Lowellville hire

resigns as coach

By charles grove

cgrove@vindy.com

Lowellville

Lowellville High School is looking for a new football coach after P.J. Mays resigned Wednesday after accusations of possible recruiting violations were brought to the school board’s attention.

Mays was hired unanimously by the school board on Dec. 16 of last year as the football coach, boys head track and field coach and as a weight training coach.

Mays made posts on Facebook regarding a large fight that took place on March 8 at East High School. Mays was the East football coach for three seasons before resigning this past November after posting a 5-25 record.

Mays shared a news story about the fight commenting, “With that being said, if you trying to get to Lowellville you know my number!!!! #OpportunityKnocking!!!!!” and further stated “I got a new place for them to go.”

Another post from Mays’ Facebook profile from Feb. 26, 11 days before the fight at East, linked to Lowellville’s open enrollment policy with a comment, “I’ll just leave this right here for you guys to check out!”

Some interpreted these as blatant attempts to recruit football players away from East to Lowellville, but Mays said that wasn’t the intent of his posts.

“It was an impulse post about me being at a stable place with some support as opposed to what I received in the past,” Mays said. “It wasn’t meant as recruiting because I still have every phone number and every address of every athlete [from East]. I know where [the football players] live at because I would drop every one of them off at their home at least once for one reason or another. It isn’t like I need to use social media to recruit a kid from East because they all know me and they all know how to get a hold of me.”

Former players kept in contact with Mays even after the resignation, according to Mays.

“They all still do contact me with questions and concerns and I still lead those guys in the best manner possible. I attempted to make light of a situation that went bad.”

Mays took over after former head coach Jeff D’Altorio turned in his resignation following the 2015 season, which Lowellville finished 2-8. During D’Altorio’s five-year reign as the Rockets’ head coach Lowellville went 18-33 including a 6-4 record in 2013. It was the most success Lowellville has had since the team went 10-0 in 2002 and 6-4 in 2003.

East is now coached by Jerron Jenkins. Despite a new regime at East, Mays says he told the Panthers to “stick together” when he informed his players of his resignation after the 2015 season.

“As I was leaving out the door at East I told the guys that they should all stick together no matter what things would come of it so they could create a more successful atmosphere than what I could create,” Mays said. “I didn’t do a great job finding success for those guys, so I wanted someone else to take the opportunity while there was still a solid group of kids there so they could build off of it.”

Now Mays has resigned again before ever coaching a game at Lowellville.

While he couldn’t release the list of teams, Mays said his phone was ringing frequently Wednesday and he has a number of coaching offers already lined up.

“I had to turn my phone off today it was going off so much,” Mays said. It’s flattering that coaches I coached against are reaching out like this. All I ask for is support right now.”

The Lowellville school board met in executive session Wednesday night regarding Mays’ resignation and board member Joe Ballone refused to comment on the situation. Athletic director Brian Fedyski could not be reached.