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A sad goodbye

By Jim Kriek For The 6 min read

Long-time Connellsville coach Dan Spanish will retire to Kentucky It’s tough to say goodbye to a good friend, but tougher yet when he is a very good friend.

Such is the case in the next few days when Dan Spanish will be moving from Connellsville to Lexington, Ky.

Dan and his wife Brenda, both now retired from the Connellsville High faculty, have been residents of Connellsville since 1974 when Dan was named the school’s head football coach.

During his three decades plus as head coach, Connellsville became recognized around the WPIAL for its program, and no coach ever worked harder to make his school a success than did the former New Castle High and University of Kentucky standout.

As Dan observed while packing for the move, “This is a good move for both of us. Brenda is originally from Lexington (they met when he was a student and football standout at the University of Kentucky), and she still has a lot of family there. We have talked before about moving back there. Now our family is grown up and on their own, and we are both retired, so we are making the move.”

But at the same time, Dan reminded, “Our family all grew up here, and I still feel that Connellsville is a good place to raise your kids and for them to get a good education. We met a lot of fine people here, and I will have a lot of good memories of so many good friends. That’s the hard part of moving, leaving so many fine people and friends.”

Dan started coaching at Connellsville in 1974, and the first couple years were tough ones, the Falcons going 4-6 and 2-7-1.

But then things turned around, and “Spanish Football” kicked into gear. His first winning season was 1976, with a 6-4 record, and four of those wins were shutouts as the Falcons ceded only 84 points for the season, or 8.4 per game.

That was the start of a four-year winning run, halted only in 1980 when the Falcons slipped to 4-5-1. But that was just a prelude. Starting in 1981, Connellsville ran off 13 consecutive winning seasons, the first six ending up in the WPIAL playoffs, the first time the school had advanced into post-season play.

The 1990 team set a new record for single season wins, going 11-1 with three shutouts, and reaching the quarterfinals of WPIAL play. Those 11 wins came in succession, including Dan’s 100th career coaching win, and appropriately enough it came at home, 26-6 over Norwin. A 7-6 playoff win over Penn Hills was followed by a 24-14 loss to Butler. At the end of the season, the Falcons had amassed a 107-67-8 record under Spanish.

Then came the ultimate. The 1991 Falcons extended the school’s single season win record to 13, all in a row from the start of the season.

In that span they posted seven shutouts, four in a row in their last four regular season games, heading into the WPIAL playoffs, where the Falcons beat Penn Hills, 27-14, collared Mount Lebanon, 7-0, and then came the biggest win of all – 17-6 over Upper St. Clair to win the WPIAL Quad-A championship – the first one in the school’s history.

Unfortunately, that string ended in the PIAA (state) playoffs when Erie Cathedral Prep came back to win, 28-21.

The Falcons finished 13-1, allowing 99 points for the season, just 7.1 per game.

That feat was followed by eight more winning seasons in a row and six trips into post-season play before the plus string was snapped.

The 2001 team finished 4-6, but the bright point that year was the Falcons beating Shaler, 14-13, making Connellsville one of the few WPIAL schools ever to reach 500 all-time wins.

Dan’s last season as head coach was 2002. He was later fired by five members of the school board, not one of whom, to this very day, has ever had backbone enough to stand up and state publicly for the record why they personally voted to fire the most successful coach in Connellsville football history.

Actually, it was instigated by one board member, assisted by four tag-alongs.

Under Spanish’s tenure, the Falcons posted a 191-111-8 record, and only five school board members kept Dan from being one of the few WPIAL coaches ever to post 200 wins.

There were 22 winning years (13 in a row), 17 trips to the WPIAL playoffs, five times reaching the quarterfinals, with one championship, and one state game.

Dan’s family all graduated from CAHS and are now on their own.

Todd, who quarterbacked for his dad, is with an environmental engineering firm in Charlotte, N.C.; daughter Andrea is a physical therapist in Indianapolis, Ind., and has made the Spanishs grandparents twice, a boy, 3, and a girl, 1, who already has her granddad in tow, and daughter Jamie, a May University of Kentucky graduate with a communications degree, is still in Lexington.

Pondering his move, Dan allowed, “We will have a lot of good memories to take with us, and I will also have so many good football memories. I have spent 39 years in football, and there were a lot of good times. It’s difficult to sort out the memories, but over the years Brenda kept a lot of scrapbooks and they will be reminders.”

Particularly, there will be “that first group of sophomores I had, and the first team overall, and so many good coaches to work with.”

That latter was evident by the many coaches who worked with Dan and the very small turnover in the ranks over the years, Dick Witt being the “Dean” of the staff with Dan from his arrival here until retiring a year ago, and Tom (The Wily Old Codger) Dolde his defensive coach for so many years.

The Spanishs will be in their “New Kentucky Home” on Aug. 10, and while Connellsville will be that much emptier with their going, Lexington will be that much richer with their arriving.

Best to you, Dan and Brenda. It’s an honor to know both of you. Many thanks for a lot of good memories, but most of all for your good friendship.

Jim Kriek is a Herald-Standard sports correspondent.

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