Inheriting Aliquippa: The Town That Kept Believing

There is a stretch of western Pennsylvania where the steel mills used to run, and when they closed, the towns around them had to decide what to hold onto. Aliquippa held onto football.

It’s a small place that has sent three men (Darrelle Revis, Ty Law and Mike Ditka) to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and it turns out Division I players at a rate that makes no demographic sense. The pride here isn't so much earned as inherited.

"A lot of communities, people live somewhere based on their tax bracket," said Mike Warfield, the head football coach at Aliquippa High School and a graduate, class of 1987. "We're blessed, because we inherit Aliquippa. That's priceless."

For a long time, that pride outran the buildings meant to hold it. When Warfield came home to coach, the locker room had no hot water. The stadium, known locally as The Pit, had sections that were condemned. A town that sends players to Canton couldn't guarantee its own kids a working shower.

Our Kids Deserve What the Other Kids Deserve

Dr. Jennifer Damico decided that was unacceptable. "We visit these beautiful stadiums," said Damico, who runs both athletics and student services for Aliquippa School District, plus a little of everything else.

"We very much feel like our kids deserve whatever all the other kids deserve." 

What makes the story worth telling isn't that one administrator felt that way. It's that the whole town did.

The stadium came first. Warfield had been brainstorming how to raise money for turf when he remembered that one of his son's old teammates had a connection to Kraft Heinz. The timing turned out to be extraordinary, and one day the president of Kraft Heinz flew in to see Aliquippa for himself.

What came out of that trip was a ten-year partnership and a door the town had never had. 

The Eye in the Sky

If Kraft Heinz gave the town a stage, Hudl is how Aliquippa makes sure the right people are watching. 

For a program whose kids have always been good enough for the next level, film is the thing that gets them there. "They always said the eye in the sky doesn't lie," Warfield said. "And right now, the eye in the sky is Hudl. You can talk a good game, but if Hudl isn't showing it, you're not getting where you're trying to go." Lately his players have gone to Yale, to Penn State, to USC. 

The cameras did something for the town's spirit, too. The first time Warfield saw the rebuilt Pit on a Hudl livestream, he was stunned. "It's clear, it's beautiful. It looks like TV." 

So many people saw how good it looked that more of them started turning up in person. "We gained fans," Damico said. "Not the reverse."

No Money, No Change

The money to pay for any of this used to come the hard way — in cash, three thousand people a night, all of it moving through the gate that Delcine Pugh runs. 

Pugh graduated from Aliquippa in 1978, cheered on its sidelines, and has spent fifteen years managing the young women who sell the tickets. She remembers exactly what it cost. Security walked the night's earnings to the bank. Making change was a sprint. "I probably lost a good ten pounds running to find change," she joked. 

When Damico moved to Hudl Ticketing, Pugh, who will tell you she is one of the middle-aged ones and was terrified of the switch, drilled with her crew until they could scan a line down in minutes. 

What she guards now isn't the cash. It's the older fans who don't carry phones; she keeps someone at the table just to walk them in. "Don't stay home," she tells them. "Come to the game." 

Her verdict on the old way is firm. "No money, no change. That's the best part of all."

Seen and Supported

The Hudl Ticketing rebate that comes off those tickets flows back into the program — physicals, uniforms, the things a kid should never have to go without. 

And with the money the livestreams bring in, Damico turns into something with a longer reach: a scholarship, one for a male and one for a female scholar-athlete, handed out every spring and pointed straight at college. 

It closes a wound the school carried for years, the gifted kids who earned offers they couldn't accept, because their grades hadn't kept up. Now the film gets them seen, and the scholarship helps get them there.

What It’s Really For

Ask Warfield for the part that stays with him, and it isn't the turf or the trophies. It's the kids who leave and then come back in the summer and walk into his weight room like they never left. 

And ask Damico what all of it is really for, and she doesn't say wins, or rankings, or even scholarships. She says the simplest thing, the thing a proud town most wants for the kids it can't stop producing.

"It's important that they're noticed," she said. "That they're seen. That they're appreciated by people outside of Aliquippa."