After four straight sub-.500 seasons and a winless shortened spring 2021 season, the Lehigh football program took what it hopes is a step toward getting back to its winning ways Monday afternoon inside the Cundey Varsity House on Lehigh’s Goodman Campus.
Deputy Director of Athletics Sue Troyan formally introduced Kevin Cahill as the 30th head football coach in school history to gathered media and members of the Lehigh community. Cahill comes to Lehigh from Yale University, where he spent the past 10 seasons and was a member of the coaching staff for three Ivy League championships.
“I'm excited about the opportunity to be here,” Cahill said. “We have the past. The past has been very successful and success leaves clues. We have to dive into the past, look at that success and build upon that success moving forward. The future is now, the future is today. The future is what we have to do from this point now for the next nine months [before next season], which is work.”
During the interview process, Cahill said he was repeatedly asked, “Why Lehigh?” and he gave three reasons: Tradition, legacy and winning.
“You can build a program on those three things, and we'll be leaning on those over and over and over again in developing this program to be winners,” Cahill said.
Since 2018, Cahill has served as Yale's associate head coach and offensive coordinator, working directly with the quarterbacks. He began at Yale in 2012 as special teams coordinator and wide receivers coach and took over the quarterbacks in 2014 while also serving as assistant head coach and passing game coordinator.
At Lehigh, Cahill said he can call plays for the offense if needed, but he doesn’t envision doing so as head coach.
“I think to be a head coach in the way I want to run the program … culture's going to be the driving force,” Cahill said. “And developing the relationships with the players and the coaches and the alumni and the community, it's going to be very important to me. So I want to be a head coach. For me to call plays, it takes away from me being a good head coach. And for me being a good head coach is going to take away from me being a good offensive coordinator.”
Troyan said the search committee reviewed 77 candidates for the position and held 14 hour-long Zoom interviews before bringing four finalists to Lehigh for on-campus interviews.
In addition to his family, Dean of Athletics Joe Sterrett ’76 ’78G ’03P ’05P ’07P ’09P, Yale and Lehigh’s hiring committee, Cahill thanked President Joseph J. Helble ’82, who he said he had an opportunity to chat with.
“His vision for this university is pretty clear,” Cahill said.” I share the same vision, the same mission, he does and I’m excited to be working with him.”
