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GOOD DAY, MATEY!
After 49 years, Youngstown schools athletic adviser retiring — again
YOUNGSTOWN
As the end of his second — and final — stint in a retire/hire scenario with the city schools approaches, Ed Matey reflects on the evolution over his 49 combined years as a teacher, coach and athletic administrator.
Although the best memories are of his 35 years at Chaney High before he retired in 2002, the academic problems of the city system, for one, aren’t a reason for Matey’s decision to step away.
“An awful lot of changes have taken place,” Matey said of the period during his decade-plus years as athletic administrator.
“We’ve gone through a number of different administrations with a number of different ideas on how to run the system,” the 71-year-old said. “I can’t say it hasn’t been fulfilling because, if it hadn’t, I’d have left.
“I’m hoping that, in the future, one of these programs that we’re trying all the time, is going to be the right one to turn things around.”
After departing from Chaney, Matey got called down to the board office on Wood Street to work four hours a day, then eight as a retiree when John Tullio was city Athletic Director. Matey continued as Tullio’s assistant for four years, then took over Tullio’s position.
Matey said he hasn’t had much communication with CEO Krish Mohip, as far as athletics is concerned, other than to convey that Mohip hired Rick Shepas as his athletic adviser.
In March, Matey started grooming Shepas for his job, which Shepas will assume after Matey’s final day (June 30).
Shepas, a Cardinal Mooney graduate, coached at Poland and elsewhere until serving as Waynesburg (Pa.) University’s football coach until recently.
“I think Rick is a good choice,” Matey said. “I don’t know what his connection was to Mohip, but he’s a good choice. Mohip felt he needed an athletic adviser, so he hired Shepas.”
When Matey broke in under Tullio, the city still had four high schools: Wilson, Chaney, East and Rayen. Then they started closing one by one.
“When [Superintendent] Dr. [Connie] Hathorn came, he chose to close Chaney as an athletic school and make it a STEM and VPA school,” Matey said. “That’s when all sports programs moved to East.”
Prior to the announcement that Mohip wants athletics back at Chaney, Matey said that he was asked about its feasibility.
“Returning athletics to Chaney, because of low numbers, would be tough to do,” Matey said of Mohip’s intention to install the same athletic programs in place at East at Chaney.
“I said it would be pretty improbable because All-American Conference schedules for East are done until 2018. It would be awfully hard to get a schedule for Chaney now, unless you want to end up playing teams like Cincinnati Moeller and Canton McKinley and those kinds of schools.”
Matey was asked to assess the impact of the state’s competitive balance initiative for East.
“We don’t get a lot of kids transferring in — they’re transferring out — so we’re still Division II,” he said.
What were some of the problems Matey encountered on the job?
“The biggest thing in the city is that it got harder to hire coaches,” Matey said. “It was an every-year fight to hire coaches for all sports.
“I think the staff over at East was doing a real good job trying to turn things around. Then again, when the system, academically, is in such a poor state, it’s really hard to keep the good kids.”
With Matey’s guidance, the middle schools were combined into one program.
“Those schools have always done very well in the All-American Conference — tournament championships in basketball and undefeated seasons in football.
“But, again, when those kids go from the eighth-grade to the ninth-grade, we get picked over by all the open-enrollment schools and the parochial schools,” Matey said. “Those parents are making decisions based, primarily, on academics.
“Hopefully, because Mohip has some new ideas, this academic thing can get turned around in the city schools.”
To that end, the answer is within reach for those who want it.
“Back in the day, discipline was very important and that was part of the teaching process,” said Matey, who considers himself an old-timer. “I’m not sure how all this will work out, but I’m hoping it’ll work out to the best of the city schools’ interest.”
An athletic accomplishment under Matey was the rebirth of Rayen Stadium on the North Side.
“[Former Superintendent] Wendy Webb came to me at the time and wanted to see if we could renovate Rayen Stadium,” Matey said. “We worked with MS Consultants and got a probable cost for that, then started a campaign — which lasted two years — to raise some money. Some was used from the Ohio Facilities Commission and some was raised privately.”
Matey said he believes that the new Rayen Stadium helped greatly toward East’s acceptance in the new All-American Conference.
“Once the commissioners looked at all of our facilities — new school buildings and new stadium — that’s when we finally got into the All-American Conference, which has really been great for us because we get full schedules for four middle schools and our high school.
“When we weren’t in a league, we had to beg, borrow and choose to fill those [middle school] schedules for football, volleyball, basketball, track.”
The stadium has been a model catalyst.
“So far, we’ve had great success there,” he said. “It’s a very nice facility and there haven’t been any problems.”
Still, the battle to keep students beyond eighth grade continues.
“That’s when parents can choose to go from one place to another,” Matey said. “Being in academic emergency, kids don’t have to sit out a year; they can go right now on educational choice.
“They automatically become eligible and take the voucher and go.”
Incidents, such as the ruckus that occurred at East a few years ago, shouldn’t be a reflection on all students — or athletics — but it is. Behavior goes a long way toward swaying public perception.
“It needs to be changed,” Matey said, “for the school system to be successful.”
Conversely, he add: “There’s a lot of hard-working teachers in the city of Youngstown doing a fantastic job. Personally, I don’t think they get the credit for as hard as they work and as much time as they put into their jobs.
“It’s a very devoted teaching staff. It’s a different situation in some school systems than in others. I think all teachers could be successful anywhere.”
Despite the challenges, Matey said he believes that Shepas could make an impact.
“I think Rick will do a good job.” Matey said. “He’s got some good ideas about starting some programs and trying to get out and beat the bush to try to get a lot of these young kids.
“The Youngstown City School district isn’t the only one suffering from falling numbers in athletics. A lot of the teams in the All-American Conference didn’t have ninth-grade basketball teams, so it’s not unique to Youngstown — it seems to be more of a national trend.”
Matey is leaving with mixed emotions.
“The way to look at it is that the enrollment is down in the city — as is the population,” he said. “At one time, I think we had 48 school buildings and 45,000 students. Now, we have less than 5,000, so I think that’s quite a big jump.
“The pool of athletes just isn’t the same as it used to be. In my 35 years at Chaney as teacher, coach, faculty manager and teacher on special assignment, we had great teams, worked with great kids and had the pleasure of coaching three athletes who went on to become college All-Americans,” Matey said of Matt Cavanaugh, Jerry Olsavsky and Michael Zordich. “There are too many families to mention that had sons and daughters who went on to play in college and were very successful.”