Bethel Park certainly had successful teams before this season. Some previous teams were bigger, and maybe had as much talent.

This Bethel Park team, though, seemed to have a magical aura about it -- and the man with the wand in his hand was Jeff Metheny.

Metheny, Bethel Park's coach, took the Black Hawks to unprecedented heights, guiding them to the first WPIAL title in school history and a 15-1 record.

Metheny, a fiery guy who grew up in West Virginia, is the Post-Gazette Coach of the Year. The award takes into consideration all coaches in the WPIAL and City League.

Metheny, 46, had been a head coach in the WPIAL for more than two decades. He was in his 15th year at Bethel Park, and he also coached three years at Hampton and five at Waynesburg. Although he had success, the guy who loves to fish for muskie could never catch that big one -- the WPIAL championship -- until this year.

"I think these kids won a lot because of their character and heart," Metheny said. "They were good football players, don't get me wrong. But you look at our size and speed on paper and we didn't match up with a lot of teams."

One of those teams was Gateway. Few gave Bethel Park much of a chance against the Gators in the WPIAL Class AAAA final. But Bethel Park pulled off a shocking 10-6 victory against a Gateway team that was ranked in the top 10 in national polls.

"We just seemed to have a good mix with this team," Metheny said. "It seemed like we had the right trigger guy at quarterback [Erik Olson]; we had a really good tailback [Lyle Marsh] when he was healthy and a backup tailback who could play [Bre Ford]. We had a couple of good tight ends and our receiver John Schademan was just outstanding.

"But what really helped was really just a lot of kids who came on to become players. I bet we had 13 or 14 players who we didn't know were as good as they are."

Gateway coach Terry Smith believes Bethel Park took on the persona of its coach this season.

"The team represented him. He's a tough, hard-nosed guy," Smith said. "You always know playing Bethel Park that they're going to have their I's dotted and their T's crossed. They didn't make many mistakes. You look at their stretch run and they made a minimum amount of mistakes. Even our game, they played ball control and waited for us to make mistakes, which we did.

"Jeff's an outstanding coach, probably one of the better ones in the WPIAL right now. Even before this playoff run he was considered one of the best."

Metheny lives in Bethel Park, and he and his wife, Cindy, have two children -- ninth-grader Kelsey and fifth-grader Levi.

Metheny said he knew in high school that he wanted to coach. After playing at West Preston High School (W.Va.), he went on to play running back and quarterback at Glenville State (W.Va.). He was 22 when he became a head coach at Waynesburg High ("Nobody wanted that job," he said).

In between Waynesburg and Hampton, Metheny spent a year and a half as a graduate assistant at West Virginia University. At Bethel Park, he struggled early in his career, going 17-23 in his first four years. In the past seven seasons, he is 55-25. He credits his assistant coaches for playing a big role in his success.

After Bethel Park lost in the PIAA championship to Bethlehem Liberty this past Saturday, Metheny gathered his team around him on the field and got a little emotional in his postgame address.

"Losing that game doesn't diminish what they did this year and what they did for our community," Metheny said. "I just wanted to try and make them feel special."