Pictured above: Keith Youtz (red shirt at right) is resigning as coach at Lackawanna Trail as a requirement in his retirement from teaching.
By Tom Robinson, NEPASportsNation.com
After rebuilding Lackawanna Trail into a local wrestling power, Keith Youtz is preparing to resign as coach of the Lions following the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Wrestling Championships where four of his Lions will be competing.
The state tournament opened at 9 a.m. Thursday in Hershey and continue through Saturday.
Youtz is retiring after more than 33 years as a high school math teacher in the district. According to the union contract, he must resign his coaching positions, which go to teachers first if a qualified candidate applies. Youtz also serves as head boys and girls cross country coach and as an assistant track and field coach.
The resignation and opening of the position mean that Youtz could be out after leading the Lions to four straight Lackawanna League Division 2 titles and a 2022 sweep of the District 2 dual meet and tournament championships. He is not, however, retiring from coaching.
“I have to resign,” Youtz said, “but I’m going to help with a wrestling team somewhere.”
Where remains to be determined after the season and after his final year as a teacher is completed in June.
“I definitely have to stay with coaching sports,” Youtz said. “I enjoy it too much.”
Youtz spent 3 seasons as assistant and 11 as head coach at Lackawanna Trail, spent time coaching elsewhere and returned to coach the last 10 seasons. While he was working on a struggling varsity at the time of his return, Youtz knew help was on its way in a dedicated group of young wrestlers that make up the current senior class.
“There’s a bunch of parents that were wrestlers and they enjoyed the sport,” Youtz said. “They stuck together and traveled to tournaments ever since they were young in elementary school. They went together, stayed close and kept the kids into it.”
Brothers Deegan and Seth Ross are competing at the state tournament along with Max Bluhm and Robbie Schneider. Ethan Lee and Jonah Houser join them in a group that all produced at least 100 career victories while leading the team success during their four high school years.
“We’ve got six kids that have 100 (career) wins and that’s with a COVID year where they got like 15, maybe 20 total matches,” Youtz said. “You could have added another 20, 30 wins to their records.”
Between his two stints as Lackawanna Trail head coach, Youtz kept active in the sport. He coached at Abington Heights for five years as an assistant and two as head coach, then put in two years as an assistant at Scranton Prep and one at Tunkhannock.
