NEW YORK, NY (EYT) – When the New York Giants hired Ben McAdoo as their head coach in January they added to the ever growing list of Western Pennsylvania natives who have been head coached in the NFL.
McAdoo is from nearby Indiana County – he is from Homer City – and is a 2000 graduate of IUP.
He is the third current NFL headman to come from Western Pennsylvania joining Mike McCarthy of the Green Bay Packers, who has won a Super Bowl, from Greenfield and Marvin Lewis of the Cincinnati Bengals from McDonald.
And the list of former NFL head coaches from Western Pennsylvania include some of greatest minds to grace the sidelines in league history including a pair of Super Bowl winners Bill Cowher of Crafton and Mike Ditka of Aliquippa. That list also includes Franklin’s Ted Marchibroda, another IUP graduate, Jim Haslett of Ben Avon as well as current Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley of Upper St. Clair and former Pitt head coach Dave Wannstedt of Baldwin not to mention Marty Schottenheimer of McDonald, Chuck Knox of Sewickley and Joe Bugel of Munhall.
McAdoo’s story is similar to most of them.
According to an interview he did with Giants.com when he was hired, he is the son of a coal miner who played high school football but not college football.
While at IUP, he started his coaching career at his high-school Alma Mater, Homer-Center.
McAdoo also spent time coaching at Indiana High School before going to Michigan State as a graduate assistant.
From Michigan State, his career took off.
He spent a couple of years – 2002 and 2003 – in the college ranks first at Fairfield then at Pitt and Akron – he never actually coached a game at Akron – before getting his first NFL job as an offensive quality control coordinator with the New Orleans Saints in 2004. He then moved on to the San Francisco 49ers, which a brief stop at Stanford in between, in 2005 before spending eight years (2006-2011) on McCarthy’s staff in Green Bay first as the tight ends coach (2006-11) then as the quarterbacks coach (2012-13) including winning a Super Bowl over his childhood team, the Steelers, during the 2010 season. He was then hired by the Giants as their offensive coordinator in 2014 and spent two seasons in that position before being hired as their 17th head coach.
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