Young, Saccoccia Honored To Enter High School Football Hall Of Fame

Mike Young and Reno Saccoccia are coaches who have spent more than fifty years coaching, and they can claim many achievements.

This weekend, however, it will be unfamiliar ground not just for Young, head coach at Wheeling CentralRoman Saccoccia and Saccoccia, head coach at Steubenville, as both will part of the 2024 National High School Football Hall of Fame Induction Class to be held on Friday and Saturday.

It was the second class of the newly formed Hall of Fame and was held in the year 1996. First from the Ohio Valley, Young and Saccoccia expressed that it was one of the greatest honors for them when entering the Hall of Fame.

Young: I sit here amazed. “It feels awesome for me to talk but the thing is shocked because I never thought anything like that could ever happen to me, not to mention the fact of being in that list instead of seeing the names you see now- Eric Dickerson, Ernie Davis, Terrelle Pryor, Dick Hoak, Reno Saccoccia, Gerry Faust and all those people, I could go on listing the names and then you ask ‘Well

“It gave the company and Saccoccia an honor all around,” was said by Saccoccia. “That comes to representing the valley, our families, representaComiskey ting the coaches of the Ohio Valley, the high schools man, it is more than an honor. There aren’t any other words to use. ”

This year, 35 individuals will become members of the hall, joining Young, Saccoccia, Dick Butkus, Josh Cribbs, Eric Dickerson, Eddie George, Ted Ginn Jr. , Laremy Tunsil, Orlando Pace, Terrelle Pryor, Reggie White and Charles Woodson, among others.

In its first year, James Archie Cooper, Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Bernie Kosar, Don Nehlen, Jim Brown, Paul Brown and Ted Ginn Sr. , were inducted.

“Finally the credentials are there, 54years of coaching, 27 of them as a head coach, Part of 11 state championship at Wheeling Central, I participate in four the state championship games while in high school in the 60” Young said. “But sometimes I still sit here just filled with so much humility and I can’t even express how appreciative I am. ”

Thus, according to written sources and using the details from the table, Young’s career history starts from being an assistant at Wheeling High School in the 70’s. Young received his initial head football coaching post at St Clairsville High School The Red Devils of Young clinched two OVAC titles over his term of 1988- 1996. Young, who has helmed Wheeling Central squad since 2005, has claimed six state championships for the school and will be out in the Maroon Knights’ sideline come fall.

Other coaching experiences Young had included football, basketball, and tennis, among other games. ”I taught special education for thirty-six years, I have been involved in so much as a teacher and a coach, and I’d look at that as one in the same because that’s what coaching is, it is teaching. When kids graduated moving on to have championshiip families and championed careers and successful lives I consider that as the true championships”.

“It’s been a wonderful time, a good journey and I want to look forward to next season. Meanwhile every year is new, new set of children, a new start and that is the best thing, the youth renews you, else I am 75 years and above and most of the time I feel like I am still the strongest man alive and it is only vacated when I fall sick. However I have my wife who is

He graduated at the Wheeling Central, and he was brought up to be the man that he is today in the charismatic city of Wheeling.

“I have gotten some time to think of what all this has transpired to since I have had to come out and give an acceptance speech,” Young explained. “I’ve recognized that with this honor, all I see are the people in my life who made all this possible. My teachers, my coaches, my parents- my parents raised nine of us. I sat down at the dinner table every night at 5:30 and there were 11 positions there at the table. And I was teaching them how to be a team in the house everyone had something they were supposed to do whether small or big. But the most important thing was to avoid any squabbles while I am here coaching a sport which has 11 players.

“It has family connections, to your own jobs, to life in general There is so much life experience that football develops whether it is good or bad Cosby for the good and hopefully avoiding the bad and triumphing over it all.

Saccoccia assumed the head coach’s position at Steubenville in 1983 and has claimed four state championships with the Big Red. Mos is credited for the record of being the football coach with the most wins in Ohio’s history tallying 426 and still rising.

Young is going to join Saccoccia into NHSFHOF and based on what the two coaches have been through in the course of their practice, it shouldn’t be a challenge to celebrate jointly.

In fact, it happened in 1965 and 1966 ‘It wasn’t exactly a clash of titans,’ Saccoccia, of Steubenville Catholic High Schools said. “We both used to coach against each other back in the early 2003s, moreover, we have been serving on the board of the Ohio Valley Football Coaches Association for 30, 40 years now I guess, Mike has been a good friend actually, our families are close and this is an honor period but get to go in with someone who I truly have many respected as I do Mike, it’s beyond an honor. ”

It doesn’t mean that respect is only given to someone, but rather it is mutual .

Asked if they were classmates during high school, Young replied: “No, she and I were not in high school together but we played against each other. ” “Coaching with him, and I’m talking over 10 years, years of coaching with him, around him, and even against him, I have really grown to have that kinds of respect for what he has done with his program, with Steubenville, the number of wins he has had, the legacy he has built in Steubenville,”

Both will be the pioneers, though not the only ones who will be selected to the NHSFHOF – Ohio Valley Hall of Fame once again. What they take into the Hall on behalf of the valley is skills and accomplishments together with triumph over life challenges throughout their professional tenure.

“[Saccoccia will] be the first person to tell people what we all know when you want to value the height of the mountain you must value the down of the valley,” Young said. The saying that ‘you cannot understand the sweetness of the upper story unless you have been to the lower odious one’ is very fitting. Well, I believe that both of us have been through such moments sometime in our lives.

“ I’ve been coaching alongside other football coaches, we have seen so many great coaches-Bud Billiard and Ty Fleming and Dave Bruney several wonderful past coaches that the Ohio Valley has produced All of them came in with passion, instilled passion in their kids and with that passion they moved onto the next level. ”

High school football players that will be enshrined in the National High School Football Hall of Fame include Ryan Shraman from Glenbard West High School, Julian Nixon from the United States Air Force Academy, Fred Givens from Alachua High School, Eddie Jackson from Newsome High School and James Wilder, Jr. from Hallandale High School.