Coaches Spotlight:
Mike Pettine, Baltimore Ravens

By Mike Scandura, NFLHS.com

Mike Pettine wasn't even born when "Father Knows Best" was a popular television sitcom from 1954-63. But the Baltimore Ravens outside linebackers coach was an integral part of a father-knows-best scenario that ran from 1997-2001, while he was the head coach at North Penn High in Lansdale, Pa.

Five times Pettine knocked heads with his father, Mike Pettine Sr., who was the coach at Central Bucks West. And five times his father's team prevailed.

After the 2001 season, Pettine hooked on with the Ravens as a computer technology specialist and an assistant defensive line coach.

To hear Pettine tell it, the reason he left North Penn for the NFL was simple.

"In 1999, ESPN featured us in a documentary (named The Season)," said Pettine. "We were 9-0 going into our game (with Central Bucks West) and they beat us. I was 0-for-5 against my dad.

"That was another reason I wanted to get out of high school because I was tired of seeing the headline 'Father Knows Best.'"

Not really, but it does make for a good anecdote. Yet there was nothing amusing about what Pettine accomplished as a high school coach.

North Penn won 45 games during his five seasons (1997-2001) there and made the first of two playoff trips in school history. And during the second (1996) of his two seasons at William Tennent High, his team won a school-record nine games.

"North Penn was the largest 4A school in the state and always was known as the sleeping giant," recalled Pettine. "But invariably they were always a couple games under .500, even though it always was the largest public high school by enrollment in the state. The administrators were tired of Central Bucks West having success with fewer kids.

"I guess they felt if they couldn't hire my dad, they would hire the next closest thing and they approached me."

Good point, considering Mike Pettine Sr., who retired earlier this decade, went down as the winningest coach (326-42-4 in 33 seasons) in the history of Pennsylvania high school football.

Yet while North Penn may have been "a sleeping giant," William Tennent was just asleep.

"It was a 4A school that had won only three games in three years and it was a tough transition for me," admitted Pettine. "When I met the players I saw guys who I thought were wide receivers and running backs and they were linemen. I had been around guys at Pitt (where he was a defensive graduate assistant from 1993-94) who were 6-6 or 6-7 and filled a door frame.

"I came in full of ideas and wanted to run a lot of stuff from my Central Bucks West days (where he earned All-State honors as a quarterback and a defensive back). But the kids lacked basics and fundamentals. They didn't even know how to get in a stance."

But just like Tennant and North Penn made a wise choice when they hired Pettine, so did he emulate those schools when he hired one of his father's former players, Dick Beck.

"He coached the offensive line and we set up defenses together," said Pettine. "We put together a good staff around us but we ran the show. We started with basics and realized they didn't have good off-season programs. That was the cornerstone of my dad's program because he knew you were going to win games in January, February and March.

"Fortunately for me there was some blind faith early on. It was tough for parents to say you can have my kids 'X' number of nights per week. But we won our first five games (in 1995) and I had parents thank me because games were close in the fourth quarter."

Even though "close games" and two bucks might buy you a cup of coffee, the foundation was laid for the future.

"We were fortunate that we had success early," said Pettine. "There was proof that the system worked and then it snowballed. It was a great group of kids. For us to win nine games was very special, which made it all the more difficult for me to leave."

That Pettine would even consider leaving one coaching position for another wasn't even the germ of an idea while he was playing free safety for the University of Virginia (Pettine, in fact, set a school record by intercepting three passes against North Carolina State in 1986). But after graduation he put his BA in economics to use and became an insurance underwriter -- while helping out his father on the side by watching tape of opponents and working with defensive backs.

"When I was going through Virginia it never dawned on me that I wanted to get into coaching," said Pettine. "I had played organized football for 15 years in a row but the thought of coaching never entered my mind. But come the fall maybe it was the smell of the grass and the fact it was that time of the year and it was like (I had) withdrawal symptoms.

"I got hooked that first year and really loved it. I was able to see a lot of college coaches who were coming to try and recruit my dad's players. Eventually I yearned for a little more and wanted to expand my football world."

And he expanded a football world that his father knew best.

Story courtesy Red Line Editorial, Inc.