Steady presence in year of adjustments, Mike Warfield named Times' 2022 Coach of the Year

ALIQUIPPA – The Quips were a team without a home this fall.

Ongoing major renovations to Carl A. Aschman Memorial Stadium shut down “The Pit” this season, which meant Aliquippa had to play all of its games on the road.

No home, no problem for the Quips. Head coach Mike Warfield and his assistants made sure of it.

Despite playing three classifications above the school’s enrollment once again, Aliquippa defended its WPIAL Class 4A title and reached the PIAA title game for the second year in a row. And, once again, Warfield was named The Beaver County Times’ 2022 High School Football Coach of the year.

“Not having a place to practice and play, with all of our home games being away, I told our coaches that, if we don’t complain about it, the kids won’t complain about it,” he said. “The kids adjusted as we adjusted.”

The Quips were able to find a temporary home – Freedom’s Bulldog Stadium – for three regular-season games and a playoff game, as well as some practices.

“Freedom was like our home this year. We are thankful for them just to give us the ability to practice during the week, at times, and play some games on some Fridays,” Warfield said. “We are very appreciative with what they did for us.”

Aliquippa was on the road for more than just games. The Quips used various facilities in the area for practices – Freedom, Moon, Beaver, Wright Field in Chippewa – as well as their own baseball field (Morrell Field).

“We were basically all over, week to week. At times, when I felt we needed to be on a regulation field to get our spacing and alignments down, we made sure to find a place that’d work for us -- anyone that had availability,” Warfield said. “I want to thank our superintendent, Dr. Woods, our school board and our athletics director, Dr. Jennifer Damico, for allowing us to do that.”

Moving the operations of a football team is no easy feat. There are more logistics involved than just loading players up on a bus and heading somewhere. Facility availability was a constant juggling act, too. So, forget those normal routines teams cling to in order to eliminate distractions. Aliquippa didn’t complain, though. The Quips just went about their business.

“I tried to learn from it and get the kids to learn from it,” Warfield said. “On any given day, practice might change an hour before we were supposed to start and we had to be ready to adapt. You can flip that over to game situations. Adjustments are key and you have to be able to make adjustments on the fly. Mentally, that kept us strong. When we needed to adjust in games, I thought that was helpful since we were used to it since, outside of game days, we had to adjust as well.

“At times, we’d try to get to our games earlier than normal. We’d go out with the specialty guys and the wideouts and quarterbacks and have a little practice before games. We did that just to have a real-life timing session between the quarterbacks and wideouts. It worked out.”

Indeed. Aliquippa won its first 13 games and beat rival Central Valley twice – once for the Parkway Conference title and the second time at Acrisure Stadium for the WPIAL crown in the program’s 15^th-straight district championship game appearance. The Quips, who won their 19^th WPIAL crown, had their winning streak snapped at 25 and failed to defend their state title with a 41-18 setback to Bishop McDevitt.

“Early on in the season, we were just trying to find those pieces that really fit to give us the best opportunity to win,” Warfield said. “We were missing some guys for different reasons, so we didn’t look as good at the beginning of the year as we did at the end. If you look at our last six weeks, both offensively and defensively, we were very, very strong. We just ran into a team that was better than us at that particular time.”

Warfield credits his coaching staff – associate head coach Vashawn Patrick, offensive coordinator Shelton Colbert, defensive coordinator Dan Short, Mrryce Smith, Keir Jeter, J.R. Gilliam, Jaleel Fields, Robert Koger, Greg Gill and Garrett Tonio – for all of their efforts.

“To be named Coach of the Year – it reflects the people around me that really make the wins and losses go,” Warfield said. “I immediately think of Vashawn Patrick, Shelton Colbert and Dan Short and all the assistants with us. It’s more of an award about them than it is for me. They put so much time and effort into getting the kids ready each week.

“Our coaches do a great job working together,” he continued. “We have one rule in the coaches’ room – no whispering. If you have something to say, then say it. We talk it through and make the best decisions to give the team the best opportunity to win.

“I thought our game plan matched our kids’ abilities. I thought Shelton had a tremendous game plan going, especially down the stretch. He was putting the kids in the right positions and playing to their strengths. Our offense was balanced with different packages. Defensively, when you hold a team to a one yard in a championship game, you know you’re doing something right. Throughout the final six weeks, our defense was playing solid and fast. The kids did their part and the coaches did their part. It was a good season and I am definitely proud of the kids and definitely proud of the coaching staff.”

Now, Warfield, who is 60-6 in five seasons leading the Quips, is focused on finding his seniors a place to play next fall.

“We’ll get started back up in January, but there’s a lot of focus on recruiting right now and where our kids will land,” he said. “That’s one of the most important parts of being a high school head coach is getting your kids to the next level, whatever level that may be, and giving them an opportunity to move forward in a positive way.”

When the Quips return to outdoor workouts in the summer, their home field should be available. Warfield said the concrete footers for the scoreboard and bleachers have been poured and the lights are already installed. Artificial turf installation is slated for around March.

“They are making progress. The stadium is looking better now than it has looked in the last 20 years,” Warfield said. “That’s exciting.”

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Steady presence in year of adjustments, Mike Warfield named Times' 2022 Coach of the Year