Throughout his career as a football coach, Tom Liberty wore many colors on the sideline: orange, black, brown, yellow, gold and green. Now, come fall 2016, Liberty will sport red and white as he coaches the Freedom High School football team.

Growing up, Liberty first became interested in sports when people praised the athletic success of his father and uncles.

“My father played at Beaver Falls High School… My whole growing-up life, all I heard about was how great my dad was,” Liberty said. “I saw how much my father and my uncles got from being good athletes, and I think that kind of started me.”

As a Blackhawk student in the early, Liberty played football throughout his whole grade school career in addition to basketball and baseball before graduating in 1974. He also played football at Youngstown State University and Slippery Rock University.

“It’s a passion of mine. I still get goosebumps on Friday nights,” Liberty said. “I still love ‘Friday Night Lights.’”

After graduating with a degree in physical education, Liberty was hired at Beaver Falls High School in 1978, where he was the assistant coach of the football team under Larry Bruno. Three years after being hired, Beaver Falls laid off 42 teachers, including Liberty. At the time, unemployment benefits only lasted six months, so Liberty had to look for a job to support his pregnant wife and kids.

While searching for a job, he found an advertisement in the Beaver County Times looking for a “Health and Physical Education Teacher” for the state, so he applied for the job. After applying, he received a letter with the address, but not the name of the place where he applied. On his way to his first interview, he got lost in the North Side of Pittsburgh, so he showed a letter to a nearby police officer.

“He looked at the letter, looked at me, looked at the letter, [then] looked at me. He says, ‘Are you for real? You don’t know where this is?’” Liberty said. “He says, ‘You’re going to the Big House.’”

The “Big House” was the Western Penitentiary in Pittsburgh. In 1981, Liberty was hired as the prison’s activities director and coached for the prison’s football team: the Stealers.

“The scary part about my job was I was not an officer or guard; I was the activities director. What I mean by scary is I never had a guard with me. I was all by myself,” Liberty said. “[I] blowed a whistle if [I] got in trouble.”
Throughout his time working at the penitentiary, Liberty was convinced he was being punished.

“For three years of my life, I was with some of the worst criminals in the state of Pennsylvania, and it was scary. I had to get through three-vault doors just to get where I worked,” Liberty said. “I thought, ‘God, you’re punishing me. I know it.’”

After working at the maximum-security prison, Liberty got a job at Titusville School District as health and physical education teacher, driver’s education teacher, assistant football coach, assistant wrestling coach and head softball coach in 1984.

In 1995, Liberty was hired as a teacher at Quaker Valley, where he also gained his first head coaching position for a school district’s football and baseball teams. He also developed sports programs and a fitness center at Quaker Valley; that task will be part of Liberty’s additional job as the District Strength and Conditioning Coach.
From 2010 to 2015, he coached Riverside’s football team , which Liberty thought would be the end of his coaching career.

When Freedom’s coaching position opened, Liberty was one of 28 people to initially apply. Out of those, eight were interviewed by middle school Principal Frank Hernandez, high school Principal William Deal and Athletic Director John Rosa. Only three applicants made it through to the second round of interviews with Rosa and Superintendent Dr. Jeffrey Fuller. Only two applicants made it through to the final coach selection with the school board.

“The door just happened to open as I was saying, ‘goodbye,’” Liberty said.

For the upcoming season, Liberty doesn’t plan on changing the team’s defense strategy. The team already knows the “three-five-three” defense, which was enacted by Guy Ward. However, Liberty will be teaching a new offense to the team.

“I am bringing that offense here. I love this offense; it’s team-oriented, it puts up points, it’s explosive and fun to watch,” Liberty said. “I am bringing the spread here.”

Over the last ten years, Freedom had a record of 18-84, which Liberty calls “unexcusable.”
“If you look at any winning program, can you hold off your opponent, can you come from behind and win and can you hold onto a victory?” Liberty said. “The whole key is to get this thing winning again.”