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Tags [edit]: high, school, football, jesuit, brother, rice, wacky, stuff

I got word last week through a couple of people that Scott Merchant was going back to Brother Rice, most notably from an athletic director in the CHSL who was telling people this was a done deal.

While a couple of other people tried to refute the information, as time went on last week, more and more people were coming out and saying Coach Merchant was leaving and going to Brother Rice. As I looked closer at the situation, there were one factor and one item I saw that made me think a move was imminent.

1) John Birney, the President of Brother Rice High School, is a big supporter of Scott Merchant and he tried to get Merchant to move the first time to Brother Rice as an assistant coach, but at the time there was no counselor position open, unlike now where Brother Rice was looking for another guidance counselor which is what Coach Merchant was for the past 8 years at UDJ.

2) Something that caught my last week was that Coach Merchant had a meeting with his football players. Now normally at this time of the year, the only meetings that I can think of happening are parent/player meetings to give out summer dates, but usually at this off-season workouts are in full swing, so to have a full team meeting at this time furthered my own suspecion on the entire deal.

While Brother Rice has greatly strengthened its coaching staff, UDJ took a major hit on theirs, especially this late in the year. I can only guess that UDJ will hire someone currently on staff to take over and ease the transitional process, but that remains to be seen. All in all, UDJ has been left in a definate lerch which will not be corrected until at least 2008.

Until next time...