His appearance stands out in a crowd. Walk into any gym during a Lehighton girls’ JV basketball game, and you will immediately notice him on the courtside giving instructions to his players.

He’s the man dressed in the suit and tie and his name is Dave Yob.

From his first job with girls’ basketball at Freedom High School in Bethlehem in 1976, this East Allen Township resident has compiled a stellar 47-year coaching career that has spanned three sports at the high school and college levels. For all that time, Yob has quietly gone about his business doing what is necessary to make room in his life’s schedule for mentoring different levels of soccer, softball, and basketball teams.

Learning the trade

In 2019, he retired after working 23 years in the Security Department at St. Luke’s Hospital’s Bethlehem campus. “I worked the third shift there so I would be able to continue to coach,” Yob said.

Yob’s first basketball coaching gig was a volunteer position at Freedom where he had been a substitute teacher. “Coaching and helping out that first year was an eye-opening experience for me. I knew I wanted to continue to coach for a long time, but I needed to become well versed in whichever sport I was involved in.”

So this East Stroudsburg State College graduate - who lettered in soccer and track at Freedom, but was cut from his high school’s basketball team - began to build a library of coaching books, tapes, and DVDs. “I have 50 large binders of articles on coaching,” he said. “I attended clinics and coaching conventions. To this day, the learning process never ends.”

Lifting the underdog

Yob’s 47-year coaching career includes 25 soccer seasons, 28 softball seasons, and 32 basketball seasons. He is currently the JV head coach and varsity assistant for the Lehighton girls basketball team. In the fall, he serves as the Indians’ head boys soccer coach.

Along the way, he has garnered quite a few memories.

“I was a first-year head coach of women’s basketball in 1986 at East Stroudsburg University, and we finished runner up in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference playoffs,” Yob said as he recalled one of his most memorable coaching seasons.

Yob’s success has continued ever since then. He led DeSales University’s women’s soccer team to its first-ever winning season in 2000. He also was at the helm for Palisade’s first winning soccer season in 10 years, and in 2013, Yob directed Lehighton’s first winning soccer team in program history that included an upset over Pleasant Valley in the playoffs.

Dress for success

Yob is unpretentious, and shows little emotion when he stands before his junior varsity Lehighton girls’ basketball team. His perfectly coordinated shirt, tie, and jacket have become his moniker - worn out of “old school respect for the game,” as he puts it.

“When I was hired at ESU, the head coach wore a suit, so I did too, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I feel comfortable dressing this way at the games, so to each their own.”

When asked about his closet collection of dress clothes, he contends that he has so many to choose from. “If I wanted to do it, between the suits, sports coats, dress shirts, dress pants and ties, I could probably go three years without wearing the same thing twice to a game. I have ties that still have the tags on them,” he says with a smile.

Changes from past to present

Through his nearly half century of leading his troops into competition, Yob has experienced the evolution of coaching and athletic participation “When I first started, little thought was given to summer leagues, team camps, and lifting during the off season,” Yob said. “It was nothing for high school athletes to play two or three sports, but now some coaches require their players to play only their sport and train all year. Both coaches and athletes need to find time to relax the body and mind.”

Yob mentioned that the way coaches are addressed by athletes and parents has changed over the years as well.

“It used to be we were called “Coach” or “Coach’ followed by our last names, now they say our first names or even “yo” which I will always ignore.

“My involvement with parents has changed, too. When I started coaching, they treated coaches with respect. They would find out what their son or daughter needed to do to get better and tell their kids to work at it. Today, a few parents will yell at the coach if they don’t get their way and might even influence the Board of Education to fire him. This is a bad precedent that will make it harder to get quality people to coach in the future.”

The joy of it all

Through the years, Yob’s coaching philosophy has never changed. “Work hard and reap the benefits of success,” he said.

He quotes French author, Jules Renard. ‘Failure is not the only punishment for laziness; there is also the success of others.’”

As for his favorite sport to coach?

“It’s whatever sport or season I’m involved with at that time. I love them all,” he said.

Throughout his decades of coaching, the strategies have changed and perhaps the athletes have changed, too, but for Dave Yob, the man in the dress shirt, jacket and tie, coaching still suits him just fine.

