Just before Christmas last year, Jeff Weachter was pondering retirement. The 27-year head football coach at Bishop McDevitt had just navigated his team to its second PIAA state championship in three years and he had poured everything into them. With 18 District 3 titles, two state titles, a bevy of stars in the NCAA and NFL, and an induction into the Pennsylvania Scholastic Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame, he had reached high school football’s mountaintop.
So maybe it was time.
“I told our principal, Vince Harper, two or three years ago that I’m year-to-year with coaching. It takes so much, and last year I was kind of leaning toward retirement a little bit. I figured, if it’s time, I can go out as a state champion,” Weachter said.
But then he listened to a podcast on Fox Sports 1460 AM in Harrisburg, in which his team captains shared their favorite memories of Bishop McDevitt football.
They spoke of championships, playing the game they love, record-setting nights. And then co-captain Lucas Lawler said something that changed Weachter’s thoughts about retirement.
“The trip to the Grotto.”
Lawler, who now wrestles for Bucknell University, was referencing a 24-year Crusader football tradition that Weachter introduced as a team-bonding and faith-building experience on the grounds of the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Emmitsburg, Md.
There, along the mountainside pathways, fountains, and saint shrines leading up to the grotto rock, coaches, chaplains and teammates talk about teamwork, goals, life experiences and faith in a late-July retreat that offers time for peace, prayer and reflection away from the gridiron demands that come with being a Crusader.
“Every year, nearly every single player tells me as we’re walking out of the Grotto, ‘Thank you so much for doing this. This is a life-changing experience.’ That reaction means more to me than wins and losses,” Weachter said.
So when Lawler said it was his favorite experience as a Crusader football player, Weachter put aside any thoughts he had of retiring last year.
“I said to myself, ‘The good Lord is telling me it’s not my time to retire yet. He will let me know on His time, when He thinks I’ve done enough.’”
Coaching Legacy
In 37 years as a high school football coach, Weachter has seen peaks and valleys. His first sideline gig came in 1988 as a defensive coach for his alma mater, Warwick High School. His friend’s father invited him onto the staff, and Weachter – who had a degree in accounting – jumped at the opportunity to get out from behind a desk.
From 1993-1997, Weachter was at the helm for Lebanon Catholic, leading the Beavers out of a six-season winless drought and bringing them their first back-to-back winning seasons in 30 years.
“I loved my time at Lebanon Catholic. It will always be special to me,” said Weachter. When he earned his 300th victory in the Crusaders’ recording-setting 19th District 3 title win a week before Thanksgiving, some of his former LC players were on the sidelines to congratulate him. Thirty years have passed since he coached the likes of Tommy Long and Jesse Shay on the makeshift field on Assumption Hill and the three still gather for an annual lunch before the start of each season.
It was during his time at Lebanon Catholic that Weachter joined the Church not long after marrying his wife, a Catholic. Father Daniel Powell, who was serving at St. Mary’s in Lebanon at the time, worked with Weachter through RCIA classes and the two forged a bond that remains strong today.
When the head coaching position at Bishop McDevitt opened in 1998, Weachter applied and was hired by the principal at the time, John Brixius.
The demands were higher at Bishop McDevitt, whose Crusaders had won a state championship in 1995 and made it to the postseason the next two years.
“Putting a staff together at McDevitt and not being from the Harrisburg area was a little tough. We struggled the first few years by McDevitt’s standards,” Weachter said. His only losing season there was in 2001, a fall plagued with numerous injured players and teammates that didn’t get along.
The Grotto retreat was born after that season.
“I prayed to God for some help with the team situation. And then my wife and I made a trip down to the Grotto, and it hit me to take the team there, too,” Weachter said.
Winning seasons followed in short order, and with them came greater expectations for success.
In 2004, with the likes of future NFLers Aaron Berry and LeSean McCoy on the team,
Weachter saw his first District 3 title – the first in a line of 13; in subsequent years the Crusaders have become perennial competitors in the state playoffs.
