Steeped in football tradition, Jeannette community rallies to keep longstanding youth program going

Dan Cooper sat in a locker room at Clarkson Field for three weeks in July waiting to recruit young football players.

The days passed and only a few kids signed up at the practice site for the Jeannette Midget Athletic Association.

As a July 21 deadline approached, Cooper, president of the association and head coach of the 11- and 12-year-old team, knew the program was in jeopardy.

“It’s just getting tougher and tougher to get kids to come out and play,” said Cooper, 61, who has been involved with the program for almost 50 years.

Located on the outskirts of town, Clarkson Field is a staple of the 73-year tradition of Jeannette youth football.

Inside the locker room, football pads are stacked high in front of wooden lockers containing generations of signatures from young Jayhawks.

In black lettering, a signature from Terrelle Pryor — who is a symbol of Jeannette’s football success for his time in the National Football League — is etched on a corner locker.

As news spread of the youth season’s uncertainty, the community rallied together to keep the tradition alive.

People took to Facebook, encouraging friends to join the team, and donated money to help kids pay to play.

The program needed a turnout that would allow it to compete in the Big East League, comprising East Allegheny, Franklin Regional, Gateway, Kiski Valley, McKeesport, Penn Hills, Penn-Trafford, Woodland Hills and Jeannette. School districts like Gateway, Franklin Regional and Penn Trafford are about four times the size of Jeannette.

Answering the call, 60 players split by age group across four teams will represent Jeannette youth football this season.

The heartbeat of Jeannette

The Jeannette City School District district offers basketball, golf, soccer and tennis, but the pride of the small town lies in football.

Located in the heart of town, McKee Stadium — where Jeannette football players of all ages play — a sign hangs high, outlining the high school football program’s success. The sign reads: two-time state champions, 10-time WPIAL champions and 781 wins (the most in Western Pennsylvania).

“It’s the heartbeat of our city and school,” said Thomas Paulone Jr., who is the high school football head coach.

A Jeannette native who started playing football at 7 years old, Paulone, 33, said when someone is born in the city, it is almost like a birthright to play football. Paulone went on to be the quarterback and captain for the high school team.

After coaching football at Chartiers Valley High School and Waynesburg University, he returned to Jeannette as the head coach in fall 2022.

“It’s a blessing to be back and give back to the program that gave me so much,” Paulone said.

The youth football program — which dates to 1952, according to the Jeannette Area Historical Society — became a pillar of the community. Boys at the elementary level flock to the field every fall to carry on the legacy of successful Jayhawks like Pryor.

As a high school quarterback, Pryor took the Jayhawks to the 2006 state championship game, where they lost. The team returned the following year to capture Jeannette’s first state title.

After graduating in 2008, Pryor went on to be the starting quarterback for Ohio State University before playing in the National Football League for seven seasons on teams such as the Oakland Raiders and Cleveland Browns. Pryor did not respond to a request for comment.

But Pryor is not the only Jeannette alum to get a taste of the NFL; Dick Hoak, a 1957 graduate, played for and coached the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Demetrious Cox, a 2012 graduate, made appearances on the Cincinnati Bengals, Carolina Panthers and Arizona Cardinals after playing on the defensive line as captain at Michigan State University.

“The success that Jeannette has had for decades would not be there without the midget program,” Cox said. “That was my first real experience of football.”

While Cox was playing professional football, he said, he could always tell which players had been in the sport since a young age.

“It gives you another edge for success,” he said. “That’s where the seed is planted.”

More than just a head start

Courtney Lyle’s son, Carter Cononico, 11, has been playing with Jeannette for five years. The Hempfield resident has been the team mom for three of those years.

Lyle’s devotion to the Jeannette program leads her to help the team no matter the circumstance.

After she was diagnosed with breast cancer on Father’s Day of last year, Lyle continued to carry out her duties as team mom. In this role, her responsibilities include washing all the players’ uniforms and planning team-bonding events.

One week, Lyle ensured the players had clean jerseys to wear before dashing off to the hospital for a surgery.

The team gave back to Lyle by wearing pink jerseys with her initials stitched across the top during October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. They a hung a banner at the stadium that read, “We wear pink for Courtney.”

“I bawled my eyes out,” she said. “I loved it, and I felt really appreciated.”

With the parents working the concession stands, supporters in the bleachers, coaches on the sidelines and players on the field, Cox said everyone became a family during his years in the youth program.

“The midgets mean everything to not only myself but also to the community,” he said.

Dwindling numbers

Cooper recalls a time that the program had almost 100 players — that was 10 years ago.

Since then, fewer and fewer kids join every year because parents are busy with work, do not want their kids to get hurt or the kids themselves show no interest in playing.

“I just think it’s a changing societal time,” he said.

Financial limitations also were among the reasons the program struggled this year.

Some parents cannot afford the registration fee or think it’s too expensive, Cooper said, but he needs to charge a certain amount because of the costs to keep the program afloat.

For each of the three home games, he hires referees at a cost of about $1,400, five security guards at $1,500 and an EMT, which costs about $300. The association also stocks the concession stand and pays for players’ uniforms, including helmets, shoulder pads, mouthpieces and jerseys — everything but the cleats.

