There are certain schools that stay with you long after you leave. For me, Waynesburg Central will always be one of those places.
Waynesburg gave me my first opportunity to become a head basketball coach. It was the place where somebody finally trusted me enough to give me my own program and allow me to start learning what being a head coach was really about.
So I’ll always have love for that school and that community. And one of the people I’ll always have a tremendous amount of respect for is Russ Moore.
Coach Moore was my athletic director when I became the head basketball coach at Waynesburg Central. He was one of the people who believed in me and gave me an opportunity.
But before I ever coached there, Russ Moore had already done something at Waynesburg that nobody else has done before or since.
He brought the school its only WPIAL football championship.
And when you look back at the 1999 Waynesburg Central Raiders, you realize just how special that team really was.
Waynesburg Football Before 1999
Waynesburg had football history before Russ Moore arrived.
The Raiders had reached WPIAL championship games before, including appearances in 1958 and 1959. But they had never won one.
Moore arrived at Waynesburg Central in 1995 and quickly started changing the direction of the program. By 1996, he had the Raiders in the WPIAL playoffs.
Three years later, everything came together.
The 1999 team wasn’t just good. They were dominant.
Waynesburg finished the season 13–1 and went a perfect 7–0 in the Three Rivers Conference.
Think about these numbers: 486 points scored. 119 points allowed.
That’s an average of almost 35 points per game while allowing fewer than nine.
This wasn’t a team that caught fire for a couple weeks in November. Waynesburg was one of the best football teams in Western Pennsylvania from the beginning of the season until the end.
A Loaded Class AA
Another thing that gets forgotten when looking back at that season is how good WPIAL Class AA football was in 1999.
Aliquippa went 11–1. Steel Valley went 10–1. Jeannette went 9–2. Washington went 11–2.
There were quality football programs everywhere. Waynesburg still came out on top.
And their biggest obstacle was right down the road.
Washington.
The Little Prexies were having an outstanding season themselves and were Waynesburg’s biggest rival in the Three Rivers Conference.
Waynesburg won the conference.
But the two weren’t finished with each other. They would meet again with something much bigger at stake.
Waynesburg vs. Washington — For the WPIAL Championship
November football at Three Rivers Stadium meant something different.
Before Heinz Field. Before Acrisure Stadium. Before social media highlights were everywhere five minutes after a play happened.
Getting to Three Rivers for a WPIAL championship was a huge deal.
And in 1999, Waynesburg Central walked into that stadium with an opportunity to make school history.
Across the field was Washington. A rival. A team that knew them. A team that had won a WPIAL championship just six years earlier.
You might expect a championship game between rivals to come down to the final possession.
It didn’t.
Waynesburg 30. Washington 3. That score tells you everything.
On the biggest stage the program had ever reached, Waynesburg didn’t just win its first championship. The Raiders dominated.
For the first time in school history, Waynesburg Central was a WPIAL football champion.
And more than a quarter-century later, they’re still the only Waynesburg football team that can say it.
They Almost Made It to Hershey
Winning the WPIAL championship didn’t end their season.
Waynesburg advanced into the PIAA playoffs and eventually reached the Class AA state semifinals. Standing between the Raiders and a trip to the state championship was Tyrone.
Waynesburg’s historic season finally ended there. Tyrone 17, Waynesburg 13.
Four points separated Waynesburg from playing for a state championship. And Tyrone went on to beat Mount Carmel 13–6 to win the PIAA title.
That puts Waynesburg’s season into even more perspective.
Their only loss came by four points in the state semifinals to the team that eventually became Pennsylvania’s Class AA champion.
Waynesburg finished 13–1.
Conference champions. WPIAL champions. State semifinalists.
Russ Moore Made History
What Russ Moore accomplished deserves to be remembered.
He didn’t inherit some perennial WPIAL powerhouse.
He came to Waynesburg in 1995. By his second season, they were in the playoffs. By 1999, they were WPIAL champions.
And all these years later, when you look at the official list of WPIAL football champions, there is still only one Waynesburg Central team listed.
1999. Russ Moore.
That matters.
There are coaches who have spent decades at schools without ever getting to experience what that team experienced. Winning a WPIAL championship is difficult anywhere.
Bringing a school the only football championship in its history makes you part of that school’s history forever.
Why This One Means Something to Me
I wasn’t part of that 1999 football team. I don’t want to write this pretending that I was.
My connection came years later. But that’s exactly why I appreciate the story.
When I was trying to become a head basketball coach, somebody had to give me my first opportunity. That place was Waynesburg Central.
And Russ Moore was my athletic director.
I’ll never forget that.
Waynesburg was where I learned some of my earliest lessons about running my own program. It was where I got to experience being responsible for everything that comes with that title.
Your wins. Your losses. Your players. Your decisions. Your program. That’s why Waynesburg will always mean something to me regardless of where life took me afterward.
And knowing the man who gave me that opportunity was also the man responsible for the greatest football season in school history makes this story even more special to me.
The Only One
High school sports history moves quickly.
New teams come along. New coaches take over. New generations of players fill the locker rooms. Twenty-five years becomes twenty-seven years before you even realize it.
But banners don’t change.
Waynesburg Central has played a lot of football over the years. They’ve had plenty of good players and good teams. They even returned to the WPIAL championship game the very next season in 2000, falling 14–6 to Aliquippa.
But there is still only one team that finished the job.
The 1999 Waynesburg Central Raiders. 13–1. 486 points scored. Three Rivers Conference champions. 30–3 over Washington at Three Rivers Stadium. WPIAL Class AA champions. Four points away from playing for a state championship.
And most importantly: The only WPIAL football championship in Waynesburg Central history.
Coach Russ Moore and those players didn’t just have a great season.
They gave Waynesburg something nobody can ever take away.
They made history.