“You sort of adopt all of the kids as your own,” Mike Cleland said. “You’re not coaching your daughter; you’re coaching all of them.”
“I remember (another assistant) Richie (Ginther) scolding Brooke about being disciplined at the plate. She was upset at the time, but to this day she says coach Rich was her favorite coach here.”
Little’s daughters, Megan and Emma, both played softball after college, Megan at IUP and Emma at Bloomsburg, where she will be a sophomore.
Finding time to be dads and finding time to be coaches were once tied together. Now their challenge is doing both.
Little and Cleland have kept up with their daughters from afar, coaching Penn-Trafford while tuning into broadcasts or gamecasts on their phones.
“We try to get to as many games as we can,” Cleland said.
“I know our wives want us to be at more games,” Little said. “But we enjoy this. We love being around the girls and teaching them the game.”
Cleland was on an airplane to Denver the day after a Penn-Trafford game to watch Seton Hill play in the World Series.
During a game this season, Little was checking updates on the PSAC Tournament from his phone in between innings of a Penn-Trafford game.
He said being a father, coach and coach-father is not tough because it is his passion.
“There was always that gnawing feeling of wanting my daughter to succeed to prove to the daddy-ball nay-sayers she belonged,” Little said. “I’d say they both passed that test with flying colors. I think it was harder for my kids.”
‘A huge responsibility’
It was a game day that resulted in a game changer for Mike Foster of Harrison.
In December 2017, Foster, 47, a history teacher and coach in the Highlands School District, was waiting for his co-coach Tom Callender to arrive for a basketball game.
Callender never showed.
“His wife called me. Tom had died. I was in shock,” Foster recalled.
Callender died from a heart attack that day at age 39.
Currently, Foster coaches boys and girls in middle school football, basketball and track, including Callender’s children and his own three children.
He mentors and maintains a close relationship with Callender’s five children while balancing his job as an American history teacher and a “nonstop” schedule.
“It’s a huge responsibility and I want them all to be better people — to be good citizens and future good adults and make positive contributions to society,” Foster said. “Any role I can play in that is huge.”
Foster credits his father, Chet Foster, for instilling a strong sense of coaching values.
“My dad started it, and I continued it. He’s retired now but still helps out,” Foster said. “I was lucky to have a great dad and a group of friends growing up with fathers that were involved.”
Chet, 78, of Harrison, said Mike exhibited what he described as “quiet leader” traits as a student playing baseball at Highlands.
“He’s a chip off the old block,” the elder Foster said, “and his coaching — he loves to be around kids and help them out.”
‘Super dad’
Mike Young, 58, of Gilpin cooks a mean breakfast, and his three adult daughters are most appreciative to have what they describe as a “super dad.”
“If there is ever the embodiment of a perfect father, that is Mike Young. I know so many who would say the same,” said daughter Kaysie Young.
Young raised three daughters — Kaysie, Kenzie and Lexie — coaching them for a combined 23-plus years in softball for the Leechburg Blue Devils.
Coaching the 2nd generation
Veteran Freeport girls volleyball coach Tom Phillips is a father to two adult sons who also became involved with the sport as players and coaches.
He doesn’t have a daughter of his own, but he said he looks at the hundreds of players he has mentored over nearly two decades with the Yellowjackets as his own and works every day to foster that feeling of family in his program.
“You know you are getting older when you have girls who have gone through your program, and all of a sudden their girls are coming through the program,” said Phillips, a former volleyball player himself who also raced at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver for more than a decade. “But it’s just a great feeling to keep in contact and share in the lives of all the girls who have played for me and who have made so many great moments. They are like family to me for life.”
That focus on a family aspect has united his girls teams at Freeport to a run of 17 consecutive section championships, six WPIAL titles since 2010 and the 2017 Class 2A state championship.
The Yellowjackets captured the WPIAL Class 3A title in 2021 and made it to the state semifinals.
Excitement is high for the team entering the upcoming season.
“Coach Phillips wants to be there for us, both on and off the court, to help us with anything we need,” Freeport rising senior and 2021 WPIAL Class 3A all-star Cassidy Dell said. “He focuses on having that family aspect to our team, which is amazing.”
For years, Phillips and his wife, Jamie, have hosted volleyball matches and tournaments on sand courts at their home nestled in the woods a couple of miles from Freeport High School.
Play on the courts has ranged from serious competitions to laid-back fun involving his Yellowjackets players.
“We just get together and play volleyball with no pressure,” Dell said. “We can hang out and have some fun before the real season actually starts. It’s so much fun to be there and be with my teammates. That is what a team and family is all about.”
A heart-attack scare a couple of years ago, Phillips said, gave him a new perspective on life and a new appreciation for his volleyball daughters and their families and how important they are to him.
“I look at life through different eyes right now, from the standpoint that I shouldn’t be here and that I was given a second chance,” Phillips said. “I see every day as a blessing, and I realize how much my players mean to me and how much they enrich my life. It was a life-changing thing. I thank the good Lord every day that he gave me more time to be with my family and my extended family of the girls I coach.”
Staff writers Joyce Hanz, Michael Love and Bill Beckner Jr. contributed.
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