After nearly a decade of having the same head coach, this past spring the Bellefonte Raider football team needed to find someone to take the position to lead the team starting this year in the 2021 season. To fill the role, the school decided on Bellefonte woodworking and engineering teacher Mr. Vaughn Donmoyer, who has previously coached at Bald Eagle as well as Bellefonte.  

Mr. Donmoyer is now the 28th head coach in the history of the Raider football team and will be filling the shoes of Shannon Manning, who coached the Raiders for 8 seasons from 2013 until 2020.  Manning left the team this past February and Donmoyer came into the program on April 20, the day of his brother’s birthday, a very special day for him to come back to Bellefonte to be the head coach of the Raiders.

Mr. Donmoyer grew up in Higgins, Pennsylvania and went to Tri-Valley High School, just outside of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, where he played four years of varsity football.

“My high school coach suggested it to me in the first place. I thought he was a great role model and knew I couldn’t play for my whole life. I want to help young athletes become the best football players and the best young men they can be whether it’s academically involved, in the classroom, or in the community. I think it’s great to see young men out helping in the community, not just in the classroom or on the football field,” Mr. Donmoyer said.

After high school, Mr. Donmoyer attended Millersville University where continued to play football and competed in the PSAC conference. 

“Prior to being hired here at Bellefonte to teach woodworking and engineering I taught at Bald Eagle and I student-taught at Palmyra high school while studying at Millersville,,” he said.

Before being hired at Bellefonte in April of 2021, Mr. Donmoyer began his coaching career in 2001 at Bald Eagle High School, the same year and same school his teaching career began.  He was originally hired as a varsity assistant coach, then after just two years, moved to be the junior high head coach for a year and then returned to the varsity staff in 2004 at Bald Eagle for four years.  Following the 2007 season he moved back to the junior high team until 2012.

“I moved back and forth between varsity and the junior high staff because of four different coaching changes at Bald Eagle during my time there,” Mr. Donmoyer said.

Following the 2012 football season, he began his teaching career at Bellefonte, as the woodworking and engineering teacher, after Thanksgiving break at the end of November.  

“I came to Bellefonte because I got the teaching job over Thanksgiving break and Coach Manning decided to bring me on as an assistant junior high coach from 2013 until 2016.  In 2017, I was the head coach for the Bellefonte junior high team.”

After the 2017 season, he met with Bald Eagle Head Coach Jesse Nagle, whom Donmoyer had a great relationship with prior to this meeting. The two met and Nagle eventually asked Mr. Donmoyer to join his staff at Bald Eagle, which he accepted and coached at Bald Eagle from 2018 up until this past season in 2020 coaching linebackers, wide receivers and acted as the special teams coordinator.

“I’ve always had the personal belief that the head coach should come from within the school district. I cherished the time coaching at Bald Eagle while teaching here, but ideally I wanted to coach and teach in the same district.  I am extremely honored to be the head coach of a football program and that I am coaching and teaching in the same school district,” he said.