There are coaches who cherish milestones and others who shun them.
Often the former mimics the latter, but there is also a third category: Those who are so locked in on the process they don’t even realize they’ve hit one.
That was the case for Allegany’s Jim O’Neal this winter when he recorded his 300th career win on Jan. 17 after a 50-21 rout of Windber.
He found out after the game, and when asked about it two days later, O’Neal said:
“The only part I enjoy about that is thinking about all the kids who have played here all the way back to Lizzie and Katie Getty to the kids now. I enjoy that part, but other than that, I prefer to focus on what the kids are doing, talk about them because it’s their time, not mine.”
O’Neal has been a fixture in Allegany’s girls basketball program for 25 years, the last 20 as head coach and the prior five as an assistant to Scott Bauer, now the school’s principal and formerly his high school quarterback.
The Campers won their lone state title under Bauer in 2000 and were runner-up in 1999.
The Gettys were members of O’Neal’s best team, or at least the one that advanced the furthest. The 2008 Campers were a state finalist, and the following year they finished in the Final Four.
O’Neal has coached eight of Allegany’s 10 1,000-point scorers: Tracey Little, Avery Miller, Micah Wormack, Teandra Smith, Cassie Murray, Taya Sloan, Erin Wilson and Leah Wormack.
That figure would be nine if his daughter Kelsey O’Neal hadn’t had her senior season wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic. She finished four points shy.
Coach O’Neal, a 2013 inductee to the Allegany Hall of Fame who has a 306-119 (.720) record, is an anomaly in the modern landscape of high school athletics.
The “old-school” coach has found a way to sustain success at a time when much of the old guard has retired, often citing an inability to connect with the modern student-athlete as the primary reason.
If you selected a 25-year gap in any era, I’d argue you couldn’t find a further difference between the high school athlete of the late ‘90s when O’Neal began and 2026.
Apple’s first iPhone wasn’t released until 2007. Now we’re debating phone policy in classrooms since nearly every child has one.
O’Neal has adapted, and the proof is in the pudding. He’s never had a losing season in 20 years.
Like any good coach, his teams change from year-to-year, and you can see it by looking at just the last five seasons.
In one stretch, Allegany went from last to first in the area in 3-pointers made in the span of two years.
One recent Allegany team hardly played man-to-man defense all year because the Campers weren’t good enough on that end. This winter, their man defense held opponents to a paltry 35.7 points per game and was the hallmark of a 16-7 finish.
You’ll see it if you attend a local girls basketball game when Allegany isn’t playing. O’Neal or one of his proxies, namely his daughter, Kelsey, are there recording the action.
“She’s much better at it than me,” he said at one game.