As 32 teams prepare for the second round of the WPIAL playoffs tonight, one school already is preparing to play its first game in the school's 77-year history in September 2010.

And though kickoff for that game won't take place for another 10 months, those involved in building a football program at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic school located in Coraopolis, are just as busy.

Coach Bill Daniels retired from the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation in June so that he could coach the Chargers. Since then, he has been working just as many hours, if not more.

"I thought I had retired from a full-time job," Daniels said, laughing.

He's not complaining.

Daniels, a former quarterback at Montour High School and then Pitt in the 1970s, enjoys being involved in every nook of the program -- from developing players, his favorite part, to finding a place to play home games to recruiting current students to come out for the team.

"It's more than I anticipated," he said, "but I'm enjoying all the aspects of it at this point."

He retired from his former full-time job because he wanted to get back into football while he still had a chance. His dad was a longtime high school coach in the area, and, after Daniels graduated from Pitt, he worked as a graduate assistant under Johnny Majors.

It was Daniels' Pitt connection that brought him back to the game a few decades later.

When the board approved the program, it tabbed former Pitt coach Foge Fazio as an adviser.

Fazio, who recruited Daniels to Pitt in the 1970s when he was an assistant coach, helped to hire Daniels for the OLSH job.

"When I read that OLSH was starting a program and coach Fazio was brought on as an adviser, I contacted him," Daniels said.

Since being hired in May, Daniels has been busy.

He spent the past several months as an assistant on the Cornell High School football team. OLSH and Cornell had a cooperative agreement, which allowed OLSH students to play football on Cornell's team through this season.

Daniels worked with the offensive and defensive lines.

About 10 OLSH students played football for Cornell this past season, up from about five before the new program was announced.

Now that Cornell's season is over, Daniels has 20 more OLSH students who are interested in joining his new program -- the trick is combining the two groups into one team

"No one said it'd be easy," OLSH athletic director Bud Beatty said. "But we'll do it."

Initially, Daniels worried he would treat the two groups differently. But he said he is determined to do what is best for the program in the long run.

"I'm not going to worry about things that have happened in the past," he said.

Isiah Neely, an OLSH freshman who played running back for Cornell this season, said the team is excited to welcome new teammates.

And, he said he will be proud to be on the school's first team.

Though, as a student who went to Cornell though eighth grade and then played football for Cornell his freshman year, Neely said it will be a little weird looking down at his jersey next season.

"It will mean a lot because it will be our first year with 'OLSH' on it instead of having 'Cornell' on it," Neely said.

When Neely and others take the field next fall, OLSH will become the first existing Western Pennsylvania high school in nearly four decades to start a football program from scratch.

But a lot needs to be done before the Chargers take the field -- any field. For one, Daniels needs to hire a staff, which he said he plans to do after the holidays.

Then, he needs to teach a group of teenagers, many of whom have never played organized football, how to play the game.

He said he would like to see progress every day, though some times that will be difficult.

"For every step forward, you take a half a step back," he said.

Meanwhile, administrators are looking for a place for the team to practice and play. They have a few ideas, including playing home games at the Youthtowne complex in Clinton, which is a pretty far distance from the OLSH campus in Coraopolis. OLSH administrators are still evaluating their options.

The team will play at the Class A level, although Daniels does not know in which conference.

With the dissolution of the co-op agreement, Cornell will return to Class A as well. While the co-op was in effect, Cornell had to claim its own male enrollment as well as OLSH's, which bumped the team up to Class AA.

A lot of those decisions are political -- a part of the job Daniels said he does not enjoy.

The good thing is, he has help

Fazio and Rip Scherer, a former coach at Moon Area among other places, have helped to raise money and plan logistics.

Daniels praised their expertise and said it helped to have Fazio's big-picture approach.

"He believes in establishing a whole community backing for this program," he said.

That community involvement is important to Daniels and Beatty, who want to draw attention to OLSH and its 350 students.

After all, Daniels said, that is why they launched the football program.

"Once people see what's going on there, it's an amazing place," Daniels said. "This will be good for the school and good for the participants, too."

Mike White's "High School Sports Edition" videos are featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.