New Tennent football coach Colin Leach: 'This is somewhere I plan on being for a long time'
During the interview process for the William Tennent football coaching position, Colin Leach's slogan was "together we rise."
Officially hired Tuesday as Tennent's coach, the 29-year-old Leach is aware that the Panthers have struggled in recent years. But that doesn't deter him.
"There hasn't been a ton of success as of late," said Leach during a phone conversation Wednesday night. "We're coming forward, rising, moving up. My idea is to respect what happened in the past, but turn the page and move forward to take the program as high as it can go."
Tennent has compiled 41-126 record dating back to 2006, which was the last time the Panthers qualified for the District One playoffs or had a winning record (6-4 under Biz Keeny).
Former coach Rich Clemens went 10-35 over the past five seasons, culminating with a 1-8 record last year. Clemens took over a program that had lost 22 games in a row.
"I feel I need to create the excitement about the football team to get them to buy in and get more kids on the team," Leach said. "I feel a big thing for me in building the culture is to start at the middle school level. They'll see my face in the community."
Leach coached the offensive line and special teams at Tennent for two years (2019-20) when he was getting his master's in counseling at Gwynedd Mercy and serving as assistant athletic director. He was the tight ends coach at Council Rock South in 2021-22.
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He played offensive line for Pat Manzi at Bishop McDevitt, earning first-team All-Catholic honors at center as a junior, prior to graduating in 2011, then spent one year at Delaware Valley before tearing his labrum and rotator cuff in the spring of '12. Leach coached the offensive line at McDevitt from 2013-16 before joining Ryan Nase's Cheltenham staff as line coach in 2017-18.
"Pretty cool to see a second assistant from the first staff we put together 5.5 years ago have an opportunity to become a head coach," Nase tweeted. "(Tennent) got a great one."
Leach cites Manzi, former McDevitt offensive line coach Mark Zataveski, who played at Notre Dame, and Nase for their significant impacts on his football journey to becoming a head coach.
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A school counselor at Bedminster Elementary in the Pennridge School District who lives in Glenside, Leach lists his coaching strengths as his counseling background ("I want to be a rock for them in their lives"), his family-oriented personality ("To get the most out of every player and do it the right away — I'm not a big yeller") and building strategies to help cope with stress ("Games are roller coasters").
"This is somewhere I plan on being for a very long time," Leach said. "If we build together, we can get the places we want to be. If everyone has each other's backs, winning is going to come."
Abington hires Tolbert
Abington picked 1989 graduate Terence Tolbert as its 18th head football coach Tuesday.
Tolbert was an Abington assistant from 1999-2009 and 2013, and worked with quarterbacks, special teams and the JV team.
A business teacher at Cheltenham, Tolbert also coached in Florida at Wekiva and West Orange high schools, in addition to working with Quarterback Nation, All American Games and NFL High School Player Development.
Tolbert succeeds Kevin Conlin, who went 29-39 in seven seasons at Abington. The Ghosts were 2-8 last year.
Tom Moore: tmoore@couriertimes; @TomMoorePhilly
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: New Tennent football coach Colin Leach: 'This is somewhere I plan on being for a long time'
