The sound of the ball bouncing on the court echoes as the players from both teams wait for the foul shot to go up. It is released from the girl’s hand and falls just short, bouncing back from the rim.

 The girl hangs her head, but feels comforted by what she hears on the sidelines. Her coach is clapping, saying she’ll make the next one. 

And that coach is Dallastown’s legendary Jay Rexroth.

And this is his story. 

Rexroth started playing basketball in fourth grade at Ore Valley Elementary. 

He played baseball into his freshmen year, but stopped to focus on basketball, which he played throughout his high school and college career. 

“It was a lot of work, but also fun because we were a successful team my senior year,” Rexroth says.

Rexroth attended Millersville University and played center, power forward, small forward, and shooting guard on their team, but he was primarily a small forward and a power forward. 

After graduation, Rexroth went into education. He is currently teaching at Dallastown Area High School for his 38th year. 

He has to balance teaching and coaching with his personal life. Although he admits it is a challenge, he says with his wife’s help, he’s able to keep everything steady. 

“Honestly, it’s all I really know, so it just works for me and my family.”

Around the same time he started teaching, he began to coach. 

He was offered a coaching position at Millersville University after graduation, but he turned it down.

“[I] decided to try coaching at the high school level and fell in love with it,” Rexroth admits.

Now, he’s coached for a total of 36 years.

Rexroth always had an interest in basketball. He loves the X’s and O’s of the game, the strategy, but his main reason for coaching was he liked working with and helping the players.

He says that the best part of coaching is getting to know the players outside of the typical school setting and being able to form strong bonds with the players.

Junior Harper Poff, a starter for the girl’s varsity team, agrees that Rexroth develops deep, long-lasting relationships with them. 

“He has helped me grow as both a player and a person. He has helped me become the driver that I am and helped me believe I can do things that make me uncomfortable.”

Rexroth started off as a varsity assistant coach his first year. In the next year, he moved up to coaching the ninth grade boys. 

After six seasons, he moved up again to coach boy’s varsity. 17 years later, he stepped down and stopped coaching. 

Two years after that, he went to coach at Dover Area School District, coaching the girl’s varsity team with a close friend for three years. He coached his niece at York Suburban High School before stepping down again in 2016.

He thought that was the last time he’d coach.

That was before he was offered a position as the girl’s coach at Dallastown High School. 

He turned it down several times before he agreed to coach them for only one year. 

However, he stayed for eight years and is still coaching, as dedicated to his team as ever. 

“He puts a lot of time into planning practice and scouting. He always makes sure his players are ‘up to speed’ with what is going on on the court,” Poff reveals.

This season, the girl’s varsity team only lost two games, continuing Rexroth’s legacy. 

“Hopefully, I will be remembered as a coach that cared more about his players than winning and losing,” Rexroth says. “As a coach who gave everything he could to help his teams and individual players be successful on the court and also in life.” 

Through the ups and downs, Coach Jay Rexroth is always cheering on his players, clapping and encouraging them, even when they make a mistake.

“I’ve been lucky and very fortunate to be surrounded by great players and great assistant coaches that have made me look a lot smarter than I am.”