To mitigate financial constraints, the association offered discounted registration fees and allowed parents to hold off on payments until August. Previously, players had to pay $200, but Cooper lowered the price to $100 this year.

“We do our best. We don’t want to turn those kids away,” Cooper said. “We want to help the kids. It’s about the kids; it’s for the kids.”

The financial strains youth sports impose on families in Jeannette are compounded by the decreasing number of people who participate in those programs.

Jeannette’s population decreased by nearly 1,000 in 10 years — from 9,654 in 2010 to 8,780 in 2020 — according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Estimates put today’s population at roughly 8,500.

Likewise, enrollment at Jeannette City School District is down. The number of students enrolled declined from just over 1,000 in 2020 to 940 last year, according to the district.

“Our program was built on brothers and cousins playing together, and a lot of families moved away, so we lost a lot of that,” said Darius Brown, the assistant coach for the high school football team.

Community health

Much like how the community has not let the youth football program die, they have rallied behind business and industry in the town.

Once a major producer of glass, Jeannette struggled to survive economically after the industry’s decline. It’s a problem the town still grapples with, said Carole Babish, president of the Jeannette Business Association.

Transformation is occurring, nevertheless, and new opportunities are emerging. The future of business in Jeannette, according to Babish, is retail.

“We’ve had several new businesses open up in the city, which, I think, is encouraging,” she said. “If anything, the business district is coming back.”

DeNunzio’s Italian Restaurant, just two blocks north of McKee Stadium, is representative of how sports, business and community coalesce in the town.

“The Jeannette restaurant has been a mainstay in our town for so many years,” said Anthony M. DeNunzio II, nephew of owner Ron DeNunzio.

Opened in 1977, DeNunzio’s has since expanded to Monroeville (1997), Unity (2004) and a wholesale foods warehouse that does business in three states.

But the true heart of DeNunzio’s remains in Jeannette.

“It’s the place to go before the game. It’s a place to go after the game,” DeNunzio II said. “We’re all together. Everybody’s a Jayhawk.”

To keep traditions like these going, Kristie Linden, program manager of The Jeannette Initiative, is on a mission to secure a Main Street Matters designation for the city. The program, operated by the state, provides funding and support for community revitalization efforts.

She said the designation, if earned, would mark a major achievement in getting the central business district “back up on its feet.”

“We want this to be a town where, when the kids graduate high school, they have a reason to stay here,” she said. “There is so much community pride here, and a big part of that is the community rallying around our Jayhawks. Sports is the lifeblood of the town. It is the thing that brings all of us together and makes us have an identity together.”

‘A tragedy’

Kiaira Jackson works closely with students as the student and family liaison for the school district. She gets a firsthand look at what the youth football program provides the kids.

In addition to character building, the program gives them an outlet for their energy and ties them to the community’s longtime tradition. The program also is an incentive for kids to attend school, she said, because if they don’t show up to class, they can’t play in games.

“Without it, some of the students would not have positive role models,” Jackson said. “It gives our students a lot to look forward to.”

Additionally, there are limited opportunities for after-school programs in Jeannette, said Kelly Bender, executive director of the Mosaic Community Development Center. Incorporated in 2021, the development center grew out of the Mosaic Community Church as a response to community needs and with the mission of building community relationships, Bender said.

The center runs tuition-free summer and after-school programs for kids in third through eighth grades.

“A big part of our mission is the education, but … we ultimately want to raise up the next generation in Jeannette,” she said.

Bender knows firsthand what it’s like to have to cancel a season of youth sports. She serves as the president of the Jeannette Soccer Club, which was unable to enroll enough players to have a U10 team last fall.

She noted financial and transportation obstacles among the many barriers kids in youth sports face.

The development center does what it can to provide students with transportation from its programs to sports practices, but there are other kids in town who may have a hard time finding a ride, she said.

“I think football, as well as other youth sports and activities, provide a lot of the youth of Jeannette valuable lessons,” Bender said.

Cox, who made lifelong friends while playing youth football, said the program also serves as an outlet for camaraderie for the kids.

“It’s never a good idea to strip the kids of an opportunity to excel in something,” he said. “That would be a tragedy.”

Keeping the tradition alive

With the help of the community, the youth football program has yet to fade away.

“You’ve seen how many people — when they realized that this program could possibly be gone — how many people jumped up and started rallying to help. That right there showed me what it meant,” Cooper said. “We all keep fighting to keep this thing going, but it’s tough.”

Cooper does what he can to keep the team thriving, from providing the players with a free meal once during the season to helping them get rides to practices and games.

With parents volunteering their time, Jackson sending messages to parents about registration and Cox helping young athletes stay in shape, the community is behind Cooper in keeping the program alive.

“It takes a community. It takes a lot, and some of these kids are really dedicated and for things to keep going where they’re going, it would be a very sad day,” Cooper said. “It keeps kids off the street. It keeps kids in a healthy frame of mind and body. It’s camaraderie. It’s a tradition here in Jeannette.”

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Kaitlyn Hughes and Nathan Ferraro are TribLive staff writers. Reach Kaitlyn at khughes@triblive.com and Nathan at nferraro@triblive.com.