The Bradford Area School board held a brief meeting Monday to deal with personnel issues, including the replacement of girls’ varsity basketball coach Ann Nuzzo.
At the meeting — which lasted about five minutes — the board approved hiring Robert Hannon to the head coach position, effective Monday.
Board member Joe Troutman abstained from the vote; members Carla Manion, Keith Hatch and Shane Oschman were not present. Voting in favor of Hannon were Paul Ridley, Pat Vigliotta, Helen Cummiskey, Tim Bean and Dave Feely.
There was no mention of Nuzzo at the meeting. To date, no one from the district has said publicly why Nuzzo was not recommended for the coaching position.
At a June 24 meeting, the school board did not recommend Nuzzo for a fifth season as head basketball coach, instead saying the position was open.
Superintendent Katy Pude had said at the June meeting that the administration was “certain that our decision is in the best interests of the players.”
Hannon is a member of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford Athletic Hall of Fame, as the school’s fifth all-time leading scorer and first player to reach the 1,000-point milestone. He also had his number retired by the school.
Hannon expressed his excitement at the opportunity to take over the program.
“I’m very excited about it,” he said of taking over a team that has won back-to-back District 9 Class AAA titles. “I had some conversations with a few different people and decided they had a good program there and I would like to help continue that.”
Hannon’s son, Jon, is the assistant men’s basketball coach at Pitt-Bradford after serving in the same capacity at Bradford High.
This is the elder Hannon’s first head coaching job at the high school level.
“It’s good because we kind of feel that we all have something that we can give back to the community,” Hannon said. “And if it’s basketball we can give back then that’s a positive thing. It’s a good opportunity to build a strong foundation.”
Hannon said that he hasn’t had a chance to talk to the current group of players yet, but knows most of them and is “looking forward to working with them.”
The Bradford Area School District will begin advertising for the junior varsity position, so Hannon doesn’t know as of yet who will be joining his staff.
Also at Monday’s meeting, the board accepted a resignation from Paige Macadaeg, special education teacher at Floyd C. Fretz Middle School, effective Oct. 22; the resignation of Toncha Barber, elementary education teacher at George G. Blaisdell Elementary School, pending her hiring by the Port Allegany School Board at a meeting Monday night; and the hiring of Maddi Hallock as an English teacher at Bradford Area High School, effective Monday.
Should Barber be hired by Port Allegany, the board voted to hire Kayla Pittser to replace her.
Following the meeting, Pude said via e-mail that, “The purpose of today’s (Monday) special meeting was to hire all new staff that we didn’t have in place and accept resignations prior to school starting. We are very pleased to have Mr. Hannon as our coach, along with our new teacher hires, Maddi Hallock and Kayla Pittser.”
The board also approved a slate of overnight field trips for sports teams for the coming school year and approved three transfers within the custodial department.
The next regularly scheduled meeting is slated for 7 p.m. Sept. 9.
