— By Bill Cornwell
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Huntington St. Joseph High School announced the return of a varsity football program last fall.
The Irish have now hired a coach to lead the program.
Ripley native Adam Hill, who has coaching experience at the high school, college and professional levels, will lead the Irish program, which plans to begin play on the junior varsity level this fall before fielding a varsity team in 2024.
St. Joe Athletic Director and boys basketball coach Todd Maynard cited Hill’s work at multiple levels of football to help make him an attractive candidate.
Hill has worked as head football coach at Howard W. Blake High School in Tampa, Florida, and as an assistant at both Huntington and Spring Valley High Schools.
He was also previously on the staffs of Kentucky Christian University in Grayson, Ky. and Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio.
Hill’s professional football experience includes jobs with the Arena Football League’s Tampa Bay Storm, the XFL’s Tampa Bay Vipers and front office positions with the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
St. Joe also hired another Marshall alumnus, Phil Walker Jr., to lead its junior varsity team. Walker has worked on high school coaching staffs at Hurricane and Fairland (Ohio) as well as working as an assistant at West Virginia State University.
Huntington St. Joe fielded football teams in the 1930s and 1940s, but the program was dropped during World War II and never restored until present.
Still to be determined is where the Irish will play their home games, though Maynard said one possibility is a new artificial turf field ready for competition at Barboursville Park.