RIMERBURG, Pa. (EYT) — The Union School Board in a 5-4 vote Thursday night hired former A-C Valley head coach Brad Dittman, and in the process, while not publicly saying it, fired former head coach Dave Louder.
(Photo: Dave Louder leads his Union/A-C Valley Falcon Knights team out during the 2017 season. Louder was not hired back as the football coach on Thursday night, being replaced by former A-C Valley head coach Brad Dittman)
Dittman was the last coach that A-C Valley had as a standalone program from 2012-15, and he guided the Falcons to a 3-36 record in his four seasons at the helm including 0-20 over his last two years. A-C Valley’s program ended on a 32-game losing streak before merging with Union to form Union/A-C Valley prior to the start of the 2016 season.
Louder was the last head coach of Union’s standalone program and was the first-ever coach for the Union/A-C Valley cooperative agreement team that started in 2016. Louder guided the Golden Knights to a record of 35-30 in his six years as their head coach including the school’s first-ever District 9 playoff appearance. In two years as the Union/A-C Valley coach, Louder was 3-16.
Many current and former football players at both Union and Union/A-C Valley attended the meeting in support of Louder, and reports from people at the meeting said many of those players were in tears after the board’s vote.
Multiple sources have told D9Sports.com that when asked why Louder wasn’t rehired as the football coach, the board wouldn’t give a reason.
When the football job was first opened in late January, Union athletic director Scott Kindel declined to comment when asked why the job had been posted.
It is not unusual for high school coaching positions to be one-year contracts with many of them being renewed without a public posting (internal postings are the norm). When schools want to change coaches, oftentimes they will state that a position is open and that it’s part of the normal process, and the coach just wasn’t rehired. But, in reality, it is basically a way to fire a coach without saying as much.
While the football team is a co-op between Union and A-C Valley, the Union School Board hires the coaches because it is the host school in the co-op.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story listed Louder’s 2-year record with the co-op as 4-14. It has been recorded to 3-16.
