Mick Vecchio’s had a Hall-uva football coaching career
Mick Vecchio sat on the sidelines for years, shaking his head, frustrated to see Gov. Mifflin’s football team struggle year after year. The long-time assistant coach knew the Mustangs could be a winner; he burned inside, wanting to show everyone how.
“All those years, I just thought we could win at Mifflin,” said Vecchio, now 71 and retired from teaching and — for the most part, coaching. “No one else did, but I did.”
He was so frustrated at being turned down for the head coaching job in 1983 that he left public education and worked in the private sector for seven years. Finally, in 1991, he got the chance to be the head coach.
What transpired over the next quarter-century transformed not only Mifflin’s program but the Berks Football League as well. Vecchio found a winning formula and dominated the league with it; the Mustangs won 11 league titles over a 14-year stretch at the end of his tenure.
Sunday he’ll be recognized for that, with induction into his fourth Hall of Fame — this one the biggest yet: The Pennsylvania Scholastics Football Coaches Association. The ceremony will take place at 3, between the two East/West All-Star Games at Bishop McDevitt high school.
He is touched and “excited as hell” about the honor.
He’ll be there with his wife, Christine, and his three sons — Mike, Frank and Doc, each of whom played for him; Mike and Doc have coached alongside him at Mifflin for many years.
| Berks’ winningest coaches | ||
| Bob Wolfrum | Wyomissing | 337 |
| Rick Keeley | Berks Catholic* | 270 |
| Mick Vecchio | Gov. Mifflin | 181 |
| Doug Dahms | Wilson | 170 |
| John Yocum | Muhlenberg | 167 |
| John Gurski | Wilson | 151 |
| Ray Linn | Gov. Mifflin+ | 151 |
| Alan Moyer | Conrad Weiser | 133 |
| Gerry Slemmer | Wilson | 129 |
| Don Thomas | Exeter | 123 |
That experience — coaching his sons, and their friends, and later coaching with them — is a highlight that ranks right up there with any of his greatest victories: over Wilson, State College, Bishop McDevitt or Harrisburg — when the Cougars were the top-ranked team in the state, in 2017. The Mustangs handed Micah Parsons a loss in his final high school game — on his home turf, no less.
That was part of a spectacular 2017 season — Vecchio’s last as head coach — that saw them go unbeaten in the league for the sixth time in seven years and reach the District 3 Class 5A championship game. There, at Hersheypark Stadium, they played an epic championship game, with each team taking and retaking the lead in the final minutes before the Barons prevailed, 30-29 win.
Mifflin ended the season ranked No. 6 in the state, its highest ranking ever at that point, and set a program record by averaging 39.2 points per game.
Vecchio stepped down after that season with 181 victories, third-most in Berks football history. He coached 297 games, also third-most in Berks history. His 26-year tenure as a head coach is third-longest in Berks history. Only Wyomissing’s Bob Wolfrum and Berks Catholic’s Rick Keeley have coached or won more games among Berks coaches.
He had planned to make 2016 his final season but health issues forced him to take a medical sabbatical. He handed off to long-time assistant coach Jeff Lang — whom he affectionately calls his “fourth” son — and the Mustangs won 10 games and another league title.
More proof as to how sturdy a foundation he had built.
As proud as he was of Lang and his coaching staff, he could not exit that way, physically unable to coach. So he returned in 2017.
“I couldn’t pack it in on that type of thing,” he said. “It’s important to go out on your own terms.”
That’s the way Vecchio always did things: On his own terms. Things turned out pretty well.
He won his first championship, in Section 1 of the Lancaster-Lebanon League, with each of his boys on the field. They made their dad proud beyond words, on and off the field.
“They worked so hard that there was never any criticism from the other kids (that they were only playing because their father was coach),” he said.
The Mustangs hit a rough patch after that — they sank to 1-9 in 2003 — before Vecchio hit on the magic formula. While everyone else at the high school level was throwing the ball more and more each season he went the opposite way and switched to a run-based Veer-style offense. The Mid-Line Option triggered a wave of success which saw the program win eight league titles in a nine-season stretch and had rival teams adopting similar strategies.
Mifflin won its first Berks League title and an Eastern Conference championship in 2004, and things only got better after that. The Mustangs went 12-2 in back-to-back seasons, in 2006 and 2007, and won 34 games over a three-year stretch. They’ve had five more 10-win seasons since.
They’ve had 18 consecutive winning seasons, the longest sustained run of success in program history. Good as Mifflin football was during the 1960s, when it dominated the Tri-County League, the Mustangs were never as good as they’ve been over the last 15 years, challenging for district championships and setting Berks scoring records. From 2010-2015, Mifflin won a league-record 35 straight league games.
Including 18 seasons as an assistant coach, Vecchio has been associated with the program for 44 seasons, beginning in 1972.
He has been inducted into Halls of Fame at Mifflin, at Muhlenberg — where he was an All-Berks center and catcher — and by the Berks County Football Coaches Association.
These days he spends mornings working out at Mifflin alongside the players or playing pickleball with friends. He and Christine have become “snowbirds,” spending the winter in south Florida.
He’s been a volunteer assistant coach at Mifflin since stepping down as head coach but thinks he may back away from that this season. He’s thinking he’s spent his last Friday night on a sideline; he figures Lang and his sons don’t need his advice any longer. Then again . . .
“Come fall,” he said, “that could all change.”
