By Mike Gibson
For the Wire
William Tennent High School football coach Bob Rosenberger talks with his squad during a recent team meeting. Rosenberger competed for the Panthers before graduating in 1991.
Over the 57-year history of William Tennent High School’s football program, the Panthers have had advantages such as beautiful practice fields and a state-of-the-art high school football stadium to play in every weekend.
However, one thing they haven’t had enough of is the one thing they want the most — wins.
Enter Bob Rosenberger, the new coach of the only public school serving the townships of Upper Southampton and Warminster.
Rosenberger knows what Tennent is all about.
A 1991 graduate, he is the only coach in the football program’s history who is a former Panther.
Tennent has scored a rich history throughout the program’s existence, and there have certainly been many ups and downs. Under then-head coach Bill Juzwiak — a Cardinal Dougherty graduate — the Panthers went 8–0–1 in 1976 and shared the old Suburban One League title with Springfield High School in Montgomery County. They had a great player in running back Mark Bright, who would later go on become MVP in Temple University’s first-ever bowl win. Juzwiak recently retired from teaching at Tennent and is still well known as a football coach who got the most out of his players.
The titles and great players have been few and far between since, however, Rosenberger has big plans to change that.
“In order to excel at this, or really any level, you’ve got to be dedicated to being the best you can be,” he said, “and I will do whatever I have to do to help them achieve that.”
While the “official” practices begin this week, the PIAA does allow unofficial weight lifting sessions and seven-on-seven passing drills and that’s the preliminary work done earlier this month. In every sense, Rosenberger got the feel of what it is like to be a head coach for the first time and that the first time also comes at his alma mater.
“It’s the best feeling ever,” said Rosenberger. “It’s a unique situation, being at my alma mater and knowing the people in the community is very beneficial to trying to accomplish our goals.”
Rosenberger brings a distinct perspective to the job. Not only is he a former Tennent player, but a former big-time recruit there, having picked the University of South Carolina over an offer from the University of Pittsburgh in 1991. He worked as a quarterback and defensive back during his days with the Panthers.
“The kids can look at me and know it has been done here before,” Rosenberger explained. “At all of the places I’ve been before, I found that the kids are going to do what you ask them to do. If you don’t ask them to do it, they are not going to do it. Kids are usually very receptive to ideas on how to get better.
Rosenberger feels he has been well prepared for this job in a number of roles prior to coming to Tennent.
For the last eight seasons, he was the assistant head coach and defensive coordinator at Pennridge High School in Perkasie. Prior to that, he spent a couple of years at Tennent as an offensive line coach (1996–97) and he was the North Penn High School offensive line coach from 1997–2001.
He also completed a number of duties at Wissahickon from 2001–2003, including assistant head coach, defensive ends coach, fullbacks coach and special teams’ coordinator. He also spent 2004 at Central Bucks West in Doylestown where he was the special teams’ coordinator.
So Rosenberger has had a hand in every aspect of coaching a football team and he feels that will help him in his new capacity. While at North Penn, he served under current Buffalo Bills’ defensive coordinator Mike Pettine, Jr., also a former Tennent head coach.
“I was under Junior at North Penn,” Rosenberger said. “I always felt he was headed for great things. He was intense. That guy was a genius. He was always thinking three or four steps ahead. You can learn a lot just from observing someone like that.”
Pettine brought that kind of intensity for two years to Tennent before heading off for North Penn and Rosenberger hopes to bring it to stay. However, the school is the smallest in the highly competitive Suburban One League’s National Conference with only 592 male students.
“One of the things we use as motivation is what people think Tennent can be and can’t be,” he said. “I tell the kids we can get as much of it as we’ve put into it and the kids have been tremendous so far and we’ve gotten great support from the community and the businesses. With that kind of support, we can do a lot of great things.”
