Stephen Sedesse spent the past two seasons leading one of Pennsylvania's top programs at Williams Valley HS.
Sedesse led the program to a 10-wins and playoff appearance in his debut season, and followed that up with a 12-win season last fall, collecting back-to-back district championships along the way.
But just halfway through this season, sitting at 6-1 and ranked among the top 6 teams in their division, Sedesse has decided to resign.
The reason behind stepping away followed a decision to sit some players that collected unsportsmanlike behavior during, and after their loss to top ranked 2A program Schuylkill Haven on September 26th.
Sedesse and the coaching staff decided, based on the behavior of two individuals during that game, that they would serve suspensions for the first half of their win the next week, a game they won handily 35-14 against Schuylkill-Colonial.
“When parents obviously found out we were going to be sitting some kids, we got a lot of backlash, a lot of threats. We were threatened that if their kids don’t start in the game, we would need extra security at the game.”
According to a story by PennLive, when those players sat longer than they had initially been told for that game, school administrators sided with parents and suspended Sedesse as well as his father, who served as the team's defensive coordinator, for two games.
That, combined with what Stephen Sedesse said were threats made to his family and business and his dad coming out to his truck to tires that had been flatted, added up to a breaking point, and Sedesse submitted his resignation on Monday.
“We had tires flattened the other night, in my dad’s truck. We had a billboard painted with some derogatory words on it, pretty much the same one I used there about abuse and being abusive and stuff like that."
“I decided Monday morning that, if my business going to get threatened, if my family is going to get threatened - it’s small school football - I don’t need to have that in my life," he told Channel 16 WNEP.
Despite an impressive 28-6 record over the past two-and-a-half seasons, Sedesse decided that instead of pursuing a third-straight district title with the school, the 29-year old will instead step away and the team will have to rally around athletic director and assistant coach Ron Ancheff, who is stepping into the head coaching role for the remainder of the season.
See the report from the local TV station on the resignation below, and as always, stay tuned to The Scoop for all the latest.