As a member of the Bishop McDevitt football staff for seven years, Jesse Shay touched many East Shore lives and influenced more than a few players. His defenders, including high school All-American Noah Spence of Ohio State, were among the best in the Mid-Penn.
And now, after spending the past two years as coach Jeff Weachter’s defensive coordinator, the time has come for Shay to move on and begin his own program.
On April 4, the Red Lion Area School District Board approved the Palmyra resident as its next football coach, replacing Pat Conrad, who resigned to accept a coaching position at Penn Manor.
Shay, 34, currently teaches ancient history at the Northern Lebanon Middle School, where he coached three years before joining the Crusaders. He’s a graduate of Lebanon Catholic, where his coach was Weachter.
In the fall, he’ll begin teaching government at Red Lion, a prerequisite for him accepting the head coaching position, he said. With he and his wife, Ashley, expecting their first child this summer, nothing else would have worked.
“The job offer came along with the coaching position,” he said. “That was very important. I love teaching and coaching. I feel strongly that in order to be a good coach, you need to be in the same building as your players.”
At Red Lion, Shay inherits a program that went 1-9 a year ago. But much of Conrad’s staff is still in place to monitor the transition period.
“I see a lot of potential at Red Lion,” Shay said. “OK, they went 1-9 last year, but they made it to the district final as recently as 2010. They have a ton of kids back. They graduated only nine seniors.”
Shay senses a feeling of optimism throughout the program.
“The members of the staff who are still there are doing a great job,” he said. “The kids have been working hard. I’ll have meetings this week with everybody and the guys will tell me what they want to do. I’m not going to be running a dictatorship down there. The coaches who want to stay, can stay.”
It would have been nice for Shay to cut his head coaching teeth at a smaller school, but he’s feels ready for the challenge. While at McDevitt, his last three teams played for the PIAA-AAA championship twice and made it to the state semifinals last year.
“Red Lion’s AAAA,”he said. “They play teams like Dallastown, Spring Grove, York William Penn, Central York and Southwest. We open the season at home against Cumberland Valley. So I’ll be jumping right into the fire against a good Mid-Penn team.”
Bishop McDevitt’s loss will be Red Lion’s gain.
“We thought he was ready,” Weachter said. “Jesse’s goal was to be a head coach. A few years ago when I felt he was ready, we made him defensive coordinator. It’s kind of like having one of my own sons get a head coaching job.”
Shay attended Clarion for one year after Lebanon Catholic, then transferred to Ursinus, where he played football for three years. Football is football, he said, despite the subtle changes he’s seen take place over the years.
“What we’re seeing is the college game is filtering down to the high schools more and more,”he said. “A lot of colleges are playing zone option read, which the Redskins and 49ers ran last year. From a defensive standpoint, it’s a tough offense to defend if you’re not ready for it.”
McDevitt athletic director, Tommy Mealy, who served as an assistant football coach with Shay, wishes him only the best.
"We are excited for Jesse's new opportunity,” Mealy said. “He was an asset to our football program over the last seven seasons. During that time, he worked very hard in drill work and game preparation and took many steps that will lead him to be successful and incorporate the Bishop McDevitt football program fabric into his own new program at Red Lion High School."
Shay said the news spread quickly in the past week.
“I’ve been hearing from a lot of my players at McDevitt through text messages,” he said. “I told them I’ll still remain their biggest fan in AAA and they can be Red Lion’s biggest fans in AAAA.”
Shay said he’ll never forget his days at McDevitt or what he’s learned from Weachter.
“Honestly, I would never have been in the position to accept the head coaching job at Red Lion if not for Coach Weachter,”Shay said. “He’s the best. I owe a lot to Jeff and his staff.
”The biggest thing for me is it taught me how to coach in big-game pressure situations. The success we had at McDevitt gave me a chance to head-to-head with some of the best.”