Dan took control of the Blue Storm football program in 2003. Two years later the varsity football team won its first MAPL championship and came within a few plays (in the season's penultimate game) of an undefeated season. “We have earned the respect of our MAPL peers,” notes Walker, “and now not only do we believe we can win, but we expect to win.” Dan knows football. He played four years at Colgate University, where he captained the team and earned the Hal Lahar Trophy for most valuable defensive player. He was also an All-Patriot League selection at defensive back. Coach Walker has eight years of experience coaching football at the collegiate level, four of them at Pennsylvania’s King College, where the team earned the titles of ECAC Southeast Champion in 2000 and 2001, and Middle Atlantic Conference Champion in 2002. A member of the American Football Coaches Association, Dan has spoken at numerous national football clinics, including the Frank Glazier Football Clinics. In 2006 Dan was invited to speak at the NIKE Coach of the Year Clinics. In 2005, Coach Walker was named Coach of the Year for NBC 25’s Tristate Area and the Chambersburg “Public Opinion” newspaper’s Football Coach of the Year. Over the past six years, 24 of Dan’s players have gone on to play college football at schools such as Duke University (4 players), Georgetown, Boise State, Colgate, Ohio Wesleyan, Yale, the University of Rochester and the West Virginia University.

Matthew Caretti brings an enormous amount of experience and expertise to his role as assistant coach with the boys' varsity football team. Matthew played offensive guard on the varsity team at Susquehanna University, where he was also team captain and where he earned the distinctions of being named All-Conference, All-America, and All-Academic. He was also named to Susquehanna's All-Century Football Team, which celebrated 100 years of football at the university. As a graduate student at Shippensburg University, Matthew was an assistant football coach in charge of running backs. In 1995, Coach Caretti took on the job as head coach of the Turgovia Lions, a Swiss semi-professional football team. Matthew also played and coached for the Feldkirch Dinos, a semi-pro football team in the Austrian National Football League. An avid bicyclist, Matthew has traversed the southern United States from California to the Carolinas and, in 2006, he won the 12,000 kilometer Tour d'Afrique bicycle race. The football players always pay attention when Coach Caretti speaks; after all, Matthew holds a 3rd degree black belt in taekwondo and a first degree black belt in kumdo, a Korean form of kendo!

This is Dave's 20th year at Mercersburg, where he has acquired more than his share of frequent flier coaching miles. Dave began his coaching career at Mercersburg with punters on the football team and the spring track team. Over the following two decades, Coach Holzwarth handled wide receivers and defensive backs on the football team, and he coached the Storm ski team for 17 years.  He coached spring track for several years and this year is an assistant coach for boys' and girls' winter track. 

 

In both high school and college, Dave was the punter for his football team, including two years as starting punter for the Golden Bears of the University of California at Berkeley.  Coach Holzwarth skied in high school and ran the 200, 400, and 800 yard races in high school and college.  He was the MVP of his high school track and field team as a 10th grader at his high school in California, and also won MVP as a senior at Mercersburg Academy, where he graduated in 1978.  He is a current member of the United States Track and Field Association and runs in the Track & Field Masters every year.

In Jim's 31 years at Mercersburg, he has at various times been head coach of boys' varsity and JV basketball, girls' JV basketball, and TREK, the academy's outdoor program before MOE.  Jim has also been assistant coach for both varsity and JV football, boys' and girls' varsity basketball, and boys' JV lacrosse. Coach Malone focuses primarily on skill development and a team-oriented approach to each sport. Jim focuses on the offensive and defensive lines and special teams. In addition, Jim is also head coach of the JV football team.

Karl Reisner has coached varsity baseball, varsity football, varsity wrestling, varsity girls' basketball and JV boys' basketball in his 38-year tenure at Mercersburg. Last year Karl became the winningest coach in Mercersburg history. Karl has coached the varsity boys baseball team since 1991; in that time, eleven of his teams have won league titles and three have gone on to win state championships.  Karl's coaching philosphy is quite simple: master the fundamentals and play the game with intelligence and intensity. His oft-repeated mantra is "Respect everyone; fear no one." As a student at The University of Pennsylvania, Karl played football and baseball. Karl was a lightweight football All-American at Penn and was captain of the 1970 

Penn Sprint football team.