At only 59 years old, Bob Palko realized that he was too young to retire and has decided to go back to work.
Back on January 30, PSN was first to report that Palko interviewed for the football vacancy at Mt. Lebanon and it’s now official.
Today, Palko will officially take over as Mt. Lebanon’s coach replacing Mike Melnyk, who resigned after the season.
In his 24 seasons at West Allegheny, Palko turned them into one of the most consistent and winning programs in the WPIAL. Palko has a career record of 217-73 and won a record eight WPIAL championships.
Palko will be working again with John Grogan, the current athletic director at Mt. Lebanon and former athletic director at West Allegheny (1997-2000).
An interesting side to this story is who will Palko bring with him from West A. Prior to the 2018 season when Palko announced that he would be retiring, West Allegheny hired Kim Niedbala as the coach in waiting.
However, that won’t be happening as Niedbala informed the school district on Sunday that he was resigning as head coach. Pittsburgh Sports Now has been told that Niedbala is likely to join Palko at Mt. Lebanon. There’s a good chance that a few other assistants from his previous staff will join him as well.