Neil Gordon gave the Post-Gazette's Mike White a few thoughts after his ouster as Penn Hills' football coach.

All through the past two months, Neil Gordon held out hope he would get his job back as Penn Hills' football coach. When the school hired Ron Graham as its new coach Tuesday night, it was hard for Gordon to accept.

In January, school board president Erin Vecchio said the board was listening to some parents who wanted a new coach. She said Gordon didn't win enough.

Didn't win enough? Gordon was Penn Hills' coach for 21 years and had a 156-74-2 record. In the past 10 seasons, he was 61-19-5 with five conference titles. His teams made the playoffs 10 years in a row.

"I just thought throughout this whole thing that people would come to their senses and this would end like it did for [Upper St. Clair coach] Jim Render, and [North Hills coach] Jack McCurry, and [Chartiers Valley basketball coach] Tim McConnell," Gordon said.

Gordon was referring to some other highly successful coaches who survived school-board attempts to have them fired.

Vecchio also said the board wanted to go in a new direction, but Graham was Gordon's defensive coordinator. One of the other finalists for the job was Mike Booth, Gateway's defensive coordinator.

"Tuesday night [Graham's hiring] was kind of the night the hammer hit me in the head," Gordon said. "It was hard to believe they went through with this."