Longtime Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic boys basketball coach Dave Long fired

By: HSSN Staff
Wednesday, March 28, 2018 | 11:12 PM

Another legendary WPIAL coach has been forced to leave his position before he was ready to go on his terms.

On Tuesday, Dave Long was fired as boys basketball coach at Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic after 19 seasons as head coach. Long led the Trojans to four WPIAL championships.

He also was an assistant coach at North Catholic under Don Graham for 20 years before taking over for one of the most decorated basketball coaches in WPIAL history.

“I didn't resign because I still wanted the job” Long said. “It wasn't a mutual agreement. They wanted me out of there, and I wanted to stay, so after four years of signing one-year contracts, I guess I was fired.”

Long said he was suspended for four days near the end of the regular season because of some questionable language and a racially-insensitive comparison he made to one of his players.

“There were allegations brought against me after one or two parents went to the administration to complain about the way I talked to the kids,” Long said. “The allegations were that I physically touched, I was racially insensitive and (used profanities).

“I said I did do this, I didn't do that, I did say this, but it was taken out of context.”

Long added: “I had a player who was constantly angry at everybody, and I said you remind me of the leading character in the movie ‘Django.' I understood his anger, but I don't understand yours. It had nothing to do with race except for the fact that the character was black and this player was also black.”

The movie “Django Unchained” was a 2012 revisionist western film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Jamie Foxx as a shackled slave sold off and separated by his wife.

“I wasn't saying it as a slave thing, but the kid told the administration he was upset,” Long said.

The Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic administration suspended Long for four days in February during the final week of the regular season. He was then asked if he wanted to come back and coach after the suspension and he said he did.

“When I came back from my suspension, I apologized to all the kids for my language and for being insensitive and we prepared for the playoffs,” Long said.

The Trojans beat Ellwood City and Washington in the WPIAL playoffs before losing to Seton LaSalle in the semifinals. CWNC then lost to Greenville in the first round of the PIAA playoffs 63-51 on March 10 in what would be Long's final game as head coach of his alma mater.

“I requested a meeting for after the season to plead my case and was finally granted one on Tuesday,” he said. “I told them I had changed in recent years and had softened up my demeanor to the point where I didn't have one technical in the four years since the school moved to Cranberry.”

But the meeting did not change the minds of the administration.

“They told me that the things I did were too egregious to allow you to come back and coach,” Long said.

Long also coached five years as an assistant for the Trojans football team and coached two grade school and two CYO teams for 25 to 30 years while coaching the varsity team.

His coaching future now is up in the air.

“This has left a bad taste in my mouth,” Long said. “I still love the game and love working with kids, but I don't know what I'm going to do moving forward.”

Don Rebel is a TribLive High School Sports Network broadcaster and staff writer. Reach him at drebel@tribweb.com.

Tags: Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic, North Catholic