New Blackhawk head coach Jake Wickline excited to begin first season with program

CHIPPEWA TOWNSHIP — As the sun began to set Thursday night at Blackhawk High School, there was a different feeling around this Cougars program under first-year head coach Jake Wickline, who takes over after a year filled with uncertainty.

Throughout Thursday’s practice, Wickline sprinted up and down the field encouraging and coaching his players after each rep as a big boom-box blasted music across the field.

Wickline believes that with his energy on the field, his players can pick up on it and use it to help propel them into this season.

“All I have is energy,” Wickline said. “I played with a lot of energy and that energy and enthusiasm is contagious so if you set the tone with your energy and the kids see that, the kids will follow. It is fun being out here and if you don’t have any energy while you are out here I don’t know what you’re doing because it's easy to have energy when you are out on the field.”

The new Blackhawk head coach is no stranger to Beaver County as he was a standout at Riverside and has been around the county his entire life.

As camp continued to push onward for the Cougars, as Wickline watched his team compete against one another during practices, everything that he saw out on the field did not come as a surprise to the first-year head coach.

“Overall, these kids have been very respective to what we have been coaching them over the past several months and that does not come as much of a surprise. I have been in the county my entire life and people know what kind of kids Blackhawk kids are and there is a certain edge to this community so these kids have responded the way that we thought that they would have responded.”

After a rough season last year, the team mustered just one win on the season after Zack Hayward resigned from the program just two weeks before the start of the regular season.

This year the Cougars return several key starters with one of those players being senior wide receiver Tyler Heckathron who had his season cut short at the beginning of the year due to an injury.

Throughout the offseason and into the heat acclimation week, Wickline was impressed with what the senior has not only in terms of his play out on the field but the way he carries himself off the field as well which is what makes Heckathron so special.

“For all of his physical abilities [Tyler Heckathron] “Chucky” has, it is really his intangibles that stick out. He has an edge, he is aggressive and he is a leader. When you have a kid like that on the field, others will respond to that and feed off of the way that he plays.”

Wickline spent nine years as Beaver Falls’ defensive coordinator before spending the 2023 season as an assistant coach at Beaver Area under head coach Cort Rowse.

The Cougars head coach has defense in his blood as he had a successful career at linebacker collegiately at Edinboro and Slippery Rock and is one of the aspects of the game that he wants to stress the importance of more than others heading into this season.

“We just need to make sure that we are communicating, getting our 11 guys to the football and just being able to play with a lot of aggression when we go out there each week.”

Head coach: Jake Wickline (First year as head coach)

2023 record: (1-9, 1-6 Parkway Conference)

Top players lost: Maurice Watson-Trent, Donte Campagna

Top players returning: Tyler "Chucky" Heckathorn, Cody Woodward, Stephen Kanally, AJ Montgomery, Jameson Feely, Brendon Rodriguez, Will Brown, Ryan Buckles, Austin Symons, Nate Reed, Tristen Brunson

Offense: Offensively, the Cougars bring back two of its main key pieces from a season ago in quarterback Stephen Kanally and Tyler Heckathorn. After Dontae Campagna graduated at the end of the school year, Heckathorn will be one of Kanally’s main targets this season and after suffering an injury early in the season last year, the senior wideout is ready to get back out onto the field in 2024. Cody Woodward also is back for his senior season with the Cougars and brings experience on both sides of the ball and will be another target that Kanally can use at his disposal.

Defense: It comes as no surprise that Jake Wickline is a defensive-minded coach after spending his collegiate playing career on that side of the ball while also spending almost a decade as Beaver Falls’ defensive coordinator. This season, the Cougar's defense will look to be aggressive and rely strongly on communication, and with Woodward and Heckathorn back as the team’s outside linebackers, Wickline and his Blackhawk defense have a sturdy foundation set with the returners that the team has.

Classification: 4A

Last WPIAL playoff appearance: 2022

Last WPIAL title: 1996

WPIAL titles: 4

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: New Blackhawk head coach Jake Wickline excited to begin first season with program