BUTLER – Former Major League All-Star baseball pitcher Matt Clement is the new boys basketball coach at Butler High School, his alma mater.
Clement was named to the post June 22 beating out among others his former basketball coach at Butler Mark Jula, the head coach at Center this past season. Clement replaces Joe Lewandowksi, who led the Tornadoes to a 7-14 overall mark and 3-9 record in the WPIAL’s Class AAAA Section 3.
Butler lost its final five games and nine of its last 11 in 2009 after starting the season 5-5.Lewandowksi was 74-88 with one WPIAL playoff appearance in seven seasons at Butler.
“I’m very excited and honored to get this opportunity,” Clement told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “To coach these kids and lead these kids is something I’ve always wanted to do.”
Clement was hired despite not having any varsity coaching experience. He did coach grade school basketball in the Butler system the past two seasons.
“It’s nice when you hire a head coach who has head coaching experience (on the varsity level),” Butler assistant superintendent Jerry Slamecka, who was a member of the search committee, told the Post-Gazette. “But I think you have to look beyond experience to see what someone might bring to a job.”
What Clement brings to the job is something very few Western Pennsylvania high school basketball coaches bring: professional experience, albeit in baseball not basketball. Just three months ago, Clement, who last pitched in the Major Leagues in 2006 before suffering a shoulder injury, was in spring training with the Toronto Blue Jays before being designated for assignment and electing to retire.
In nine seasons in the Major Leagues with four clubs – San Diego, Florida, Chicago Cubs and Boston – he won 87 games and had a career ERA of 4.47. He twice pitched in the postseason for the Cubs in 2003 and the Red Sox in 2005 and also pitched in the 2005 All-Star game while a member of the Red Sox.
“Matt was an outstanding basketball player at Butler who wound up playing baseball because he could throw the ball 95 MPH,” Butler School Board member Arthur Haag told the Butler Eagle. “His first love is basketball, and he played basketball for a long time.”
Clement was actually considered a better basketball player than baseball player while at Butler in the early 1990s and was the starting point guard on the Tornadoes 1993 team that advanced to the WPIAL championship game.
He was also a member of Butler’s 1992 WPIAL Championship squad and was an all-WPIAL player his senior year. He had basketball scholarships from Pitt, Robert Morris, Duquesne, Bucknell and Lafayette but turned them all down when San Diego drafted him in the third round of the 1993 draft despite the fact that he had pitched all of 18 innings in high school baseball.
Butler’s program has fallen a long way since when Clement played for it and has had just two winnings seasons (13-8 in 2008; 14-10 in 2006) since its last 20-win season in 2000.
“I expect to win,” Clement told the Butler Eagle. “I’ve never done anything in my life not expecting to win.”
WPIAL Boys Basketball: Freeport also hires coach
While Clement stole all the headlines in the Pittsburgh region during the week, Freeport quietly brought back an old friend to be its boys basketball coach. The school hired former head coach Garrie Davies replacing Gene Rodgers, who went 15-27 in two seasons.
Davies led Freeport to 18 WPIAL playoff appearances in 22 years before stepping down from the job in 2004.
WPIAL Football: Clairton star makes verbal commitment to Pitt
Kevin Weatherspoon, a wide receiver at Clairton High School southeast of Pittsburgh, made a verbal commitment to play at Pitt next year Sunday.
Weatherspoon, who is 5-feet-11, had 57 catches for 1,470 yards and 20 touchdowns last season for the Bears and was also an outstanding defensive back, making seven interceptions. Weatherspoon’s commitment is a bright spot for Pitt, which earlier this month lost a couple of top-tier recruits with ties to the program to Penn State. Offensive lineman Tom Ricketts of North Allegheny, the son of former Pitt star Tom Ricketts, and offensive lineman Miles Dieffenbach, the son of Pitt women’s tennis coach George Dieffenbach both elected to become Nittany Lions.
Pitt has fallen behind Penn State this year in the race for early commitments from the WPIAL. So far Penn State has commitments from Ricketts, Dieffenbach, Sto-Rox quarterback Paul Jones, Canon-McMillan linebacker Mike Hall and Penn-Trafford offensive lineman Luke Graham.
Pitt has landed just two WPIAL players so far – Weatherspoon and Penn Hills defensive tackle Aaron Donald. The Panthers also have a verbal commitment from Derrick Burns, a running back out of District 10’s Wilmington Area giving them three Western Pennsylvania recruits for 2010.
