Penncrest coach Mike Doyle, seen in a 2019 game with then assistant coach (now Strath Haven head coach), Chris Conlan, left. PETE BANNAN – MEDIANEWS GROUP
By Matthew DeGeorge
Penncrest boys basketball looks different for Mike Doyle these days.
Instead of the whiteboard, the huddle, the blazer ever in risk of being jettisoned, the pre-game prep is more orderly. There’s a folding table, a Hudl stream, and a yellow legal pad set up in his living room.
Other aspects of the routine, though, aren’t so easily shaken.
“After game 3, the dog would disappear and hide,” Doyle said this week.
Doyle isn’t on the sidelines in person this season. Diagnosed more than two years ago with chronic myeloid leukemia, the COVID-19 pandemic presents a dangerous threat to Doyle’s dampened immune system. In the interest of safety, his medical team and family determined it wouldn’t be safe for him to teach in person this season, and thus, he wouldn’t be on the sidelines.