High School Views: A maze of thoughts on a Black & Gold weekend

Here are some random thoughts I had over the weekend as my television blared in Sittsburgh Steelers Jerseys the background.(On that television set, of course, was local news coverage of the Steelers' impending trip to Super Bowl XL in Detroit. By my account, the local news coverage of the Steelers going to the Super Bowl is at about 1,239,533 minutes and counting over the past nine days.)Anyhow, these are a few things I scribbled down: Look for current Bethel Park athletic director Mike O'Brien to be named the new athletic director at Fox Chapel Area High School sometime in the very near future.Several sources close to the selection process at Fox Chapel have confirmed that O'Brien is the leading candidate for the post that was left vacant when Ted Bell resigned in October.Former Kiski Area athletic director Harry Orbin has been running the department at Fox Chapel on an interim basis, but was not interested in rolling the position over to a full-time one.A simple connection of the dots would prove that O'Brien, who just joined the Bethel Park administration last summer, is a natural fit at Fox Chapel. The district hired Dr. Anne Stephens as its superintendent earlier in the school year. Stephens had been at Brentwood when O'Brien served as the athletic director and basketball coach there before he moved to Bethel Park.That's just one side of it, however. Rashard Mendenhall Jersey The ripple effect could hurt Bethel Park, which would have to begin an immediate search for a successor to a guy who has been there less than a year. Surely when Bethel Park hired O'Brien, the community and school board thought that he'd stay for more than part of one academic year . O'Brien declined comment on the matter.All that said, O'Brien can't be faulted if, indeed, he does jump over to Fox Chapel. He is an intelligent, young and forward-thinking athletic director and Fox Chapel -- or any school for that matter -- would be lucky to have him.Then again, you can't fault Bethel Park officials either for getting a little upset if O'Brien leaves for Fox Chapel.I would venture to say that more stock should be put into Jeannette sophomore Terrelle Pryor's verbal commitment to Pitt than a similar one that Aliquippa junior Herb Pope made during his sophomore season.While no one knows for sure what either one of the two local phenoms will do when it comes time to put ink to paper on future signing days, if you were going to Las Vegas and there was a line on whether they would ever wear a Pitt uniform, Pryor's line would be about 2 to 1 while I'd set Pope's at about 7 to 1.The Oakland Catholic girls' basketball team ripped off 17 consecutive wins to begin the season before dropping a 68-64 decision on Saturday against Regina, of South Euclid, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb.During its winning streak, Oakland Catholic beat powers such as Villa Maria of Erie, Youngstown (Ohio) Ursuline, Notre Dame Academy of Virginia , Mount de Chantal of West Virginia , Peddie School of New Jersey and Archbishop Carroll of Philadelphia.The long and short of it is this -- a loss on Saturday might not have been the worst thing in the world for coach Rich Irr's Oakland Catholic squad. The Eagles had ripped through some of the best competition in the country through Saturday Chris Kemoeatu Jersey without a blemish and dropping a tight one in Ohio might just make Oakland Catholic stronger as the WPIAL and PIAA playoffs approach .I mean, would you want to see Oakland Catholic in your bracket come playoff time? I think not.