By John Enrietto

Eagle Sports Editor

Don Earley was about more than winning.

The former Freeport High School varsity football coach — who died Thursday at age 85 at Forbes Regional Hospital in Monroeville — was about motivating, adjusting and communicating with kids.

“He was a legend at Freeport,” said current Yellowjacket football coach John Gaillot, who played on Earley’s final Freeport team as a sophomore. “What he was all about back then, we believe in today.

“How emotional he was on the sidelines, watching him when I was growing up, how he carried himself ... We try to emulate that now.

“Don Earley started the tradition at Freeport. Hard-nosed, old-school football — line up and we will be more physical than you are,” Gaillot added.

Earley was head coach at Freeport from 1967-85. The Yellowjackets never finished lower than fourth in any of his 19 seasons. They made the WPIAL playoffs 10 times and reached the finals seven times.

“Under today’s guidelines, he would have had Freeport in the playoffs every year,” said Bill Dillen, one of Earley’s longtime assistants.

He won 200 games in his prep football career, coaching previously at Washington Township. He won more than 100 games as a basketball coach there and won state championships as a track and field coach at Freeport.

Gary Kepple was a coach on Earley’s Freeport staff for all 19 years and succeeded him as head coach there.

“Don rarely raised his voice at a kid,” Kepple said. “He was a teacher. The kids respected him so much. The sport didn’t matter. He could win coaching anything. He’d win with talented players, he’d win with so-so players. He just won.

“He got through to kids, knew how to communicate with them.”

Kepple said Earley served as offensive and defensive coordinator as well. His assistant coaches had specified positions.

Dillen was part of Earley’s staff for 15 years.

“Don was so organized,” Dillen said. “He would make tremendous adjustments during a game. He just had a knack for that. He was better at it than any coach I’ve ever known.”

Kepple agreed.

“Like I said, he never yelled or screramed dirting a game. If there was a problem, he found a way to solve it,” Keppkle said.

Dillen described Earley as “a good mentor for me.”

“It was his presence alone,” Gaillot said. “Kids grew up wanting to play football for Coach Earley. When he entered a room, everybody just got quiet and listened.”

He was a good mentor to a number of future longtime coaches, including Clyde Conti and Joe Ridgeley. Both played for him at Freeport.

Conti coached high school football for decades and is still involved as a volunteer coach at Slippery Rock University. Ridgeley has coached football for 38 years at Elyria (Ohio), Central Cambria and Bishop Carroll.

“Coach Earley will be in my heart, along with my father, for the rest of my life,” Conti said. “He could inspire people to self-motivate. He knew how to get the max out of people.”

Ridgeley said Earley wasn’t just about football or coaching sports.

“He was about being a good human being and showing others how to be good human beings,” Ridgeley said. “Frankly, there’s not enough of that today.

“He talked to his players all the time and not just about football. He got to know them as people. When you played for him or coached with him ... What you do is patterned after what he did.”

Conti described Earley’s relationship with student-athletes as “one of mutual trust and respect.”

“I was a sophomore on his first team in 1967,” Conti recalled. “He came to the cafeteria and met all of us. It was almost an instant connection. I was part of two undefeated teams with him.”

Gaillot was less than two days away from joining the Marines when Tim Karrs, who recruited this area for Clarion University, called him and offered him a look.

“(Karrs’) dad coached at Freeport years ago,” Gaillot said. “I badly wanted to stay in the game because of Coach Earley, so I decided to walk on at Clarion instead of joining the Marines.

“Who knows where my life would be now if I hadn’t made that decision? That’s the affect Don Earley had on people.”