New Football Coach Kevin Cahill Focusing on 'The Lehigh Way'

Inside the Cundey Varsity House, as he was introduced as the 30th head coach in program history, Kevin Cahill said culture was going to be a driving force in how he wants to run Lehigh football.

Throughout the collegiate and professional sports ranks, culture has become a buzzword. But what exactly does that mean for Cahill and Lehigh?

“It’s a developmental program,” Cahill said in his office shortly after Lehigh’s Brown and White spring football game. “Obviously we’re going to coach football, but we’re trying to develop our kids on and off the field to be the best they can be.”

Cahill is having players live their lives “the Lehigh Way”—focusing on both their academics and athletics, learning from alumni who can convey how their time at Lehigh helped impact their lives and careers, and understanding that “Lehigh is the opportunity of a lifetime.”

But a lot of the culture-building comes down to Cahill himself. After Cahill, who spent the past decade at Yale, most recently as associate head coach and offensive coordinator, arrived at Lehigh in December, he had some extra time on his hands prior to his family making the move. He ate breakfast and dinner with the team and even hung out with them in the weight room.

Players, such as wide receiver Geoffrey Jamiel ’26, the 2022 Patriot League Rookie of the Year, noticed.

“Team culture has definitely been shifted in a positive direction ever since the first day Coach Cahill stepped foot on campus,” Jamiel said. “It’s something that he’s talked about with each of us individually and as an entire team—things like eating meals with one another, giving back to the community in different ways of service, the way we practice and the way we carry ourselves amongst our peers on campus.”

Every conversation at the dinner table with the coach seemed genuine, Jamiel said.

“You got the feeling that he cares about every single player and who we are as people, not just as football players,” he said.

 

 

 

 

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Community Connection

In addition to building relationships with players and getting alumni more involved, Cahill wants to connect with the Lehigh Valley community. This spring’s Brown and White game saw changes that Cahill said made it more fun and fan friendly. In addition to continuing to assess the talent of his players, competitions such as for kicking and catching were added.

Cahill believes a stronger relationship with the community might also translate to an increase in attendance at games, which would give the program an advantage.

“We want people in the stands, we want to have the home field advantage, we want Goodman to be rocking,” Cahill said, likening it to the atmosphere in the late 1990s-early 2000s when Lehigh made four straight FCS (Football Championship Subdivision) playoff appearances and won a Lambert Cup Championship. “Yes, it will be that way for the last game of the year when we play it at home [against Lafayette], but we also want it to be that way when we’re playing a different opponent that comes in here and make it a hard place to play.”

Cahill acknowledged there are no quick fixes. It will take time to build Lehigh football back to what it once was, especially for a program that, despite winning its last Patriot League Championship in 2017, has not experienced a winning season since 2016.

Its first test on Sept. 2—against Villanova—will not make it any easier. Cahill referred to Villanova as a “perennial powerhouse,” but he welcomes the challenge. Part of the reason is because the team is a model of what he envisions for Lehigh football.