Moore won’t be on the sidelines tonight
Russ Moore was molding an extremely young Waynesburg Central football roster in 2017 into what he felt would be a force to be reckoned with in the next few years.
Moore won’t be on the sidelines tonight when the Raiders host Derry Area, however.
Moore was coaching Waynesburg last week when it suffered a 28-27 overtime loss at Bentworth. An incident occurred after the completion of the game involving Moore, who reported the situation to his athletic director.
The next day Moore was asked by two school officials to resign, and he did so. However, when more information involving the incident was unveiled, Moore was told the request for his resignation would be withdrawn.
Moore balked at that suggestion, though, and made it clear that he felt, under the circumstances, it would be best that the resignation request not be rescinded. Being informed of this, the school board on Tuesday night accepted Moore’s resignation.
Moore did have one request.
“I would like to be able to meet with the school board and at least tell them the entire story of what happened that night and the circumstances that occurred during the season prior to this incident,” Moore said. “I knew I was going to be asked to resign or be fired at the end of the season. The incident that happened Friday night was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Moore’s assistant Chad Coss will serve as head coach of the Raiders for the rest of the season.
“I wish the team well,” Moore said. “I hope they win. I know this core group is going to evolve into a really good team and I wish them well in the future.”
Waynesburg fell to 1-6 after the loss to the Bearcats, but has one of the youngest rosters in the WPIAL.
Moore was in his second stint as the Raiders coach. He had immediate success in his first stint, turning around a downtrodden program and eventually winning a WPIAL championship in 1999. Moore resigned after that season, but left the program in fine shape as the 2000 team reached the WPIAL final as well, losing to Aliquippa.
After coaching at Ringgold and in college, Moore returned to Waynesburg as its football coach in 2012 and guided the Raiders to a playoff appearance in 2014. Moore stepped down after the 2015 season but when the board deemed that no acceptable replacement could be found, it turned back to Moore who agreed to stay on.
That second stint ended last Friday night.