Plum seeking new athletic director after Josh Shoop resigns

By: Michael Love
Friday, February 4, 2022 | 2:48 PM

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The Plum School District is moving forward with plans to hire a new athletic director.

Josh Shoop resigned from the post earlier this week citing family reasons for his decision. His last day at Plum was Tuesday.

“I have a 6- and an 8-year-old at home, and the amount of time away from my family just wasn’t healthy for me,” Shoop said.

“I just decided to step away and spend more time with my family. The reality is that the job requires so much attention, and so does my family. I had a hard time balancing it, so I chose my family.”

Shoop came on board as the director of athletics and student activities at Plum at the start of the 2018-19 school year after serving six years as the athletic director at Pine-Richland. Before that, he served as the athletic director and boys basketball coach at Knoch, his alma mater.

“There are some awesome people at Plum who I will miss, and I hope to keep in touch with them,” Shoop said.

“But I feel the program is in a great place. I feel we accomplished a lot, especially as we worked through everything surrounding the covid pandemic. There are things in the works to take the program to even greater heights. It is going to be outstanding for the athletes and coaches.

“I never anticipated my time (at Plum) being as short as it was. You hate to leave something; it’s like a coach where you don’t want to leave your team midseason, and that’s kind of the way I felt with the timing of it. But it was just time for me. (Plum superintendent) Dr. (Brendan) Hyland was very supportive of me in my decision. He was awesome to work with, as was everyone else for that matter.”

The athletic director position, Hyland said, was posted internally and externally by the school district, and it has received multiple applicants.

Hyland said the school board expects to formally accept Shoop’s resignation at its monthly meeting Feb. 15. He also said with the spring sports season fast approaching, the goal is to recommend a candidate to the board at that same meeting.

The building principals for the junior high and high school, Hyland said, are handling the athletic duties.

“Everything between the district and Josh is very good,” Hyland said. “We think he is a heck of an athletic director, and he’s even a better person. We’re going to certainly miss him. We wish he was able to stay, but he decided he was going to have to spend some more time with his family. We understand that.

“Josh really cared about the students and athletes in the district. Of course we want winning athletic programs at Plum, but we want them to be focused on kids first, and that’s all Josh was about.”

Hyland said Shoop also was instrumental in the strategic plan to upgrade many aspects of Plum’s athletic facilities, including the baseball and softball fields, the track, the football turf and the state-of-the-art lighting system.

“He has left his mark on the Plum Borough School District for a very long time,” Hyland said.

Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.

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