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‘Mr. Bald Eagle’: Bald Eagle AD Doug Dyke honored for 33 years of impact

By HENRY HUBER 8 min read

No matter how many expressions of gratitude you receive throughout your life, it's hard to gauge how grateful a community is for your hard work until it's right in front of you. It's a reality Bald Eagle Area athletic director Doug Dyke experienced firsthand on Friday night, staring up at a packed, Alumni Stadium crowd cheering him on alongside his family.

Ahead of Friday's Week 8 football matchup against Westmont Hilltop, the Bald Eagle Area school district took the time to honor the long-time athletic director. Dyke took the field alongside his wife, Kelly, two children, Ryan and Regan, and their respective spouses, Alexis and Brynden Goodling, and grandson, Brooks, as Todd Warner spoke on his impact through the last 33 years.

From current and former coaches to alumni and community members, many gathered at Alumni Stadium to honor Dyke, expressing gratitude in the form of claps and cheers as the Bald Eagle staple heads toward retirement. Dyke's last day is set for Oct. 31. And although he'll still be around, the community recognizes just how hard he'll be to replace.

"It just makes you realize that people have noticed how hard you've tried to be there for them and do what's best for their kids. It makes you feel appreciated," expressed Dyke on the turnout. "You see people that you haven't seen in a while that came out just to be there, which is very touching and not expected."

"You can hire somebody to do a job, but Doug didn't just do a job. He did whatever it took here. He put his heart and soul into this place," said Bald Eagle football coach Jesse Nagle. "He battled for me when I was younger as a coach, and he battled for other coaches here. He's a great human being, and we're going to miss him for sure."

It may not seem like it now, but Dyke landing the role when it opened back in 1993 wasn't a given. After receiving his teaching degree from Lock Haven University and being out of college for about a year, he got an offer to teach and coach two sports in North Carolina, including a job to coach varsity girls basketball.

Call it divine intervention or pure coincidence, but that just so happened to be when the Bald Eagle job opened. Having grown up in the area, it was something he just had to look into, even with a good job already lined up.

Dyke didn't receive an initial offer and would have to go through the interview process against multiple other candidates to secure the job. With a guaranteed job already on the board and North Carolina needing a quick answer, many would've passed it up and taken what was comfortable. But Dyke isn't most people.

"It was an attendance officer job and the athletic director job. (The athletic director job) was less than a starting teacher's salary, 12 months a year. But it was at Bald Eagle," said Dyke. "So, I just took a chance. I went in there to interview, knew everybody and was relaxed."

And the rest, as they say, was Bald Eagle history.

Upon landing the job, Dyke found out very quickly how much of a challenge it was. It's a job that came with an adjustment period that kept extending as the school continued to grow.

In the three decades he manned the AD position, the number of sports offered in fall alone doubled while attendance steadily got crazier. Those additions came with more events to handle and more positions to fill, and the job in general came with a phone that rarely stopped ringing.

It's a position that took up a lot of time and occasionally got in the way of other aspects of life, one which required a lot of passion to tackle. However, Dyke harbored the passion required to handle it and handle it well, doing so from 1993 to the present day.

"You're not doing it because you're getting rich; you're doing it because you love it," said Dyke on the position. "It'd be easy to just leave at 3:30 every day and take that bargaining unit position, but I just wanted to do more."

In handling those challenges, Dyke had the benefit of a supportive corner to take some of the weight off his shoulders. His parents worked events for 33 years, and his wife and children helped out as well. Coupled with growth in time management and other long-time workers by his side, things steadily became more manageable.

It also helped to have a boat load of positives driving him forward, both in and out of athletics.

When Dyke arrived in 1993, Alex Murnyack (baseball), J. Gawen Stoker (football) and Richard Rhoades (wrestling) headed the school's three largest sports at the time, all of whom went on to be inducted into the Centre County Hall of Fame following decorated careers. And even as those legendary figures retired, that era of excellence continued.

The softball program is currently headed by two Centre County Hall of Fame inductees in Don Lucas (head coach) and Jim Gonder (assistant) and was previously headed by fellow inductive Dave Breon. Baseball won back-to-back state titles in 2023 and 2024, with 2026 Hall of Fame inductee Jim Gardner manning the helm for those championships.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg, with volleyball, football and wrestling seeing highs in recent years alongside other sports. Dyke expects current volleyball coach Larry Campbell and boys soccer coach Jason Bair to inducted at some point, and Nagle and Ron Guenot have also racked up accolades in football and wrestling respectively.

"I came in at 22 with three Hall of Fame coaches, and I'm going out the door with (a few more)," said Dyke. "So, I've been lucky. We've been blessed. All I did was try to make sure they had what they needed to coach those teams, and I didn't really have anything to do with the teams themselves."

When it comes to what Dyke does take credit for, providing the kids with great scholastic and athletic experiences stands at the top of the list.

He takes immense pride in being part of bringing unified sports like bocce to the school, a sport which provides kids with special needs a chance at competing athletically. In its inaugural year in 2019, the Bald Eagle unified bocce team won a state title and has since gone on to see continued success.

"We didn't just start a program; we jumped in with both feet," said Dyke on the school's bocce installation. "From the beginning, we treated those kids and coaches like they were wrestling and football. So that's what I'm proud of because any time we get asked to include more kids, we pretty much do it."

It's certainly a position that's hard to leave behind given what it's meant to him. But with another grandchild due in December and years of hard work to look back on, he looks forward to spending more time with his family and having more time to himself.

When looking back on all the experiences he's had as athletic director, Dyke hopes people understand that it was more than a job to him. He described it as a 'passion', one which provided him with a great experience that made him want to do it for the next generation or two, and he hopes the next person up brings the same passion and care to the position.

"It just makes you think about all the people you've gotten to know. You don't realize how much you've had an effect on people until you see them years later," said Dyke.

"A lot of parents that were out there for youth football night were former students and athletes. Now, they have their own kids, and they're taking part in their kids' lives like you hope they would. That's the type of stuff I really think about."

More than anything, he's grateful for the opportunity and to the many people that helped along the way.

"I'd like to thank everyone that's been a part of this because it's been a hell of a ride. I've had a lot of good times, got to meet a lot of great people, so it's been great," said Dyke. "There's no good time (to retire). If I could do this forever, take some of it away, I'd do it forever."

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