Jan 6, 2014 4 min read

Greg Perry, who last month resigned as the varsity head football coach at Seton-La Salle High School, will assume the same position at Keystone Oaks. Perry replaces Matt Taylor, who resigned in November after two seasons at KO.

The 1979 KOHS graduate had been the head coach at Seton-La Salle since 2005, leading the Rebels to eight playoff appearances in the past nine years, including four straight quarterfinal berths and two WPIAL semifinals. Seton-La Salle went 73-24 during that span.

Prior to becoming Seton-La Salle’s head coach, Perry served as the school’s’ offensive coordinator from 1994-2004 where he helped guide the Rebels to six section championships and two WPIAL titles, and he helped to develop future NFL players and Dormont natives Bruce (Pittsburgh Steelers) and Gino Gradkowski (Baltimore Ravens).

The Pitt alumnus said that his offensive and defensive systems will be based largely on the team’s existing strengths but that his core beliefs lie in running a spread offense and an even front, attacking style defense.

“We’re going to try to take advantage of our athletes and do whatever we can to get the ball in their hands in space,” he said.

A Green Tree resident, Perry considers himself a “KO man” as one of eight children in his family to attend the school. Perry also sent his two daughters to Keystone Oaks.

“I’ve always had a lot of pride in where I went to school, and I consider it a great honor and responsibility to have the opportunity to help some of the young men currently at Keystone Oaks to have as wonderful a high school football experience as I had when I played there,” he said.

Perry played for long time head coach John Durham, and though their respective approaches to the schematics of the game couldn’t be more different, Perry insists that he learned a lot from his high school football coach.

“Coach Durham was all about effective time management and discipline and I was very much impacted by those lessons,” he said. “That’s even more important today as kids have so many things competing for their attention that if you are not concise with them and if you don’t make it fun, they’ll move onto something else and we can’t afford for that to happen.”

Perry also feels very strongly that his players should be as involved as possible in as many other extracurricular activities as they can handle.

“Obviously their schoolwork is always going to come first but high school is about so much more than just your classes,” he said. “High school is a very special time in any young person’s life and I have coached for long enough to understand that kids are always looking for new experiences as they forge their own paths. That’s why I have always encouraged my student-athletes to play other sports and join other extracurricular activities to help them develop as people and to get the most out of their high school experience.”

Perry, who helped run a flag football camp for the Keystone Oaks Area youth football program last year, also hopes to help instill some of his philosophies into the youth programs in the area. “The youth programs and middle school program obviously serve as the feeder system for the high school program,” said Perry. “To have a successful high school football program we are going to have to make sure that the kids in those programs are properly developing their skills but most importantly that they’re having fun playing a game.”

Keystone Oaks has qualified for the WPIAL’s postseason tournament nine times in the school’s history including five of the past eight seasons.

Meanwhile, Seton-La Salle named Damon Rosol its new varsity head football coach.

The 1993 SLS graduate served previously as the offensive coordinator at Montour. Before his nine seasons with the Spartans, Rosol was an assistant at SLS from 1997 to 2005.

A 1998 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, Rosoal is an account executive with Consolidated Displays, Inc., a position he has held since May of 2006.