Jul 25, 2018 By Bill Hughes for The 4 min read

For the last four years, Donnie Militzer was the head football coach at Charleroi and his brother Nick was on his staff there with him.

This past season, they helped lead the Cougars to their best showing in 20 years as they went 9-1 in the regular season.

Earlier this year, both were hired for roles with the Robert Morris University football program.

Donnie, a 1999 Keystone Oaks grad and an RMU alumnus, will serve as a defensive assistant and the Head of High School Relations.

“I love the role as I get to engage with local high school coaches,” he said. “And I still get to be involved in on-field coaching.”

Nick, a 2005 grad at Keystone Oaks and a Duquesne University alumnus, is the Assistant Director of Football Operations and Recruiting.

“I had the opportunity to speak with Ryan Matviko, the Director of Football Operations, and Delbert Tyler, the Director of Recruiting, through Donnie after he gave them my resume,” Nick said. “In our talk, it was evident how excited they and I were about Robert Morris and the Robert Morris Football Program, and our personalities compliment each other.

“After speaking to them and head coach Bernard Clark, I wanted to be a part of their culture that they are building and after they offered me the position, I jumped on it.”

The Militzer brothers are both bringing impressive resumes to the Colonials.

Donnie, who is the principal at St. Gabriel’s in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, has served as an assistant coach at Bishop Canevin, Peters Township and Carlynton high schools and on the collegiate level at Carnegie Mellon and Washington & Jefferson before being head coach at Gateway for a year and then at Charleroi.

Is it hard not being the head coach, as he has been the last five years?

“I am not the guy calling the shots which is a change but it is one that I have embraced,” he said. “My job is to be of service to everyone to help the program succeed.

“Whatever I can do to help them win now and build the program, that is what I will do.”

His college experience is a plus.

“I coached college football at the Division-III level for five years and enjoyed it,” he said. “I always dreamed about coaching at the Division-I level so this is definitely an opportunity that I am grateful to have.”

One positive for Donnie is his drive home after practice.

“My commute is significantly less,” he said while laughing. “It took me almost an hour to get home from Charleroi, but Robert Morris is only about 25 minutes from my house.”

Nick, an Operations Work Lead in Commercial Loans at PNC Bank, started his career as a student assistant working under the Director of Football operations and Recruiting at Duquesne University in 2005.

“I continued in that role as a student and then for three seasons after I graduated,” he said, finishing the role in 2011.

Nick followed that experience at Duquesne at Carlynton where he served as a video coordinator for one season.

He was the Director of Football Operations for one season at Gateway before heading to Charleroi where he worked in the same position and assisted with the recruiting efforts and promotion of the student-athletes.

“In between these years, I also spent one season as a Video and Operations Intern with the Erie Explosion (former professional indoor football team) under Shawn Liotta and one season as a Video Assistant with the Pittsburgh Power (another former professional indoor football team).

“I have been blessed to be surrounded by some of the best people, coaches and players every step of the way,” Nick said. “The connections, life-long friendships and the ability to make a positive impact on young people is what gets me excited to go to practice every day.

“I have learned more from, and about myself, from my experiences than I could ever give back.”

Robert Morris started the 2017 campaign 2-1 but lost its last eight games to finish last in the FCS Northeast conference.

The Colonials open the season with three non-conference games.

On Sept. 1 they are at Dayton before heading home to host Virginia State on Sept. 8.

After playing at James Madison on Sept. 15, the Colonials head to Bryant on September 22 to open conference play.

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