Jeff Chillot leaves Hamburg after one season

Less than a month after taking Hamburg to its first district playoff victory Jeff Chillot has resigned as head coach.

The Hawks went 7-4 in Chillot’s only season at the school. They beat Bermudian Springs in the District 3 Class 3A quarterfinals before falling to Boiling Springs in the next round.

Hamburg athletic director Aaron Menapace said Chillot resigned because he found it difficult to coach at a school where he doesn’t teach. He remains a teacher at Schuylkill Valley, where he was head football coach for 12 seasons.

“Never in my wildest dreams, after the season we had, did I think we’d be looking for a head coach,” Menapace said Monday night.

Chillot said, via a text message, that he left for personal reasons.

“It was a genuine pleasure to work there,” Chillot wrote. “My assistant coaches were tremendous and Aaron is great to work with. (The) kids are great, too.”

His leaving, he wrote, had nothing to do with Hamburg.

“He’s such a good guy (but) he couldn’t do the job without living and working in the school district,” Menapace said. “He’s as much a mentor as he is a football coach. Not being able to sit with the kids at lunch, (see) them in the hall, be on top of their grades (made it difficult for him). He said he couldn’t do the job the way he wanted to do it.”

Chillot resigned at Schuylkill Valley following last season; he was the program’s longest-tenured head coach. He said the difficulties of the 2020 season, and dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and the health and safety procedures associated with it, wore him down.

He had a change of heart a few weeks later and reapplied for the job but was not hired.

“Originally, I felt I didn’t want to coach football anymore,” he said in August, “but that changed quickly for me, and I wanted to get back in.”

Chillot, 55 and in his 30th year of coaching, mentioned before the season how he was not used to teaching at one school and coaching at another.

“It was weird for me this summer to be at two different places,” he said prior to the season. “Now I’m making a right (turn) out of my development (to head north), instead of a left, so that part was strange. It’s not strange when I’m here, though. It’s a good feeling here. It is nice to be wanted here. The kids are really good. Aaron’s great as an A.D.”

Chillot went 53-72 with the Panthers and produced some of their best teams, including the 2012 team, which matched the program record for wins, went 8-4 and nearly knocked off eventual PIAA champ Wyomissing on its home field. Alex Anzalone scored a touchdown in the final seasons to help the Spartans escape.

Schuylkill Valley reached the district playoffs five teams under Chillot

Hamburg had not been to districts since 2015 and was 0-6 in the district tournament before this season when the Hawks, as the No. 3 seed, played their first district home game.

The seven wins this season were one short of the school record, set in 2006.