ORWIGSBURG — Al Yackenchick has been a track and field head coach in the Schuykill League for the past 19 years, first with Mount Carmel and then with Blue Mountain.
He might get to 20 and beyond down the road, but it won’t be next spring.
Yackenchick has decided it is time to step down as head coach after 15 seasons in his current position with the Eagles, bringing to an end, at least for now, a successful career.
Yackenchick is the second long-time coach from the league who’s decided to move on this year. Lafay Hope, who coached track and field for 43 years at North Schuylkill, including two stints as a head coach, retired at the end of last season. Hope’s most recent turn as Spartans’ coach started in 2008.
Yackenchick, 45, said the time involved with coaching the sport is the reason he is stepping down. Yackenchick is currently a health and physical education teacher at Blue Mountain and is raising 10 children, ages 3-20, with his wife, Annetta.
However, Yackenchick, who has a 131-19 career dual-meet record, is leaving the door open that he might return in the future. It may even be this spring, it just won’t be as a head coach.
“I have no desire to retire,” he said. “I hope to get back into coaching as soon as I can.”
The decision to give it up wasn’t easy for a sport that’s been a part of Yackenchick’s life since he was a junior at Blue Mountain.
Yackenchick put in his resignation in June but it wasn’t announced until last week by Blue Mountain co-athletic director Ruth Weidman. Yackenchick has had thoughts about stepping down for three years and finally felt the time was now.
“Basically the last three years, we are really outnumbered at home,” he said. “Right now we have two kids in high school, a kid in college, two kids in middle school, three kids in elementary, two kids at home. It is hard to comprehend even thinking about it. As soon as they get home you are talking about homework, you are talking about meals. It was time to start helping out. It is a full-time job.
“I really should have stepped down maybe two years ago. But I have such a passion for it and it is something I love to do and I wanted to do. I turned in my resignation in June because I knew there was no way I could continue. A day did not go by that I didn’t think about how I could pull it off. I thought of so many different ways. But is no way avoiding the amount of time in.”
Yackenchick has certainly put the time in and has become of the league’s most successful coaches.
After graduating from Blue Mountain in 1987, Yackenchick earned All-America status in the javelin at East Stroudsburg University in 1992. He started his coaching career as the throwing coach at Blue Mountain in under Jim Shields in 1994.
Yackenchick went to Mount Carmel in 1996. The Red Tornadoes were 3-5 during Yackenchick’s first season, but went a combined 16-2 the next three years. His best year was in 1998 when Mount Carmel won the division title, District 4 Class AA championship and were co-PIAA Team champs with Fort LeBoeuf.
During Yackenchick’s final season at Mount Carmel in 1999, Nick Sebes (400) and Jay Malakoski (shot put) won PIAA Class AA individual titles.
In 2000, Yackenchick took over for Tom Wehr, his old high school coach at Blue Mountain. Under Yackenchick, the Eagles have won eight division titles and overall league titles in 2009 and 2010. Blue Mountain has gone undefeated six times, including three consecutive 8-0 seasons from 2004-06.
Yackenchick’s coaching philosophy has been to sell the fact that track and field is a team sport. He is also big on setting goals for his athletes to hit.
“If you reach those goals, you are going to be successful,” Yackenchick said. “You probably couldn’t get through a practice of mine without talking about PRs (personal records) and goal setting. Once you hit that goal, you re-establish a new goal and it is really easy to coach in that regard because you can see instantaneously if you are making improvements. You want to see kids coming in there, reach a starting point and build on it.”
Yackenchick, whose coaching specialities are javelin and pole vault, also knows the success at Blue Mountain wouldn’t be possible without his assistants. This past year’s staff included Cory Mabry (head girls’ coach), Leslie Schoffstall (sprints), Rick Jones (varsity, junior high assistant), Craig Wessner (sprints), Tiff Cresswell-Yeager (head junior high coach), Kurt Mack (distance), Jared Buchman (distance), Brian Miller (hurdles, high jump), Harry Myers (throws), Nick Adams (junior high assistant) and Paige Schoffstall (junior high assistant).
The support from the school district and booster club has allowed Blue Mountain to host multiple Schuylkill League and District 11 Championship meets through the years that have benefited the program.
“We raised so much money with all the meets we hosted,” Yackenchick said. “They worked their tails off in the concession stand, but everything we made went back to the kids to give them the quality equipment to the quality practices, quality drills. It is the whole program, making things work.”
Those long hours, however, are why Yackenchick believes it is time to leave.
“There is so many good memories,” he said. “It is not just the kids who always excel, it is the little things, the kids who fell short, the kids that kept persevering. I think the kids who really put the time in and really wanted it, those are the kids you always remember. Those are the kids who mean something. There was a lot at Blue Mountain, there really was.”
Yackenchick’s
coaching history
At Mount Carmel
1996 — 3-5
1997 — 7-1%
1998 — 8-0*%@
1999 — 7-1%
At Blue Mountain
2000 — 7-2
2001 — 6-2
2002 — 8-0*
2003 — 7-1
2004 — 8-0*
2005 — 8-0*
2006 — 8-0*
2007 — 7-1
2008 — 7-1
2009 — 9-0*#
2010 — 8-1*#
2011 — 6-2*
2012 — 7-1
2013 — 5-0*
2014 — 5-1
Career — 131-19
* Schuylkill League Division I champs
# Overall Schuylkill League champs
% District 4 Class AA team champ
@ PIAA Class AA Co-champs
Note: 2011 division title was shared with North Schuylkill and Pottsville