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HONORING COACH CARROLL ... Panther Valley will host a doubleheader on Feb. 3, with the boys and girls basketball teams taking on Tamaqua in an event that will celebrate the life of former basketball coach Brian Carroll.

Carroll passed away Feb. 2, 2022 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

All proceeds will be used for scholarships in Carroll’s name.

The Coach Carroll Classic will feature the varsity girls game between the Panthers and Blue Raiders at 5:30 p.m., followed by the boys contest at 7.

Last year, Panther Valley hosted the “Give Back Game,” sponsored by the Panther Valley Lady Panthers’ Booster Club, as a benefit to help bring a public awareness to the disease during a game against Jim Thorpe.

Carroll was an assistant under current Panther Valley girls basketball coach Rob Kovac from 1998 until 2003 at Panther Valley, and helped coach the 1999-2000 girls’ team to a district title, and a PIAA state semifinal final appearance.

Following his run as Panther Valley’s assistant girls coach, Carroll assisted Pat Crampsie with the Panthers’ boys’ basketball program. He then moved on to become the head coach for the boys’ team at Jim Thorpe from 2007 until 2013. At Jim Thorpe, Carroll’s 2009 Olympians were 18-7, and advanced to the district semifinals. They repeated the feat the following year.

Following his stint coaching the Jim Thorpe boys, he returned as an assistant with Kovac, who had taken over as head coach of the Olympians’ girls’ basketball team. He remained a part of that staff for five years.

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RAIDERS DOWN POTTSVILLE ... Last Friday night, the Tamaqua boys held off Pottsville for a 51-46 victory at Martz Hall.

The win snapped a 42-game losing streak the Blue Raiders had against the Crimson Tide. The last time Tamaqua defeated its Schuylkill League rivals was Jan. 31, 2003 when five players scored in double figures to produce a 71-63 home victory.

Allen Graver led the way with 17 points, while Chris McLaughlin added 15 and Mike Yocum finished with 13. The Raiders also received 10 points in that game from both Justin Harakel and Matt Wagner.

You have to go back all the way to Jan. 24, 1995 for the last time a Blue Raider squad downed Pottsville at Martz Hall. Joe Ligenza scored 28 points to propel Tamaqua to a 54-49 victory. Brian Boyer also chipped in with 14 points.

Ironically Ligenza is the father of Mason Ligenza, who had seven points during Friday’s win at Martz.

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CENTURY MARK TIMES TWO ... Last Thursday, the Jim Thorpe girls edged Lehighton by a 41-36 score.

The win was significant for head coach Nadia Gauronsky, as the victory was the 200th of her varsity coaching career.

The former Panther Valley standout player guided Pleasant Valley for 11 seasons and registered a 145-117 record. After Thorpe’s triumph against the Indians, Gauronsky had a mark of 55-15 with the Olympians for an overall record of 200-132.

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SCHUYLKILL LEAGUE JV TOURNAMENT ... A number of area wrestlers experienced success at the recent Schuylkill League JV Wrestling Tournament. Lehighton’s Reese Scaturro (121), Carter Hontz (129) and Camryn Dimmitt (189), and Panther Valley’s Micahel Cobb (127) and Jim Thorpe’s Eric Irizarry (145) all claimed titles at the event. Lehighton’s Anthony Amari (121) and Jacob Andreas (172), Jim Thorpe’s Hayden Hurn (139) and Panther Valley’s Bryan Wilde (160) all had runner-up finishes at the tournament.

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PALMERTON’S MORGAN JOINS 1,000-POINT CLUB ... Palmerton senior Beth Morgan became a part of the prestigious 1,000-point club on Jan. 17 in a 42-29 victory over Catasauqua.

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CHAMPIONSHIP ... Pleasant Valley’s Juliette Trout won a title at the Coal Cracker Girls Wrestling Tournament over the weekend.

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COUNT ME IN ... Northern Lehigh secured a District 11 playoff spot in a win over Southern Lehigh Tuesday, Jan. 17. The Bulldogs are one of four girls teams in the Times News coverage area to secure postseason berths - joining, Marian, Palmerton and Northwestern, who had all clinched berths previously. On the boys side, Palmerton is the only local team to have already clinched a spot in the district playoffs.