Springdale football coach Seth Napierkowski resigns after 5 seasons

By: Jerin Steele
Friday, December 10, 2021 | 1:03 PM

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It wasn’t an easy decision, but with family and work obligations increasing, Seth Napierkowski decided to step down as the Springdale football coach.

After a five-year run with the Dynamos, Napierkowski submitted his resignation, and it was accepted by the Allegheny Valley School Board during Monday’s meeting.

“It was something I put a lot of time into thinking about,” Napierkowski said. “My wife and I are expecting our second kid in January, so that will be adding to my workload, and things at work have been picking up from a responsibility standpoint. With all that happening, I felt I couldn’t put the necessary effort into being a head coach next year.”

Napierkowski took over for Dave Leasure in 2017. He was 25-26 in his tenure. The Dynamos were 7-5 this season and pulled a 28-0 upset victory over fourth-seeded West Greene in the first round of the WPIAL Class A playoffs.

Springdale made the playoffs in three of Napierkowski’s five seasons.

“I was proud of the effort the kids have given over the last five years, and I’m really appreciative of the Allegheny Valley School District for giving me an opportunity to do this,” Napierkowski said. “When I was hired, I was only 27 years old and had never been a head coach. I was only an assistant coach for one year. It’s a blue-collar town with hard-working kids.

“Being in the section we were in with perennial powers like Clairton, Jeannette, Greensburg Central Catholic and Bishop Canevin, I thought we held our own. Those are some of the best schools in Class A.”

Coaching is still in Napierkowski’s blood and he said he’ll likely return to the sidelines one day, but it likely would be in an assistant’s role, where he can focus on a specific part of the team.

“I don’t think being a head coach is something that I will pursue for a while,” Napierkowski said. “I’ll likely be on the sidelines again some day as an assistant. I don’t want to totally get away from the game, but stepping away from the responsibilities of being a head coach is something I need to do.

“I was also the offensive coordinator at Springdale, so when you start adding that up where you got to come up with the gameplan, do all the film work breaking down last week’s film, this week’s film and next week’s film, it chews up a lot of your time. The entire football season, that’s pretty much all I did. I don’t see this being it for me, though. I love coaching and helping kids out too much for this to be it.”

Springdale also will be searching for a new volleyball coach after Stephen Simenta submitted his resignation Nov. 30 and it was accepted by the school board. Simenta also coached the seventh and eighth grade volleyball team.

Jerin Steele is a freelance writer

Tags: Springdale