Mount Carmel decided to part ways with longtime football coach Frank Lenti because the two sides could not agree on a transition to the next coach, according to a statement released by the school on Saturday.
“The administration had been speaking with Frank for several years about the future of the Mount Carmel football program and asked him to create a succession plan,” Mount Carmel president Ned Hughes wrote in a letter addressed to the school community. “However, Frank’s decision was to coach indefinitely. Based on considerable discussion between leadership, members of the (Mount Carmel) Board of Directors and with Frank directly, we made the difficult decision to make this change.”
On Dec. 29, the school announced that Lenti was out after 34 seasons and would be replaced by Jordan Lynch, a former star quarterback at Mount Carmel and Northern Illinois who later played in the Canadian Football League.
Lenti, who holds the Illinois state records for career wins (374) and state titles (11) by a football coach, said in a text Sunday night he did have a retirement date in mind.
“It was always my hope to have the opportunity to coach until I turned 70 and I would have worked every day to ensure the program was well-positioned to thrive after my departure,” said Lenti, who is 66.
Lenti also said in an interview on Thursday — his first public comments since his ouster — that he had met with Hughes and requested the chance to coach one more season, with Lynch joining the staff to run the offense.
Reached by telephone on Thursday, Hughes declined to comment on Lenti’s account of that meeting. Lenti said on Thursday that he and Hughes had discussed a succession plan.
“I said, you have my brother David (Mount Carmel’s defensive coordinator) in the building,” Lenti said. “You have Mark Antonietti in the building. You have Jerry Blew in the building.”
Antonietti and Blew have been assistant coaches along with John O’Connor, who was St. Ignatius’ head coach from 2014-16. The Wolfpack were 14-18 under O’Connor with two IHSA playoff berths and one conference title.
“I had talked to John about being a head coach based on what Dave (Lenti) and Mark (Antonietti) and other guys were thinking about,” Lenti said. “My point to Ned was we have plenty of good people in the building.”
Lenti doesn’t expect the program to decline on Lynch’s watch.
“He’ll do fine,” Lenti said. “He has good (assistant) coaches there who certainly will help him out.”
“When the opportunity to present itself to hire a unique and accomplished leader like Jordan Lynch — an alumnus of Mount Carmel who has distinguished himself at the high school, collegiate and professional levels — we could not have hoped for a better fit,” Hughes wrote in his open letter. “With Jordan as the head coach, the program can benefit from his fresh perspective while continuing the traditions he learned from Coach Frank.
“While Mount Carmel is certainly more than just football, the continued success of the program is important to our institution’s overall success. We believe that this change will help us move forward together as a community with a new vision of what is possible for Mount Carmel.”
Twitter @mikeclarkpreps
