Notebook: Sarandrea leaving New Castle, basketball coaching

After 15 seasons, four WPIAL boys' basketball championships and 304 victories, John Sarandrea has coached his final game at New Castle High School.

Sarandrea has given up his coaching position and job as New Castle's principal to become the superintendent of the Sharon City School District.

Sarandrea, 49, was highly successful at New Castle and is the only coach to win consecutive WPIAL Class AAAA titles. New Castle won three in a row from 1997-99 and another in 1993. New Castle's 1999 team, which was 30-2, was considered one of the best in the WPIAL in the past two decades. Sarandrea also won eight section titles and his record at New Castle was 304-109.

This past season was the only time New Castle missed the playoffs in Sarandrea's tenure.

"It was a hard decision from the standpoint that I'm really happy at New Castle and I was treated exceptionally well there," Sarandrea said. "But it was not a hard decision from the basketball standpoint. I think it was a progression I had to go through. As you go through, you let go just a little bit at a time, as opposed to falling off the cliff and going cold turkey.

"This past season, we had good kids but it was a difficult year. It was the first losing season I've ever had. It just felt like it was a good segue into the end."

Before coming to New Castle, Sarandrea was an assistant at Pitt under Paul Evans. He also coached Tolentine, N.Y., and his 1988 team finished No. 1 in the USA Today rankings.

Fab five

April and May are months when college football recruiters hit the road, traveling to high schools to scout and recruit prospects. Recruiters from major colleges across the country are showing up in Western Pennsylvania this spring.

The WPIAL has a handful of players in the class of 2008 who are highly ranked nationally and who are being recruited heavily. Coaches from Pitt, Penn State, West Virginia and other Big East and Big Ten Conference schools have been at a number of WPIAL schools. That's not unusual. But coaches from Texas, Southern California, Florida and Florida State also have been showing up. That's very unusual.

Five WPIAL players are showing up on most lists of the top 100 players in the country for next season. Here is a look at the five:

Terrelle Pryor, QB, Jeannette -- The most heavily recruited two-sport athlete (football and basketball) in Western Pa. since Tom Clements of Canevin in the 1970s. Rivals.com and nationally known talent scout Tom Lemming rank Terrelle Pryor (6 feet 6, 220 pounds) the No. 1 player in the class of 2008.

"Texas' offensive coordinator [Greg Davis] flew in on a private jet. I picked him up at the Latrobe airport," Jeannette coach Ray Reitz said. "A coach from USC has been here. [Notre Dame coach] Charlie Weis was here last week. Coaches from everywhere have been here."

Terrelle Pryor has offers from schools around the country, but he also has offers from major colleges for basketball. He keeps saying he wants to play both in college, but football will be his No. 1 sport.

"After the spring, he needs to narrow it down to 10 schools, and maybe even lower than that," Reitz said.

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