Connellsville football promotes assistant Bill Maczko to head coach

By: Paul Schofield
Thursday, February 25, 2021 | 8:52 PM

Bill Maczko grew up in Fayette County.

He vividly remembers the days when Connellsville was one of the top big school teams in the WPIAL under Dan Spanish.

Maczko, 46, was a 1992 graduate of Uniontown.

He was hired on Wednesday as Connellsville’s new football coach to replace Marko Thomas, who left to take the job at Greensburg Central Catholic. Thomas was 6-31 in four seasons.

Maczko spent the past two seasons as Connellsville’s offensive line coach. He was the head coach at Brownsville in 2017 when the Falcons went 2-8.

“We’re comfortable with Bill,” Connellsville athletic director Rich Evans said. “He did a good job as an offensive line coach. We had good feedback from our coaches and players.

“He’s a Fayette County guy, and he knows about the tradition here and with the community.”

Maczko said the program is close to becoming relevant again. He said Thomas has it headed in the right direction.

“I just want to continue to build on what Marko did,” Maczko said. “We have the players that can turn it around. It’s going to take a lot of hard work.

“This community wants the program to be good again. It’s going to take everyone (players, coaches and community) to help turn it around.”

Maczko points to last season. Connellsville played seven games and was in position to win five of them.

“We were close,” Maczko said. “We have to focus on one step at a time. We can’t look too far ahead.”

Maczko said some of the players he’s leaning on include Zach David, Cullen Lynch, Bailey Kennedy, Spencer Shaffer, Wyatt Shreve, Jason McBride and Josh Marietta.

Evans said things are looking up, but he said it’s up to the players to take it to another level.

“The middle school team was undefeated, and we had 45 players on the team,” Evans said. “Now they must continue to work to stay ahead of their opponents.”

Paul Schofield is a TribLive reporter covering high school and college sports and local golf. He joined the Trib in 1995 after spending 15 years at the Daily Courier in Connellsville, where he served as sports editor for 14 years. He can be reached at pschofield@triblive.com.

Tags: Connellsville