New Fleetwood coach hopes to instill old-school brand of football
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Mel Fegely plans to bring a new style of football to Fleetwood.
The former Muhlenberg tailback wants to instill the kind of mindset his former head coach, John Yocum, created during the Muhls’ glory days.
“We called ourselves the ‘Muhl-hogs’ because we just loved being in the dirt,” said Fegely, officially approved as the Tigers’ head coach Tuesday by the Fleetwood School Board. “On those early 1990’s Muhlenberg teams, all we cared about was putting a stick on somebody. When there was a big hit, the whole team celebrated.
“If you got to hit someone, it was a great day. We loved it. You saw the success Coach Yocum had with that mentality.”
Fegely was a record-setting tailback who played on three straight Inter-County League championship teams, from 1991-93; he helped set the tone for a program that dominated the league for the better part of two decades.
Fleetwood hasn’t come close to that kind of success during its 25 football seasons. When the Tigers have succeeded, they’ve done it mostly with a wide-open offensive style.
That’s fine, Fegely said, but Fleetwood traditionally hasn’t had enough athletes to sustain that. What he hopes to build is a more traditional approach and a gritty, blue collar work ethic.
“You can win with scheme, with X’s and O’s, if you have the athletes, but at Fleetwood (we haven’t always had that,” Fegely said.
“(In order to succeed) we’ve gotta put our hand in the dirt, we’ve gotta grind it out. If we block and we tackle well, (if we) fall in love with that physical aspect, the wins will come.”
Not many wins have come Fleetwood’s way in recent years. The Tigers were 2-8 last season, 3-7 the year before. They haven’t won a game in Section 3 of the Lancaster-Lebanon League since 2023.
Even with most of its starters returning, including five all-league picks, Fleetwood will have difficulty competing this season in a stacked section that now includes Twin Valley, as well as Manheim Central, Cocalico, and Solanco.
Fegely realizes it will take time, and sounds as if he’ll be around long enough to it get it done. He has two sons on the team, Beau, an all-league tailback who will be a senior this season, and Hunter, who will be a sophomore. On the way is his youngest son, Jackson.
Assistant coaches Anthony Garipoli and Jeremy Detwiler also have sons in the program.
Fegely, Garipoli, and Detwiler began coaching together in the Oley youth program years ago; they were also on staff at Fleetwood last season. When Steve Pangburn resigned earlier this year to take the head coaching position at Daniel Boone they figured they knew the Fleetwood program as well as anyone, and that Fegely was the guy to lead it.
Fegely played at Liberty University, has served on the Reading police force for nearly two decades, and now is the director of the city’s Police Academy. He knows all about leadership, stability and commitment. The program could use some of that after going through three head coaches over the past seven seasons.
Fegely has been heavily influenced by the coaches he’s played for: Former Cleveland Browns coach Sam Rutigliano, at Liberty; Yocum, at Muhlenberg; and two of his assistant coaches with the Muhls, Kerry Ciatto and Ed Lombardo. Fegely spent a season on staff with them after graduating college. The lessons they taught still resonate, and he’s soon to pass them on to a new generation of Fleetwood football players.
Fegely knows Job No. 1 at Fleetwood is recruiting players to the program, which has often struggled with numbers. More than half the players on last year’s roster attend school at Oley Valley (which has a cooperative sponsorship agreement with Fleetwood, allowing its student-athletes to play football there).
“Fleetwood is not known as a football school,” Fegely said. “We need to work on that. Kids with size aren’t playing. We’ve got to find a way to get into the schools and find those guys. We’ve gotta do a much better job of getting Fleetwood kids involved in their program.”
Fegely is hoping that once he brings players into the program they’ll fall as deeply in love with game as he is.
“There’s nothing like Friday nights – nothing,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to be a coach, to be able to get back on the sidelines on a Friday night. Head coaching? I didn’t think that was going to be an opportunity.”
Now that it is he wants to draw from his high school experiences, and the teaching of a Hall of Fame coach.
“Once you start getting physical (on the football field), and you fall in love with that, that become infectious,” Fegely said. “Football is physical. Football is violent. And we love it! That’s the mentality we’re going to bring to Fleetwood.”
