Feb 24, 2025 4 min read

By John Sacco

For the Observer-Reporter

Bill Connors, who coached football teams at Beth-Center and Ringgold high schools to WPIAL championships, died Monday in North Carolina. He was 88.

Connors, who touched the lives of so many student-athletes, was viewed as a tough, rigid, and gruff coach with a big heart and a caring spirit.

“It’s hard to even talk,” said Andy Retucci, who was a lineman on Connors’ 1975 WPIAL championship team at Beth-Center. “Truthfully, he just meant so much to me. You know, I always thought of him like a second father to me.”

“You hear that cliché about people being surrogate fathers all the time,” said Robert Adkins, who played on Ringgold’s 1982 WPIAL championship team that Connors coached. “I would just say that he came to Ringgold and fulfilled that role for a lot of us. I had a father and loved my father, but Billy Connors was a guy who really taught us what it meant to be a man and what it meant to take responsibility for your actions,

“He taught the value of hard work and how it pays off. He’s a guy who, when I struggled in my working professional career, I could pick up the phone and give him a quick call and he would get me on the right path – reinforcing the values that I learned from my parents and from him. I’m going to miss him in a way, the same way that I miss my father when he passed a few years ago.”

Connors is survived by his wife, Pearl, and son, Jeff (Michele) and two grandchildren, Beau and Kaitlin.

Arrangements are incomplete.

Connors had a 29-year coaching career at Beth-Center, Ringgold and Belle Vernon. He had a career record of 174-92-12. He was named the Washington County Coach of the Year and won the Dapper Dan Award in both 1975 and 1982 and was the WPIAL Coach of the Year in 1982.

He taught English and physical education at Beth-Center and served as a head track coach, leading the Bulldogs to two undefeated seasons.

“To me, he was like John Wayne,” said Randy Miller, who played for Connors at Beth-Center. “I didn’t think anything like this could ever happen to him. He’s been so good to me for so long.”

Connors is a member of the Salem (W.Va.) University Athletic Hall of Fame. He was a four-year letterman in both baseball and football. Connors was an All-WVIAC selection in football at quarterback and was named the WVIAC Player of the Year in baseball as a catcher his senior year. His 64.7 completion percentage in 1961 was the WVIAC record at the time, while he accounted for 2,970 yards passing and 25 touchdowns during his career.

“My dad was a son of a coal miner in the Maxwell coal mining patch,” Jeff Connors said. “That was his whole mentality through his whole coaching career. He found tough kids in gym classes from the coal mine communities and gave them a chance. He gave them a chance to find themselves in athletics but also find themselves in relationships to self-esteem. That was something that he kind of hung his hat on.”

“Clearly there was coaching genius,” Adkins said. “But I think what says even more than his coaching ability is that he took kids from Fredericktown, Marianna and Clarksville – coal mining country – and then took kids from Monongahela, Donora, Finleyville and Carroll Township and taught each how to win.”

Connors is a member of the Washington-Greene County and Mid-Mon Valley Sports Hall of Fames. His 1975 Beth-Center team was inducted into the Washington-Greene County HOF and his 1982 Ringgold squad will be inducted this spring.

“Absolutely, I mean if you played for him and or worked for him, Bill will do anything for you,” said Jan Haiden, who coached with Connors at Beth-Center and Ringgold. “That’s the kind of guy he was. I don’t care if you needed a job or help getting into a school, it didn’t matter. While he’d do anything for you, he’d kick your (butt) if you needed that.”