Executive Education Charter School (2A) is open up in the Lehigh Valley, with head coach Larry Ford stepping down after four seasons. I'm reminded by the article on his resignation that Ford's tenure started by getting put on probation by the PIAA for text messages of him recruiting players from other schools getting turned in to the District 11 office. Oops. They were D11 champs in 2022, and 6-5-1 this past season.
They have a tremendous basketball program and I think aspire to be equally excellent in football - though their basketball program is currently on probation and barred from the PIAA postseason this year. Their CEO and founder is Robert Lysek, who played for Bob Stem at Bethlehem Catholic, and upon the founding of the school they annouced that they planned to be an athletic powerhouse. They've never been able to gain a ton of traction in football or wrestling, despite high profile coaching hires. They are currently building a football facility next to their school and adjacent to Coca-Cola Park (home of the Triple-A team for the Phillies), so maybe that will help.
They have Kyle Haas on staff, who made a state final 4 as the interim coach at Bethlehem Catholic in 2016, and was the head coach at Northampton (2018-2020) and Bethlehem Catholic (2021-22) before oddly resigning from Becahi in the middle of the 2022 season. Athletic Director Paul Englehardt is a baseball guy (longtime assistant coach at Lafayette and head coach at Moravian) so I think it'll be Lysek with his fingers all over the hire.
They're a charter who is willing to be brazen in player acquisition, with two majors sports already having faced PIAA sanctions. So if they get a coach that can both cover his tracks and get a handle on landing the best players in and around Allentown, they could be a force to be reckoned amongst small schools in the eastern part of the state.
