YAIAA's longest-tenured football coach retires after 20 seasons
Mike Lippy has retired after 20 seasons as the head football coach at Littlestown High School, Bolts athletic director Shellee Young confirmed Monday.
The 67-year-old Lippy will also be retiring as a secondary learning support teacher at Littlestown at the end of the school year, according to a school board agenda from last month.
Lippy did not immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment about his retirement. The school said he is currently on sabbatical from teaching.
The longest-tenured head football coach in the YAIAA, Lippy led the Bolts for the past 20 seasons. Littlestown went 142-76 and made 14 playoff appearances during that time. The Bolts also played in three District 3 championship games under Lippy and won the first appearance, 14-0, over Lancaster Catholic in 2004.
Lippy also spent eight years as an assistant coach at Littlestown before getting the top job in 2003. He served as offensive coordinator and honed the aerial attack that would come to define his tenure as head coach.
While most of his counterparts in YAIAA Division III were running the ground-and-pound Wing-T offense, Lippy wanted to air the ball out during a time when that wasn't common for high school football teams in central Pennsylvania. Quarterbacks like Austin Reynolds, Dustin Crouse and Jakob Lane were among the passers to put up big numbers in his no-huddle offense.
Longtime Bermudian Springs head coach Jon DeFoe said that while other head coaches "played percentages" that led to them making conservative choices in close games, Lippy was never afraid to take risks. He remembered one game where the Bolts opened up the second half with a surprise onside kick.
"You had to be ready for anything," said DeFoe, who retired from coaching after the 2019 season. "He always thought: 'If we can't gain half a yard we don't deserve to win.' It was definitely a different week preparing for them because you had to be ready for 20 to 25 pass attempts."
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Lippy's teams developed strong rivalries with Delone Catholic, York Catholic and Bermudian Springs. DeFoe's Eagles teams went 39-1 in the regular season from 2011 to 2014. The only loss was a last-second 12-10 heartbreak to Littlestown in 2013.
Still, Lippy was respected and considered a mentor by many younger coaches in the YAIAA. He served as the president of the league's coaches association for a number of years.
"He's an intense guy and had super high expectations for his players and coaches," DeFoe said. "He used to tell me he had coaches meetings on Saturdays in January. I'd joke with him, 'What could you guys possibly be meeting about right now?' We used to tell each other our teams created some heartbreaking moments and thrilling moments for each other, but our kids were better for it."
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A graduate of Littlestown High School and nearly lifelong resident of the town, Lippy often spoke about his pride for the football program. If the Bolts went through a losing season, he would say the program owed it to the community to improve.
Under his tutelage, the Bolts usually did improve. After going a combined 5-15 in 2014 and 2015, they bounced back to go 8-3 in 2016. It was the first of four straight playoff appearances.
Even this past season, Littlestown overcame an 0-3 start to finish 6-4.
Red Lion head coach Jesse Shay is now the YAIAA's longest-tenured football coach as he enters his 11th season with the Lions.
Matt Allibone is a sports reporter for GameTimePA. He can be reached at 717-881-8221, mallibone@ydr.com or on Twitter at @bad2theallibone.
This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Littlestown football coach Mike Lippy retires after 20 seasons
