Houser ready to make Lourdes debut
COAL TOWNSHIP - There's a bit of irony that in the same season Corey Houser landed his first job as a high school head football coach, Carmen DeFrancesco - after four head coaching stops at four schools - finally wound up in the one head coaching position he always wanted.
Houser, a Line Mountain graduate and the first-year head coach at Lourdes, looks at DeFrancesco as his coaching mentor.
So while Houser and his Red Raiders take the field in hopes of an All-American Conference title this year, a dozen or so miles up the highway, DeFrancesco and the Red Tornadoes will be in search of so much more.
Both, however, will be going about things in the same way.
For six years, Houser was an assistant under DeFrancesco at Shamokin Area. It was Houser's first high school football coaching stop, and the third stop - Cardinal Brennan and Danville were the first two - among the four head coaching jobs DeFrancesco had before finally finding his way back to the Silver Bowl, where he played his high school football and began his coaching career as an assistant under Jazz Diminick.
Together with the Indians, they were a part of some big things, including the District 4 Class AAA championship in 2003.
"If I learned anything under Carm (DeFrancesco), I learned how to be a hard worker from him," Houser said. "He's all football, 24/7. Everything I know, he taught me."
So while Houser will no doubt keep an eye on how his mentor is doing with the high expectations that go along with being head coach at Mount Carmel, it's also just as likely that DeFrancesco's attention will divert occasionally to see how things are progressing down the road at Lourdes.
For added measure, Houser will also be under the scrutiny of his father-in-law, Leo Mulhall, who Houser agreed is more like the godfather of Lourdes athletics.
A retired coach, teacher and administrator at the school, Mulhall has a keen interest in the team that plays in the stadium bearing his name.
"As a family, we get together every Sunday," Houser said. "And last year (when Houser was an assistant), we (Lourdes) got off to a slow start.
"After the second game, I walked into his house and he said 'Hey, who's that line coach? I'd fire him.' I told him it wasn't me."
If Houser's discovered anything in his first season as a head coach, it's that the headaches of an assistant don't compare to those of a head coach.
'It's 10 times harder, and I never thought about that as an assistant," Houser said. "Now, I have all the jobs. I have to worry about everything."
Possibly one of the biggest challenges facing the first-year head coach is heading into, then getting through, a season with an 18-player roster. Even so, he looks at the lighter side and keeps things in perspective.
"People talk about private schools and how they recruit," Houser said. "Look around, that's obviously not the case here.
"If it is, I should be fired."
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