Graduate Assistant

Former Florida football coach Galen Hall will join the Penn State coaching staff as a graduate assistant, head coach Joe Paterno announced yesterday. "I have known Galen since I first recruited him in 1958," Paterno said. "He made some mistakes at Florida, but I believe he has been penalized sufficiently and deserves a chance to regroup and get on with his life. As his former coach and close friend, I'm happy and pleased his alma mater can help him. " Hall, who played quarterback for the Nittany Lions from 1959 to 1961, resigned last year from Florida after admitting to providing a player with transportation home to handle a personal emergency and to supplementing the income of some assistant coaches with personal funds in violation of NCAA rules.

If Ian Coffey ever decides to give a pep talk on persistence, his swimmers should immediately remove any water from their ears, grab a starting block, and listen. Coffey, a 1995 graduate of La Salle High and the Mount St. Joseph Academy swim coach from 1996 to 2000, is now a first-year graduate assistant at Virginia Tech. Since he graduated from La Salle University in December 1999, Coffey, 23, has been combing the country, looking for any college with a pool and a coaching position.

Temple football coach Steve Addazio announced on Monday that Sean Cronin is coming on board as defensive line coach. Cronin, who served in the same position at Marshall last fall, worked as a graduate assistant at Florida from 2005-2008. Addazio came to Temple after being on the Gators' staff in various positions for six years. "He worked with two of our national championship teams," Addazio said. "He did a great job of mentoring our defensive linemen there. He's very knowledgeable on defensive line play, and understands what we want to accomplish here at Temple.

Penn State defensive tackle Evan Haithes' playing career is over because of complications for blood clots, coach Bill O'Brien told reporters Tuesday in Washington. Haithes, a sophomore, will remain on scholarship as a graduate assistant. The clots developed in his legs during 6-hour drives home to Virginia early last year for his grandfather's funeral. The clots spread to his lungs and he was hospitalized in March 2011 with a life-threatening situation. He played only two games for the Nittany Lions last fall.

Penn State defensive tackle Evan Haithes' playing career is over because of complications from blood clots, coach Bill O'Brien told reporters Tuesday in Washington. Haithes, a sophomore, will remain on scholarship as a graduate assistant. The clots developed in his legs during six-hour drives home to Virginia early last year for his grandfather's funeral. The clots spread to his lungs, and he was hospitalized in March 2011 with a life-threatening situation. He was able to play only two games for the Nittany Lions last fall.

Former West Virginia University defensive back Tim Newsom has been named head football coach at Cheyney University. Newsom had served as a defensive coordinator and assistant head coach at Johnson C. Smith University in North Carolina for the past seven seasons. He succeeds Kevin Faulker, who was hired in February, but was named in June as a diversity training consultant for Empyrean Management Group in Blue Bell. Faulker, a former offensive coordinator of the Amarillo Dusters in the Arena Football League 2, was hired to replace Lee Brown, who was let go after going 3-29 the last three seasons.

Sources have confirmed a report on OwlScoop.com that new Temple football coach Steve Addazio has added another member to his staff. Sean McGowan, who has spent the last seven seasons as the defensive coordinator at New Hampshire, will be coming to North Broad Street to coach either the linebackers or defensive line. He also has been the defensive coordinator at West Virginia Tech and Duquesne, and was once a graduate assistant at Pittsburgh. There's still no word yet on whether any of the five assistants who stayed on after Al Golden left for Miami last month will be retained.

BILLICK FILE Full Name: Brian Harold Billick Born: Feb. 28, 1954 (58 years old), in Fairborn, Ohio Current position: NFL analyst for Fox Head coaching record: 80-64-0, regular season; 5-3, postseason. Last head coaching job: Baltimore Ravens (Jan. 19, 1999 to Dec. 31, 2007) Coaching highlight: Ravens beat the New York Giants, 34-7, to win Super Bowl XXXV Other coaching jobs: 1994-98, Minnesota Vikings, offensive coordinator; 1992-93, Vikings, tight ends; 1989-91, Stanford, assistant head coach (to Dennis Green)

In 2002, when Mike Pettine Jr. opted to step down as head coach at North Penn High School in Lansdale to become a video assistant for the Baltimore Ravens, there were never any promises made to him about moving up the professional coaching ladder. Former Eagles quarterback Matt Cavanaugh, with whom Pettine had worked as a graduate assistant at the University of Pittsburgh in the early 1990s, paved the way for the job in Baltimore. The rest was up to the man who had already stepped out from the large shadow cast by his coaching legend of a father.

While Jim Mora is no longer a candidate to become the Eagles' defensive coordinator, New Orleans Saints defensive backs coach Dennis Allen has joined the list to replace the fired Sean McDermott. The Eagles have been granted permission to talk to Allen, a source close to the situation confirmed. Allen, 38, just completed his fifth season with the Saints, his third with the defensive backs. The Saints had 26 interceptions in the regular season in 2009 on their way to a Super Bowl victory, but slipped to only nine this past season.

JACOB IATI was not playing much last season. His prospects for playing did not look promising. He was ready to graduate, go for his MBA and get on with his life. He talked it over with his coach and they decided that he would give up his final season of eligibility at Albany and become a graduate assistant for Will Brown's team while working on that MBA. "I wasn't playing a lot," Iati said Thursday morning at the Wells Fargo Center. "They offered me to be the GA this year which would pay for graduate school.

