Coaches for the 50th anniversary of the Big 30 All-Star Charities Classic have been named.
Set for the night of Aug. 5 at Parkway Field, the football game, which matches graduated seniors from each side of the Big 30 border, is actually only the 49th time it will be played with No. 47 in 2020 canceled due to Covid.
This season, the New York squad will be coached by Terry Gray and his staff from Frewsburg, which this coming season will compete in eight-man football.
Pennsylvania will be coached by Eisenhower’s Jim Penley and his assistants.
Pennsylvania leads the Charities Classic series 23-22-3.
GRAY is in his 22nd year as head coach at Frewsburg after two years each as an assistant at Frewsburg and Randolph. A Division I football player at Temple, he was an All-Big East Academic Team selection and was a “Hardest Training Athlete” and Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers award winner. He won a Section 6 football division championship and he was a cross-training athletics Coach of the Year. Gray has been a health and physical education teacher and drivers’ education instructor for 25 years while serving as athletic director and director of physical education for the last 10.
Brendan Carter has served 20 years as an assistant coach.
Rob Collver has had 16 years each as a head coach and as an assistant. He’s also head basketball coach at Frewsburg, having won a Section 6 championship in 2014. He serves as a health, physical education and FACS teacher.
Trent Gray has been an assistant coach for three years. As a high school player, he quarterbacked two Section 6 championship games and played in the 2018 Big 30 Game.
He then played college football at both Gannon and Edinboro and is now a middle school social studies teacher.
Adam Loftus has spent 19 years as a varsity and modified assistant. Currently, he coaches both of Frewsburg’s lines. He was part of the 2013 Class D Section 6 championship team and a two-time Section 6 small-school indoor track team championship squad being named Coach of the Year. A 10-year coach in outdoor track, and five in indoor track, Loftus has been employed by the Frewsburg School District for 10 years.
PENLEY has had 44 years as a coach at Eisenhower, 19 years as a head coach and 25 as an assistant. His team was the regional champion in 2012, ‘13, and ‘22 and District 10 runner-up in ‘20 and ‘22. Penley, a teacher at Eisenhower, coached in the Big 33 Classic in 2011 and the Big 30 Game in 2006 and ‘15.
Bill Vanatta, a social studies teacher for 27 years, coaches the offense, tight ends and defensive line. He coached in a previous Big 30 Game.
Derek Jensen, an assistant coach for nine years, is a Radiologic/CT technologist.
Jeffery O’Brian has previously been a head coach for four years and 17 as an assistant. He currently coaches the offensive linemen, linebackers and special teams. A retiree from FCI McKean he was given the D-10 Assistant Coach of the Year Award in 2020.
Clint Corse is in his fifth year as an assistant handling Eisenhower’s wide receivers and defensive backs and serves as JV offensive coordinator. He was part of the undefeated regular seasons of the 2020 and ‘22 teams that won region championships in both years. He’s retired from the United States Navy and is Eisenhower’s baseball coach.
