Coach ready to build Franklin Regional boys volleyball program from ground up

By: Bill Beckner Jr.
Saturday, May 18, 2024 | 11:01 AM

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It looks like Franklin Regional found the perfect man for the job.

Mike Feorene checked all the boxes the district was looking for when it sought out a coach for its inaugural boys volleyball team, which will take the court next spring.

Feorene not only guided the Panthers’ girls team for eight seasons, winning a WPIAL championship and finishing runner-up in the PIAA in 2020 before stepping down in ‘21 for family related reasons, but he also started the Norwin boys program in 1994 and coached there for a decade.

“I’ve always wanted there to be a boys team at FR,” Feorene said. “It just never moved forward. I love to compete and I love a great challenge. If you coach, and you’re passionate about it, it just never leaves you.

“Watching athletes develop from point A to point B is something that drives me. There are a ton of athletes at FR. I want the ones that want to do something — not just for something to do.”

Franklin Regional athletic director Zach Kessler approached Feorene about coaching again.

Feorene said Kessler spoke the “magic words” when he told him there would be a middle school program.

“A key ingredient for any program,” Feorene said. “(I was in) hook, line and sinker.”

There is a bit of deja vu for Feorene. When his twin daughters were born, he resigned from Norwin. When they went off to college, he left Franklin Regional.

Now, with his daughters set to graduate, he is primed for another new chapter.

“There is nothing better than building a program from the bottom up,” he said. “We finished in the final four in WPIAL my last year (at Norwin) and I had a ton of great kids from the first year on.”

Current Norwin coach Mike Palaschak was Feorene’s middle hitter, while his setter, Nick Lynn, is a coach at Penn-Trafford.

“My goal, as always, is to put FR on the map for boys volleyball,” said Feorene, who teaches third grade math and science at Norwin. “We are heading into a really talented section that is well coached. I want to be competitive in the early years, break in to some tournaments and move forward from there.

“I’ve always said it takes five years to build a new program. But those players that build the program in those first five set the standard for all the years that follow.”

Aside from the obvious, Feorene said coaching boys differs, but only slightly, from coaching girls.

“The greatest difference,” he said, “is this: Boys play the game to bond, and girls bond to play the game. If you have coached both, this is easy to understand.”

The new team will meet for the first time during the first week of May.

Open gyms are scheduled for the summer.

Feorene said he has begun to recruit players. Kessler, whose son, Andrew, plays for Grove City’s club volleyball team, said basketball standout Cam Rowell could have been an excellent volleyball talent.

Rowell, though, is a senior and will graduate in a couple of months.

“I used living in the community to my advantage,” Feorene said. “I pulled in a 6-foot-2 (player) during Easter mass and I have been talking up the sport to all the local neighborhood kids that will be entering middle school next year. The other day, I noticed the cashier at Shop ‘n Save arms longer than my legs, so of course I asked if he went to FR. Regrettably, he is a senior this year.”

Bill Beckner Jr. is a TribLive reporter covering local sports in Westmoreland County. He can be reached at bbeckner@triblive.com.

Tags: Franklin Regional