Steve Beatty, battling cancer, resigns as Fleetwood football coach
Steve Beatty waited for years to get a chance to be a head football coach at the high school level.
A month or so after being hired by Fleetwood, in April 2020, he felt pain in his neck. A month later he was diagnosed with cancer.
He coached his first season with the Tigers with a rod in his leg, a brace around his neck, and in pain. Following the 2020 season he underwent stem cell surgery to treat multiple myeloma, a blood disorder.
He was feeling well when the 2021 season kicked off, and even better after it when the Tigers won their first football championship.
The daily grind of a football season takes its toll and it did on Beatty, who continued to undergo regular chemotherapy treatments throughout the season.
“Game day has been like therapy for me,” said the 62-year-old Beatty. “The adrenaline takes over and I feel like a million dollars. But then it takes all weekend to get charged up again, because I’m so tired.”
Tuesday he met with Fleetwood administrators to make his resignation official. He’ll stay on until Jan. 1 to complete postseason coaching duties, but next season the Tigers — coming off one of their best seasons — will have a new head coach.
“As much as I’d like to keep doing it, it’s just not fair to everyone else involved,” Beatty told MikeDragoSports.com Tuesday afternoon. “I feel it’s best to step aside and let someone else bring their energy to the program. It wasn’t an easy decision, but one that had to be made.
“I’ve coached 20-some years, love the game, but I also know what it takes to do everything at a high level. I just feel I can’t do it at that level anymore.”
The Tigers went 7-4 this season, ending with a 47-35 victory over Boyertown in the Eastern Conference Class 5A-6A championship game. The seven wins were one short of the program record, established in 2019.
The Tigers finished 6-4 during the regular season and tied with Conrad Weiser for second place in Section 2 of the Berks Football League. It was just the fourth winning record in the program’s 21-year history.
The Tigers went 2-5 in Beatty’s first season.
Beatty continues to undergo chemotherapy treatments and has been told he’ll have to continue that, possibly for the rest of his life unless a cure is found. Those treatments lead to fatigue and have made it difficult to fulfill the never-ending duties of a head coach.
“It’s just bad timing for me,” Beatty said. “I finally got a head coaching job at the high school level, then this hit me. First, you had COVID last year, then having the stem cell (surgery). . . We hit the ground this summer and felt like we had our act together. We knew were in line for a good year. I was feeling my best in July and August, but there were just days where it took everything I had to get out there and run a practice. That’s no way to coach.”
Beatty is appreciative for the experience, brief as it was.
“I’m really thankful to Fleetwood for the opportunity to coach,” he said. “I loved having the opportunity there. The people there have been nothing but supportive of my condition; they were just amazing. I’ll always grateful for that.”
