One of Mt. Lebanon High School’s new assistant baseball coaches for this season regularly throws batting practice, works with the team’s hitters, is at every practice and sits in the dugout at all games.
Oh, by the way, this “new” assistant coach is 86 years old and the head coach calls him dad.
Ed McCloskey is the octogenarian who this spring is making for one of the coolest father-son stories in WPIAL sports.
Ed McCloskey is four years shy of 90, for goodness sake, and he is a volunteer coach for a team that will go for a third consecutive WPIAL Class 6A championship Wednesday. The man who is the head honcho of Mt. Lebanon’s team is McCloskey’s son, Patt.
The elder McCloskey can give a few reasons why he’s coaching. He’s a baseball guy and he’s a Mt. Lebanon guy. He was a physical education teacher in the Mt. Lebanon district for 35 years, but he also was highly successful as Mt. Lebanon’s head coach from 1986-99, won 10 section titles, one WPIAL championship and a state title. And he coached his son. McCloskey also spent 10 years as an assistant for his son before retiring close to a decade ago.
But here’s another reason McCloskey came back to coach this season: “All my friends are dead,” he said.
McCloskey wasn’t trying to be funny.
“I need to get out with people,” said McCloskey, who lives in Mt. Lebanon with his 84-year-old wife, Carol. “I love people and this coaching helps me to get around people – and I love it. I don’t feel 86. That’s just a number.”
McCloskey didn’t seek out this coaching job. It sort of just happened. Patt McCloskey was looking for a few assistants after a few at various levels of the program walked away after last season.
“It really just happened organically,” Patt McCloskey said. “We were just talking one day and I told him I was sort of looking for a few coaches. He said, ‘If you want help, I’ll help you out.’
“I said to him, ‘Dad, you don’t have to make this, like, full-time coaching.’ But it’s great because it’s not like he’s just a token coach who hangs around and is buddy-buddy with the kids. He’s as much all-in as anybody I’ve ever worked with, and that’s just awesome.”
Ed McCloskey coached Mt. Lebanon to a WPIAL title in 1993. The kid who drove in the winning run in the game was Patt, who is now 48 and a history teacher at Mt. Lebanon.
When Ed retired as head coach after the 1999 season, Mark Saghy took over for five years and won a WPIAL title. Patt was an assistant for Saghy and took over in 2005. His father came out of retirement to be an assistant in 2006 and lasted for 10 seasons. Dad came out of retirement again this year.
Mt. Lebanon has a chance to become only the second team in WPIAL history to win three consecutive championships in the largest classification. The other did it more than 100 years ago. Allegheny High, which no longer exists, won six in a row from 1917-22.
That means this could be a special season for Mt. Lebanon, and having your 86-year-old dad by your side for the journey is something that isn’t lost on Patt McCloskey.
“I graduated in 1994, and I think he was on the cutting edge of coaching back then,” Patt said. “To get to share these experiences with him now is almost like going back in time 30 years. It’s hard to put into words what it feels like.”
If you listen to the words of Mt. Lebanon’s players, they welcome having Ed McCloskey around and pitching batting practice on many days. Ed says what helps him stay in shape is swimming a half-mile almost every day.
“A lot of the players think he throws the best batting practice that we have,” said David Shields, a standout senior pitcher-outfielder. “It’s pretty funny, actually. He still slings it in there.”
Shields said Ed has been helpful with Mt. Lebanon’s hitting because he has old-school philosophies, but also a modern approach.
“You would think a guy that old would like things his way and would be kind of controlling. But he’s very relaxed and chilled out,” Shields said. “He’s got, like, his own hitting language, but he’ll show us things of today, too. He’ll pull up videos of players today and show us examples of them.”
But what kind of rapport does a man close to his 90s have with high school kids?
“We’re a bunch of high school kids and teenagers who might not be his style of people or speak the same kind of language,” Shields said. “But he’s totally cool with how we act or talk, and that makes us like him even more. We joke with him sometimes, but he gives it right back to us.”
“I just point them in the right direction with hitting,” Ed said. “They do the work.”
Mt. Lebanon is moving in the direction of a possible fourth WPIAL title under Patt, an energetic coach who wears his emotions on his sleeve. Ed got a little emotional when talking about his son.
“He deserves a state championship. That’s what I want for him,” he said.
No matter what happens the rest of the way, this has been quite the memorable experience for dad – and son.
“It’s a feeling I don’t think you can get anywhere else, working with your son,” Ed said. “You can’t buy this or steal this.”
Photo: Ed McCloskey, left, is 86 years old and came out of retirement this season to be an assistant baseball coach at Mt. Lebanon High School for his son, Patt. (Mike White/Post-Gazette)
Article by Mike White, courtesy Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
