Roy Hall has lived in Jeannette virtually his entire life, so he knows being part of the town's pride and joy -- the high schoolfootball team -- can be rewarding.

Hall has won WPIAL titles as both a player and assistant coach.

But the new head coach of the Jayhawks also has been around Jeannette long enough to recognize not everything about coaching the hometown team -- no matter how successful -- is all good times.

"That can have its negatives, too," Hall said with a slight laugh. "When you don't live in the same town as the school, you don't have to hear all that stuff after bad games. Living in the town, when you go to the store after you lose, somebody is going to recognize you, and you're going to hear something."

A 1982 alumnus who has been a Jayhawks assistant coach for the past 25 seasons, Hall knows the Jeannette community, school, athletic program and football team as well as anyone. That made him an obvious choice as the team's new head coach to replace Ray Reitz, who resigned after the past season to take the head coaching post at Greater Latrobe.

Besides, when a program has been as successful as Jeannette's since, well, seemingly forever, why change much?

Athletic director Bob Murphy calls the Jayhawks athletic program "a family-type thing," and the school stayed within the family for this hire.

"Roy will be a great coach," said Murphy, the athletic director at Jeannette for 13 years and himself a former Jayhawks football head coach (Hall was once one of his special teams coaches).

"He's displayed great coaching ability for a long time. He's not just someone who has just been a recent add-on. He's been a huge contributor for our program for many, many years. Without a doubt, I'm sure he will do a great job."

Hall, 45, joined the coaching staff a quarter century ago the same season Reitz did. After posting a 48-6 record with two WPIAL titles and one PIAA Class AA title in only four seasons, Reitz left Jeannette earlier this year to take over the program at Latrobe.

The past four seasons under Reitz, Hall's official responsibilities were as defensive line coach and quarterbacks coach. In that time, he coached Jayhawks quarterback Terrelle Pryor, generally regarded as the best high school player in the country as a senior in 2007.

An offensive and defensive lineman in high school, Hall played two seasons at California University of Pennsylvania after helping lead Jeannette to a WPIAL title in 1981.

"I think it's an advantage being here for so long because you know the kids, and the kids know you," said Hall, whose day job also has been at the same Jeannette factory for the past 25 years. "Some of the kids, I either went to school with some of their parents or somebody in their family."

Almost the entire staff, many of them, longtime Jeannette guys themselves, returns for this season. Only Reitz and Matt Leavy, who is focusing more on coaching wrestling, will not be back, Hall said. Jim Ward has been promoted to defensive coordinator, and Shawn Liotta was added to the staff.

"We're going to run the same type of offense and the same type of defense," Hall said.

And they're going to have the same type of expectations from the outside and the same type of goals internally.

The Jayhawks have been the WPIAL's best Class AA program in recent seasons, and while Pryor, fellow Ohio State player Jordan Hall and a bounty of other highly talented players have graduated the past couple years, Hall isn't buying into the conventional wisdom that says Jeannette might be in for a drop-off.

"A lot of schools, their goal is just to make the playoffs," Hall said. "With us, that's just a given. And we don't want to just make it; we want to go on and do more. Our fans here are very spoiled. Nothing less than making the playoffs is very unacceptable here at Jeannette."

Only four of the 10 teams in the Class AA Interstate Conference will qualify for the postseason. The Jayhawks have qualified for the WPIAL playoffs 21 of the past 25 years.

"We don't know what it's like here at Jeannette to have that extra game at the end just to play it when everyone else is in the playoffs," Hall said. "We're normally always in the playoffs, and we expect to be deep into the playoffs."