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Bethel Park quarterback finds home at Youngstown State

By Eleanor Bailey almanac Sports Editor ebailey@thealmanac.Net 8 min read
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Bethel Park quarterback Max Blanc is poised to lead the Black Hawks against Baldwin.

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Eleanor Bailey/The Almanac

Bethel Park quarterback Max Blanc gets a pass off before being tackled by South Fayette defensemen Connor Harcarik (4) and Keon Johnson (54) during an Allegheny Six Conference game last season.

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Max Blanc is a three-sport athlete at Bethel Park High School. 

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Rob Blanc

Bethel Park quarterback Max Blanc may call himself a one-trick pony because he doesn’t play defense, but the description just might not be entirely accurate.

A rising senior, he also excels on the Black Hawks’ basketball and track teams. He is a high honors student and works with special needs students by volunteering at the YMCA’s Camp AIM and with Bethel Park’s PAC Pals Club.

Most recently, he accepted an athletic scholarship to Youngstown State University. While playing football for the Penguins, he plans to pursue a degree in kinesiology.

Blanc picked Youngstown State over Yale, Lehigh and Valparaiso.

“Youngstown recruited me the most persistently during the whole process,” he said. “I felt they were as interested in me as I was of them. I felt part of their family and it’s close enough to home that my parents and brother can come to my games and see me play.

“That was important,” he added, “as well as the family aspect Youngstown State had shown me while I was up there.”

Blanc’s athletic career began when his father, Brian, introduced him to basketball, while serving as coach of Bethel Park’s ninth-grade team before moving on to become a varsity assistant.

“Basketball was a substitute for day care,” Blanc said with a laugh. “I was always in the gym running around while my dad held practice.”

Though he picked up basketball first, Blanc began playing football at age 6 when he started to attend his older brother’s practices.

Jake Dixon played football, basketball and volleyball at Bethel Park. After a brief volleyball career at Lewis University, Dixon transferred to Duquesne and is now a 6-6, 290-pound All-America tight end with aspirations of being selected in the 2022 NFL Draft.

“I remember watching Jake practice and putting his helmet on in the living room. It was meant to be,” Blanc said of his own football career.

After sharing quarterback duties with Jason Nuttridge, Blanc is prepared to blossom into one of the top signal callers in the WPIAL this autumn. The rising senior passed for 426 yards and two touchdowns, while completing 49 of 92 passes during BP’s 0-7 campaign in 2021.

“We expect big things from Max,” said BP head coach Brian DeLallo. “He’s older and has a better command of the offense. Plus, he has arm strength and he’s very cerebral. That is the big reason why Youngstown recruited him. Their offensive coordinator said Max has the highest football IQ of any one that he has coached in the last decade. He’s very smart.”

Blanc possesses a 4.2 GPA and relies on three tenants written on a black band he wears around his wrist during his athletic endeavors. He said they are lessons he learned from sports that promise to carry him through life.

“Trust the process, control what you can control and be where your feet are,” he said.

Blanc said the Black Hawks have already laid the ground work to go from an 0-7 team to a championship contender. He said his team has taken care of business in the weight room and through offseason workouts.

“We need to control what we can control and so far we are doing things right. When you do that, things like winning take care of themselves,” the 6-5, 190-pound quarterback said.

Blanc does not set statistical goals. Rather he said he reaches for lofty team achievements and hopes he has the leadership ability to “elevate” those playing around him.

“Last year was a fluke. It’s not who Bethel Park football is. It doesn’t fit the narrative,” he said. “My goal is to lead and bring BP football back to where it was when my brother and guys like Anthony Chiccitt played here.

“I’m not looking for a number,” he added. “I haven’t written anything down statistic-wise. I just want us to be undefeated at home, capture the conference first, win a WPIAL championship and then maybe contend for a state title.”

Blanc said he welcomes opponents who may underestimate the Black Hawks this fall.

“Our preparation has been great and we are a completely different team with all the same guys,” he said. “My job is to continue to lead. Whenever you hear announcers talk about Tom Brady they remark about how he elevates his players. I’m trying to resemble Brady and do that too.”

Age: 18

Birthday: July 28

Parents: Julie Blanc and Brian Blanc.

