Trying to change the culture for a football team without a postseason appearance since 1989 and fewer than 30 players takes some ingenuity.
Shade High School tried a couple different things for the upcoming season.
For starters, the Panthers are the only local program with co-head coaches. Mike Pribish and Don Fyfe are both considered head coaches for the 2012 season.
Pribish had been the head coach the past three years. He comes from a well-known family in the coal-mining communities surrounding Shade, where people are called or remembered more by their nicknames than their given ones. Pribish played football at Navy and IUP. His brother, George, started in Pitt's secondary during the late 1960s.
Fyfe also serves as a head coach at Shade during the early 2000s. He's worked closely with the defense, which figures to be Shade's strength. Matt Orner finished with more than 100 tackles a year ago and is back at linebacker.
Another thing Shade experimented with during camp was splitting up the starting group, so members of the starting offense could practice against starting defenders and vice verse.
"We tried doing it just top change it up," Pribish said. "We were looking pretty good offensively, but that was against our backups, so we broke the line in half first then did it with the rest of the defense. We needed to see if we were really blocking as well as it looked."
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