The Eagles announced Chip Kelly's coaching staff Friday, all at once, as they'd said they would do. Twenty-one names are on the list, including that of Shaun Huls, the "sports science coordinator," which sounds a little BALCOesque, but Huls' bio says he comes to the Eagles from a position as strength and conditioning and combatives coordinator for Navy Special Warfare. So, if hand-to-hand fighting breaks out in the middle of the third quarter, the Eagles presumably will be covered. Five members of the new staff are following Kelly from the University of Oregon.

Omar Vizquel has been hired by the Los Angeles Angels as a roving infield instructor. The 45-year-old Vizquel played for Toronto as a reserve infielder last season, finishing up his 24-year major-league career with 2,877 hits. The three-time all-star won 11 Gold Gloves. Former Arizona Diamondbacks television analyst Mark Grace has been sentenced to four months in jail under a work-release program. The 48-year-old former first baseman with the Diamondbacks and the Chicago Cubs pleaded guilty Thursday to felony endangerment and misdemeanor driving under the influence of alcohol.

Pennsylvania State University denied defamation and wrongful-termination claims Tuesday that were lodged by a former assistant football coach who testified against Jerry Sandusky. In filings in Centre County Court, the university asked a judge to throw out a state whistle-blower lawsuit brought by Mike McQueary, arguing that any damage he endured as a result of his role as a prosecution witness was not caused by Penn State. So far, McQueary has failed to provide any evidence suggesting that Penn State officials publicly questioned his character, university counsel Nancy Conrad wrote.

BILLICK FILE Full Name: Brian Harold Billick Born: Feb. 28, 1954 (58 years old), in Fairborn, Ohio Current position: NFL analyst for Fox Head coaching record: 80-64-0, regular season; 5-3, postseason. Last head coaching job: Baltimore Ravens (Jan. 19, 1999 to Dec. 31, 2007) Coaching highlight: Ravens beat the New York Giants, 34-7, to win Super Bowl XXXV Other coaching jobs: 1994-98, Minnesota Vikings, offensive coordinator; 1992-93, Vikings, tight ends; 1989-91, Stanford, assistant head coach (to Dennis Green)

From Eagletarian.com, the Daily News' Eagles blog: It figured Andy Reid would take some of his assistants with him to Kansas City - it was no shock when Eagles quarterbacks coach Doug Pederson became the Chiefs' offensive coordinator Friday - but the staff list released by the Chiefs did contain some surprises. Reid's son Britt, a graduate assistant at Temple, is going to the Chiefs as a quality control coach. Britt is most known by Eagles fans for being arrested, the same day in 2007 as his older brother Garrett, after separate traffic incidents that involved drug charges.

NEW TEMPLE football coach Matt Rhule, a week after his only season with the New York Giants ended, has made the first five additions to his staff. Ed Foley, who has been at Temple the past five seasons and spent the last two as the director of football operations, has been named assistant head coach. He and Rhule worked together on North Broad Street from 2008-11 for first Al Golden and then Steve Addazio. Brandon Noble, who was Rhule's teammate at Penn State in the mid 1990s, is coming aboard following one season at Coastal Carolina.

CANDIDATES Here is a look at the announced candidates for the Eagles' head-coaching job: * MIKE NOLAN Current job: First season as Falcons defensive coordinator NFL experience: Head coach of 49ers from 2005-08; 18-37 record. Has coached in NFL since 1987. Defensive coordinator for Ravens, Jets, Redskins, Giants, Broncos and Dolphins and linebackers coach for Broncos. Notes: Son of former 49ers and Saints head coach Dick Nolan. Mike Nolan wore a suit and tie during games as a tribute to his father . . . Graduate of Oregon . . . 53 years old. * DIRK KOETTER Current job: First season as Falcons offensive coordinator NFL experience: Jaguars offensive coordinator, 2007-11.

HARRISBURG - The two Pennsylvania State University administrators awaiting trial on charges of failing to properly report suspected child abuse by Jerry Sandusky argue in a new court filing that the charge should be dismissed because the statute of limitations has expired. Gary Schultz and Tim Curley filed a response this week to an effort by state prosecutors to keep the charge in place for trial, now scheduled to begin in a Harrisburg courtroom early next year. The Attorney General's Office last month said the two men had a continuing duty to go to authorities after fielding a 2001 complaint by graduate assistant Mike McQueary about Sandusky in a shower with a young boy. But lawyers for Schultz, a retired university vice president, and Curley, on paid leave as athletic director, said in the new filing that under a 10-year statute of limitations, the clock would have run out in early 2011, nearly a year before Curley, Schultz, and Sandusky were charged.

HARRISBURG - Lawyers for two Pennsylvania State University administrators remained bullish Thursday on their clients' chances of acquittal despite new evidence suggesting the men knew of sexual-abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky but decided not to report them. Still, the defense lawyers said, the ever-expanding parameters of the prosecutors' case - now including a sheaf of seemingly incriminating e-mails released over the last few months - have made it nearly impossible to prepare an effective defense.