L-L Wrestling: Shane Mack returns to L-L ranks as head coach at Hempfield
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
When the Hempfield High School wrestlers gathered for their first workout — official, unofficial, whatever — their head coach, although new to the position, was a familiar face.
Having guided the Hempfield youth program the last ten years, Shane Mack knows every candidate in the Black Knights wrestling room.
Ten years after he stepped down at Manheim Central, Shane Mack returns to the L-L wrestling coaching ranks, taking over for John Walizer, who resigned at the end of the 2018-19 season.
Walizer, an advanced mathematics teacher in the Derry (Hershey) School District, felt he could no longer coach in one district, teach in another, and do both well.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” said Mack, explaining the process that brought him back to the L-L.
“I said, ‘Well, I’ve coached these kids since they were tiny.’ I know their families.”
Mack, currently the principal at Red Lion Junior High School, left Manheim Central to take an administrative position at Hershey.
There he formed a bond with Walizer, and no doubt influenced Walizer’s decision to become the Black Knights’ head junior high coach.
When the varsity position opened, Walizer moved up. Now the circle appears complete.
And Mack’s coaching journey has gone full circle.
Son of one-time Lancaster Catholic football coach Joe Mack, whose own journey took the family from Florida to Lancaster to Ithaca, New York, Shane was a junior high champion at Penn Manor and a New York state champion for Ithaca High School.
In 1998 he graduated from the University of Maryland, where he was a three-time NCAA qualifier, serving as an assistant to John Little at Solanco for two years.
“It was awesome,” said Mack. “He’s a good guy, very organized. I learned a ton from him.”
Next stop was back to Ithaca High where he served as head coach, then assistant postings at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and at Maryland before becoming the 15th head coach in the storied history at Manheim.
In four years with the Barons he coached eight L-L League champions, eight sectional champions, 20 District Three tournament qualifiers, three champions, a runner-up and a bronze medalist.
His five PIAA State tournament qualifiers produced a champion, Jordan Enck, and two more finalists.
His 2006 team was his best, winning the L-L tournament title, as well as the regular-season Section Two championship.
With the potential of 17 wrestlers returning from last year’s varsity and an infusion of at least another eight from the junior high ranks, the Black Knights are a blue chip stock.
Testament to the strength of the Knights’ youth program, last year’s junior high team won its second consecutive E-town Optimist Tournament title — the unofficial L-L junior high championships — with five champions out of eight finalists, and 11 medalists overall.
They scored 298 points, the second highest total in the 44-year history of the tournament.
“We have a lot of potential,” said Mack, who cautioned, “there’s a lot of different things they can choose from, different interests. You’re going to lose kids along the way.
“The challenge is to keep them as a cohesive unit. To get them to buy into being the best version of themselves.”
The challenge, already underway behind closed doors, goes public a week from Saturday.
NOTE: This article originally appeared on the Lancaster Online website on 11/26/2019.