06/03/09: "Hibbs Will Be Missed in Canner Country"
BY SCOT ANDREW PITZER — Times Staff Reporter
Biglerville High is losing a true Canner with the departure of Tim Hibbs, the five-year head football coach who is vacating the position to take over the reigns of the William Penn Bearcats.
Don’t believe me?
When Hibbs gets a paper cut, he bleeds black and gold.
The first real conversation that I had with Hibbs was an illustration of his passion for the Upper Adams community.
Hibbs was serving dual roles at Biglerville High School in the winter of 2004-05, as head football coach and athletic director. At the time, I was the Upper Adams beat reporter for the Gettysburg Times.
The student body was dealing with a tragic death, and before word even spread to this newsroom, Hibbs gave me a call. He knew I’d be covering the story.
“Remember,” he said, “keep your Canner hat on in this situation.”
From one Biglerville alum to another, Hibbs’ words struck a chord. After all, this is a guy who gets goose bumps anytime he hears the school’s Alma Mater.
His passion for Biglerville High was evident in the way he led the Canner football program — mired in mediocrity for decades — back to respectability the last five years.
Just a few short months after leading the Canners to their first division title in 37 years, Hibbs is leaving Apple Town to take over the William Penn football program in York. The career move became official Monday night with a unanimous vote by the York City School Board. With mixed emotions, Canner Nation bids farewell to Hibbs. The school is losing a grid iron leader, but with his impressive resume, the sky is the limit.
Biglerville finished 2008 with a 7-4 record, marking back-to-back winning seasons (6-4 in 2007). It was the first time the football team put together consecutive winning seasons since, well, the Stone Age.
Hibbs took over the program in 2004, simply because it was the right fit at the right time.
He didn’t have to come to coach here. With his previous coaching experience at Fort Scott Junior College in Kansas, Southern Illinois University, Gettysburg College and Ohio Northern University, taking the job at Biglerville seemed like the bottom rung on Hibbs’ career ladder.
He didn’t think so.
If anyone was going to put Canner football back on the map, it was going to be Hibbs. He was eight-months-old when the Canners won their last division crown, the Blue Mountain League title in Nov. 1971. It was time to bring another title to Apple Town.
The transition was rough at first, because winning was so new. After all, this is a program that won only 29 games during the entire span of the 1990s.
Hibbs added teams like Mount Carmel and Governor Mifflin to Biglerville’s schedule, to show the youngsters what it was like to compete against established programs. He was the perfect fit for a town that was starved for winner, because he hates to lose.
Hibbs took every loss personally, even when the Canners were beaten by much better teams. The 38-year-old often lost sleep when the Canners under performed, and vowed to be better prepared the ensuing week.
He cherished Friday night triumph, savoring every winning moment in a community where football victories were rare. But the celebration ceased every Saturday morning, when Hibbs awoke at the crack of dawn to begin studying the next week’s opponent.
The hard work and endless preparation paid off this year, when the Canners won a share of the YAIAA Division III Title, with Bermudian Springs and Delone Catholic. Biglerville also advanced to the post-season for the first time in school history.
It’s been a remarkable five-year run, that has now come to an end.
High school coaches come and go in this area, yet few have had as big of an impact as Tim Hibbs.
Coach Hibbs might be going to William Penn, but he’ll always have his Canner hat on.
Scot A. Pitzer is a Times Staff Reporter.
No comments:
Post a Comment