Siblings: Jake, 23

High School: Bethel Park

Year: Senior

GPA: 4.2

Sports: Football, basketball, track

Clubs: Principal’s Advisory Council, PAC Pals, YMCA Camp AIM

College: Youngstown State University

Major: Kinesiology.

Color: Orange “Because it’s one of our school colors.”

Food: Pizza. “When I went to the Yale Football Camp, we went to this place in New Haven and I was in heaven. But the best place to get pizza in Pittsburgh is the original Fiori’s on West Liberty Avenue.”

Restaurant: Pasta Too.

Music: “I love country music and my favorite artists are Luke Coombs and Sam Hunt. I really like Hunt because he played quarterback in college, too.”

Book: “The TB12 Method: How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance” by Tom Brady

Movie: The Dark Knight

Favorite Olympic Sport? Golf. “I love to watch it.”.

Favorite athlete: Matthew Stafford and Joe Burrow

Who is your role model? My mom. “I really look up to her. She is my No. 1 support system. Anything I need, I can go to her for.”

Dream Destination: Hawaii. “My family went there to watch Jake play a football game there. We were only on the island of Oahu and there was little time to see much. So it would be great to go back. It’s so beautiful.”

People might be surprised to know this about you: I was a very bad kid in pre-school and when I was young. I was super aggressive and needed a couple years to figure things out.

Person you would like to have dinner with: Tom Brady. “While hearing his story of success and how he came into the league would take up most of the conversation, there is so much more to talk about.”

In 15 years, I will: “Have a wife and kids and hopefully living in Bethel Park, a community that I truly love. But my No. 1 goal is to be playing in the NFL first then establish my work in athletic and physical therapy or sports medicine, maybe working for a college or professional sports team.”

If Max Blanc does not parlay his football talents into a professional career, the Bethel Park rising senior may plan to emulate his uncle and become an athletic trainer. Blanc will pursue studies in kinesiology at Youngstown State University, where he recently committed to play football for the Penguins.

“My uncle redirected me to kinesiology,” Blanc said.”Under its umbrella you can do many things from being a personal or athletic trainer to physical therapy or getting a PA (physician’s assistant) job.”

For 32 years, Rob Blanc worked as the University of Pittsburgh’s head football trainer. At age 60, he retired last July after serving under eight football coaches.

He is a past recipient of the NCAA Division I Head Athletic Trainer of the Year Award presented by the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA).

He has also been honored with the Distinguished Merit Award from the Pennsylvania Athletic Trainers’ Society in recognition of his dedicated service, past achievements and outstanding professional contributions that have furthered the advancement of the athletic training profession in the Commonwealth.

In addition to his responsibilities with the Panthers’ football program, he played a lead role with the Pitt Performance Team, a unique blending of the university’s numerous resources that focuses on the development and welfare of the total student-athlete. He also helped coordinate sports coverage, budget, inventory, drug testing and counseling.

An adjunct clinical instructor for Pitt’s NATA-approved undergraduate athletic training curriculum, he has co-authored two textbooks, Emergency Care in Athletic Training and Athletic Training Case Scenarios: Domain-Based Situations and Solutions, with three graduates of the University of Pittsburgh athletic training program. Blanc had a third book published in 2017, True Stories From The Athletic Training Room.

Uncle Rob graduated from Slippery Rock University in 1982 and earned his master’s in athletic training in 1984 from Ohio University. He was also a certified paramedic and was involved in an emergency medical service for 17 years in Bethel Park.

Prior to joining the Panthers staff, Blanc has served as head athletic trainer at Duquesne University for two years. He began his athletic training career as the head athletic trainer at New Lexington (Ohio) High School in 1983. A year later, he began working for the Pittsburgh Steelers on a part-time basis, serving at training camp and at all home games.

Blanc’s uncle and his wife, Peggy, had three children: son, Jason and daughters, Jordan and Shannon.

“My first goal is to play football until I can’t anymore,” said Blanc. “Hard work, dedication and preparation will enable me to make the NFL a realistic goal.

“My main goal after that is to work in athletic and physical therapy or sports medicine. There are so many avenues and so many schools and organizations in which to do that. It would be great if I could do what my uncle did if a playing career in football doesn’t pan out.”

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