Latest news with #Kehres
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Local ties fuel Eagles Super Bowl run
ALLIANCE, Ohio (WKBN) – The University of Mount Union football team has won 13 NCAA Division III National Championships and now one of their own is leading a Super Bowl team. Read next: Youngstown-born NFL player could win 3rd Super Bowl ring in a row Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni has led the Eagles to the team's second Super Bowl in three seasons. He started his football career playing receiver at Mount Union. 'They're a team that they feel that family and that Sirianni and Italian all the way,' said former Mount Union head coach Larry Kehres. 'They're playing for Nick Sirianni. They're reflecting his comments that he makes with them, a lot when he's in a meeting room with them.' Read next: Local players you may not know who played in the Super Bowl The current Eagles head coach played for Legendary Mount Union head football coach Larry Kehres. Kehres notched 11 national championships for the Purple Raiders. Sirianni was a three-year starter piling up 52 catches for 998 yards and 13 touchdowns his senior year. He was the youngest of the three Sirianni brothers, Mike and Jay, to attend Mount Union. 'I think his mom planted the seed in Mike's mind, let's go visit Mount Union,' said Kehres. 'So every time I think of the family, I say thank you, Mrs. Sirianni.' The Purple Raider graduate helped lead Mount Union to three straight national championships. Then, in 2004 he joined the Mount Union staff as an assistant and helped lead the Purple Raiders to yet another championship. 'He was the little brother that threw the football outside the locker room, he was an excitable, young ten-year-old,' said Kehres. Sirianni has coached in the NFL for 16 seasons as he became the Eagles head coach in 2021. In 2023 he led the Eagles to the Super Bowl and lost to the Kansas City Chiefs. 'He's the same guy, I have a picture of Nick getting a haircut. He had the biggest smile on his face because he was with the star of the team getting a haircut after a game,' said Kehres. 'That smile and that happiness, that's still what I see in Nick. I'm really glad that I got to get this haircut, I'm really glad that I'm coaching these Eagles, I'm all in on the haircut and I'm all in on the Eagles.' The Mount Union star now leads the Eagles in a Super Bowl rematch against the Chiefs. 'You can't not be yourself, you have to be who you are when you're leading other men or they'll all smell phony in a heartbeat,' said Kehres. The Eagles take on the Chiefs Sunday at 6:30 p.m. on Fox Youngstown. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Los Angeles Times
05-02-2025
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
Nick Sirianni's experiences at Mount Union helped him climb mountaintop with Eagles
Best call in the NFC championship game? It didn't happen on the field. No, it was when coach Nick Sirianni was driving home after his Philadelphia Eagles beat Washington to reach the Super Bowl for the second time in four seasons. Sirianni dialed his college coach from University of Mount Union to bask in the excitement of the moment and invite him to Super Bowl LIX. Larry Kehres, who retired in 2012 with a winning percentage of .929 — the highest in college football history — opted to watch from the comfort of home in Alliance, Ohio. He's getting older, and he and his wife don't travel as much as when they did so for games, coaching conventions and the like. 'Getting asked to go by Nick probably is more significant than actually going,' said Kehres, 75, who coached three of the Sirianni brothers in his 27 seasons. His teams were a combined 333-24 and won 11 national championships. Sirianni had praised his old coach after that NFC championship win, but Kehres only heard about the news conference. He was too busy rewinding to break down the key moments. 'I watch every play on my TV,' said Kehres, whose last name is pronounced CARE-ess. 'I put it in slo-mo so I can understand the play a little better. That sounds silly, but as a coach they don't give you the big view, the all 22, so I have to watch the 15 or 16 players you can see so it's, 'OK, now I have a feel for what they're doing.' By the time I was done, the other game had started.' Once a coach, always a coach. To Sirianni, Kehres was much more than a guy with a whistle, or someone who could draw up Xs and O's. He has been a lifelong friend and mentor. 'I have great parents who have taught me so much, then you go away from home for the first time, away from those strong parents that I have, and [Kehres] is like a dad away from home there,' said Sirianni, 43, a onetime standout receiver at the school. 'One of the big things I learned from him was that connection, just caring about his players. He was always trying to get me better. … I have a lot of stories of how many times I got yelled at as well. Just because he cares for me doesn't mean he's not extremely demanding.' In an incident chronicled in an NFL Films feature on Kehres, Sirianni was flagged for excessive celebration after catching a touchdown pass in a 2003 national championship semifinal and giving a hug to his brother, who was standing behind the end zone. Even though Mount Union was blowing out Bridgewater in that game, Sirianni got an earful from Kehres and conceded he didn't live up to the high standard expected of him. 'I didn't know why he got a penalty,' Kehres recalled with a laugh. 'They had a skinny rope dividing the fans from the field. But Nick told me he had an Eagles player get a penalty like that, excessive celebration in the end zone, and he reacted like I did.' Sirianni went back and watched that old video of himself and spotted an official in that game who made it to an NFL crew. 'So I told him, 'Nick, that was a good call then,'' Kehres said. 'The guy must have been doing his job well.' Sirianni is far from the only notable coach or player molded in part by Kehres. Iowa State coach Matt Campbell came through the Mount Union program, as did Jason Candle, head coach at Toledo. Sirianni's older brother, Mike, is head coach at Washington & Jefferson, alma mater of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. Longtime NFL coach and coordinator Dom Capers was a classmate and onetime roommate of Kehres, and receiver Pierre Garçon played at Mount Union as well. Garçon played for the Indianapolis Colts team that lost to New Orleans in the Super Bowl, and Kehres attended that game in South Florida as a guest of the receiver. 'As much fun as it was to go to that game, it was hard because I was still working,' Kehres said. 'We got to the game four or five hours before kickoff, so it wasn't as good as concentrating on the game in a comfortable environment and watching as all the nuances unfold.' So this year Kehres is looking forward to relaxing in his living room, and watching in relative quiet with his wife, Linda. Maybe they'll get another celebratory phone call from Sirianni. Someone asked Kehres recently if he'd be really proud of Sirianni should the Eagles win another Lombardi Trophy. 'No,' Kehres said, 'I was proud of him long before this.'
