Tom Loughran has an impressive coaching pedigree, with a couple of WPIAL and PIAA Class AA titles to his credit from his lengthy tenure at South Park.
This season, though, Loughran has moved up a couple of classifications and a few miles north as he takes over a Fox Chapel program that hasn’t won a football title since Aspinwall won back-to-back Class A crowns in 1943-44. And the fact he has taken teams to Heinz Field and Hersheypark Stadium before has been an immediate selling point for the Foxes, who haven’t won a playoff game since a 35-6 rout of North Allegheny in the 1997 WPIAL Class AAAA quarterfinals.
“Obviously it’s something that’s intriguing to them as kids, but the thing is, that’s in the past and it’s nothing that’s going to help us right here, right now,” Loughran said. “I know what it takes as far as the preparation and I know what it takes in terms of talent and having good kids to win those types of championships. So from that perceptive, I might have something to fall back on that the average coach doesn’t have.”
Fox Chapel ended a two-year hiatus when it qualified for the postseason a year ago, but the team was handled easily in a 27-point loss to Penn-Trafford in the first round. For the Foxes to take the next step and end a lengthy winless drought in the postseason, it will need immediate improvements in all facets of the game.