“Let me tell you, it is not easy to make a deep run in the playoffs,” said Weachter, who will coach in his seventh state championship game Friday night against the state’s #2 ranked team overall, Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic Cahillites.
“I love these kids, and I’m blessed to have had a lot of great players over the years,” Weachter said. “I’ve had a lot of good assistant coaches; right now, besides my son, on our coaching staff I have five other guys who played for me, and that means a lot. They know the school, they know the program, they know the expectations. Our administration has been awesome – from John Brixius who hired me, to Sister Mary Anne Bednar and now Vince Harper and our new president Jay Wrabel. I just can’t do this without all of them.”
Win or lose, no amount of victories and titles can compete with his passion for mentoring and working with student-athletes, Weachter said.
“If anybody would ask me if it’s the 300 wins, the state championships, I would tell them my legacy is all the kids I helped in their faith and in getting recruited to play in college,” he said. “Yes, we’ve been fortunate to have 117 Division 1 student-athletes in 28 years, but that doesn’t account for all the Division 2 and Division 3 kids that went on to play and continue their education. I work just as hard for those D2 and D3 kids – and that’s in any sport, not just football – because I want them to succeed.”
Faith and Football
In the PIAA State Football Championships on Friday night, the Crusaders will face the Cahillites in a rematch on a familiar field; Bishop McDevitt has made it to the finals at Cumberland Valley High School the past three years. But before they take the field, they’ll find themselves in another familiar place – the chapel at 1 Crusader Way.
“It’s been a tradition that we pray the Rosary in our school chapel on game days,” said Weachter. It started four years ago after the passing of their former chaplain, Deacon Joe Wrabel.
“He had such a great influence on me,” said Weachter, who recalled sitting next to Deacon Wrabel on bus rides to away games, talking about life, faith and the challenges teens face. “He was such a special person to our players, and even those who are playing for us today understand his legacy.”
“When we pray the Rosary, it’s not haphazard,” Weachter said. “The kids are up, they’re attentive. We’re not shouting the prayers, but we’re intense and very focused in doing so. It’s an opportunity for us to all come together and unite in faith – from the kids who are Catholic and those who aren’t.”
The pre-game Rosary, pre-game prayer on the sidelines and the annual trip to the Grotto are extensions of a faith-based education at Bishop McDevitt; they’re also opportunities for players to find moments of peace, prayer and reflection away from social media noise, demands for success and challenging situations at home.
“This generation is a lot different than any I’ve seen in nearly 40 years of coaching,” Weachter said. “Social media has really messed with them, COVID severely impacted them, especially educationally and socially. Catholic schools give our kids what they need in structure and accountability.”
“I have players who say, ‘Coach, you expect a lot out of us.’ Well, that’s because we want our students and our players to have discipline and accountability,” he said. “And they make mistakes and you have to let them know it was wrong and talk them through it. Structure and mentorship is really what is needed today.”
“I think that’s what my calling is and what my legacy is going to be – coaching, mentoring and working with the kids,” Weachter said.
It’s a list that includes more than a handful of players who made it to the NFL – including McCoy, Berry, Jaimie Thomas and Noach Spence – current collegiate players like Rico Scott and Stone Saunders, countless All-Americans, former players who have become high school coaches themselves, those who found success in careers other than sports, and current student-athletes preparing for college.
“When I took that coaching position at Warwick, I did it for the love of football. But working with high school kids and mentoring them a bit is what really drew me in to doing it for the next 37 years,” Weachter said.
“I’m still close with a number of former players, and have guys who tell me how I impacted their life to where they are today. Money can’t buy that,” he said. “I feel that this is my calling and that the Lord put me at Bishop McDevitt because this is where He wants me to be.”
(Photos by Chris Heisey, The Catholic Witness.)
By Jen Reed, The Catholic Witness
