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A familiar face to the Buena Vista community will be in charge of the Parry McCluer High School football team this fall.
The PM athletic department announced last week that Jeremiah Brockenbrough, a longtime assistant football coach, has been named as its head footb all coach. Brockenbrough, who was officially named head coach at the Buena Vista School Board meeting on Thursday, has plenty of experience leading young athletes.
He’s coached football for about 20 years and is the Blues’ head wrestling coach, a position he’s held for the last 15 years. Less than two weeks ago, Brockenbrough led the PM wrestlers to sixth place at the Class 1 state tournament.
Brockenbrough, 43, replaces Troy Clark, who served as PM’s interim head football coach for the 2022 season. Clark had replaced Jack Baker, who coached the Blues to a 9-4 record, the Pioneer District title and the Region 1C finals in 2021 before leaving after one year to take over at Nelson County.
The Blues went 4-7 last fall, bouncing back from an 0-3 start and going 3-2 in the Pioneer District.
Explaining why he applied for the job, Brockenbrough said, “I think I could make a change and get us back to where they used to be.”
Optimistic about the change, PM athletic director Mike Cartolaro said, “We are excited and ready to start a new chapter of Parry McCluer football under the leadership of Coach Jeremiah Brockenbrough. Coach Brockenbrough is a product of the football program and has coached on all levels from little league up to the varsity level.”
A 1998 PM graduate, Brockenbrough was a linebacker and quarterback for the football teams coached by Charlie Wheeler from 1995-97. For the wrestling team, Brockenbrough was a state champion in 1998.
Brockenbrough teaches cabinetmaking and carpentry at PM. For the Blues’ varsity football team, he served as an assistant coach for 12 years, serving for 11 years as the offensive coordinator and for one year as the defensive coordinator, before coaching little league football last year.
Despite having four different coaches in four years, the Blues have made 11 consecutive playoff appearances, with Brockenbrough on the staff for 10 of those years.
Cartolaro said Brockenbrough’s experience “will be invaluable as we move forward into the future. Jeremiah will bring great energy and work ethic to the program, as he has done with his successful wrestling program for many years. We look forward to getting the student-athletes involved as soon as possible.”
Brockenbrough is meeting with football players and parents this week, and plans to get a coaching staff together in the next two weeks, seeing which assistant coaches will return and what other coaches the Blues may add.
He believes the coaching change will be a smooth transition. “Everybody knows me,” he said. ”I want to be a player’s coach.”
He and his wife, Brittany, a special education teacher at PM, are the parents of three children: Braddic, Battle and Jada.
Brockenbrough is optimistic about the team’s potential in the coming years. Although the Blues will graduate all-region running back and defensive end John Snider, who signed his letter of intent last month to play football for Division II school Emory & Henry College, they have some talented and hardworking athletes returning.
Some of the promising football players Brockenbrough highlighted were quarterback Landon Catlett and running back Evan Cook, who will be seniors in the fall. Other returning leaders are two rising juniors, lineman Rayshan Richardson and Jase Barger, a linebacker and tight end. Brockenbrough is also excited about rising sophomore Nathan Glass, who was a junior varsity quarterback last fall.
“We’ve got a lot of good kids coming back,” said Brockenbrough, adding that the team last fall had a lot of speed.
Looking forward to guiding the Blues, Brockenbrough said, “I want to get us back pointed in the right direction. I can build a foundation to win.”
