By Tom Robinson, NEPABasketball.com
Jeff Gregory has been rewarded for his contributions to Scranton Prep’s perfect 2019-20 girls basketball season with Monday night’s hiring by Pittston Area as the school’s next head girls coach.
Gregory, who played guard for Bishop O’Hara in Dunmore and Wilkes University, began coaching soon after his 1992 graduation from Wilkes, starting as a freshman boys coach at Wyoming Area. He has spent the last five years as assistant under Bob Beviglia, who he also assisted in his first coaching assignment on the varsity level with the North Pocono boys.
“I don’t know if it was the case five years, but as you get back into it and you get back involved, sometimes you get the urge and you get the itch to have your own program,” said Gregory, who previously served as head coach of boys teams at Mountain View and Mid Valley. “I wasn’t looking for just any job, but a job that I thought would be a good fit, which is what this Pittston job was and what led me to apply for it.”
Pittston Area went 5-9 in Division 1 of the Wyoming Valley Conference and 10-13 overall in 2019-20, its 11th season under the leadership of Kathy Healey.
Healey was one of the candidates interviewed for the position after it was opened.
Gregory, the current Director of Admissions at Lackawanna College, also served one year as an assistant men’s coach at Misericordia and spent four years as the athletic director at Lackawanna Trail.
At Scranton Prep, he was part of a program that produced an unbeaten season in which the Classics allowed just 30.3 points per game.
“I would think first and foremost, we would strive to be an excellent defensive team,” Gregory said of his plans for leading a program. “I just think that no matter what is going on on the offensive end, you can play defense every night. Defense should always show up with you.”
Gregory coached the Mountain View boys during the 1994-95 and 1995-96 seasons, then, after the year at Misericordia, coached the Mid Valley boys from 1997-98 through 2000-01.
