Apr 11, 2022 4 min read

Ron Faust’s long and successful run with the Washington High School boys basketball program has ended.

Faust submitted his resignation as the Prexies’ head coach and it was accepted Monday night at the district’s school board meeting.

And Faust made it clear that this was not just a resignation, it’s a retirement. After 36 years as a head coach, Faust said it’s time to hang up his whistle and let somebody else run practices and make the tough decisions during games.

“Thirty-six years is a long time,” Faust said. “There is no door being left open for another coaching job. That door has been slammed shut.

“Thirty-six years is a lot of Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks spent in the gym. It means your family has made a lot of adjustments for you.”

This is the second time Faust has retired from coaching. He left the Prexies after the 2008-09 season but was talked into returning for the 2014-15 campaign. He coached Wash High, his alma mater, for the past eight years and 36 seasons overall.

Faust was Wash High’s coach from 1981-2009 and compiled a record of 518-192. In the eight seasons since his return, Faust’s Wash High teams had a 133-48 record.

The Prexies went 17-4 this season, were undefeated in Class 2A Section 4 and beat Beaver Falls in the opening round of the WPIAL playoffs before losing to Shady Side Academy in the quarterfinals. In Faust’s final game, Washington lost at Chestnut Ridge in the first round of the PIAA tournament.

Faust has a 651-240 career record. He and Phil Pergola are the only boys basketball coaches to win 600 games at Washington County schools.

“If you don’t have good players …,” Faust said, leaving the sentence hanging.

“Let’s face it, good players will win. We had good players. I was also fortunate to have the stability of having Joe Nicolella as my assistant for 20 years.

“Another thing that made it extremely easy was that I had people like Guy Montecalvo, Bob Peton and Penny Starkey running programs at the high school. Though their coaching styles were different than mine, we all wanted the same things.”

That was championships, and Faust’s teams produced them. Faust brought four WPIAL championships to Wash High, including three straight from 1984 to 1986, a run that saw the Prexies win a then-WPIAL record 52 consecutive games. And, of course, there were the state championship teams in 1984 and 1986.

“Ron had a great career at Wash High,” said athletic director Mike Bosnic. “Thirty-six years with a ton of success, state championships, WPIAL championships, a WPIAL record winning streak that held up until this year. I don’t know if someone like that can be replaced.”

Faust’s assistant coaches this season were Mark Spina and Ryan Bunting.

Bosnic believes there will be plenty of interest in the job.

“It’s a very attractive job,” he said. “If a coach can handle high expectations and a fan base that is used to winning, then there is a lot of potential here.”

Faust said there is much about coaching that he will miss.

“I won’t miss the bus rides. I’ve had enough of those,” he said. “This might sound crazy, but what I’m going to miss is the practices, being around people and developing relations. That’s the great thing about coaching in a community you’ve been living in for a long time. … I had players whose sons played for me. I didn’t want to get into having grandsons play for me.”

In other coaching news, Charleroi girls basketball coach Bill Wagner submitted his resignation Monday morning. Wagner coached the Cougars for four years and had a 41-42 record, though he posted a pair of 14-win seasons. Charleroi went 14-9 this year and finished third in Class 3A Section 2. The Cougars lost to Laurel in the first round of the WPIAL playoffs.