By Keith Groller | kgroller@mcall.com | The Morning Call

PUBLISHED: March 8, 2017 at 6:42 PM EST | UPDATED: June 5, 2018 at 9:39 PM EDT

Sitting at the dining room table of a beautiful home nestled near a lake in the Poconos on Wednesday, Pocono Mountain West boys basketball coach Brad Pensyl looked as peaceful as the picturesque scene outside his backdoor.

But as he met with media, he said he soon had to hustle over to the school to run another practice.

“It’s only going to be an hour and a half,” he said. “By this point in the season, the hay’s already in the barn.”

Pensyl soon won’t have to scramble around to get to practices. He’s in the final days of a 35-year coaching career, 28 as head coach.

He has one of the best teams he’s ever had, a squad that leads District 11 in scoring and features three 1,000-point scorers.

The Panthers gave their coach a nice retirement gift on Saturday night, whipping Parkland 83-59 for the first District 11 6A championship.

It was Pensyl’s second district title, but this one may have been his crowning achievement considering the level of talent in the area this season.

He told his team earlier this season that he was leaving at the end of the year, but insisted that they win the title for themselves, not for him.

After 13 seasons at Pocono Mountain and the last 15 at West, Pensyl simply said he’s worn out.

“Don’t get me wrong, I would love to go two more weeks,” he said, noting that the state tournament begins Saturday and ends two Saturdays later in Hershey.

“It’s just the right time,” he said. “I talked about it with my wife [Jill] as early as last summer and I talked about it with my assistant coaches. I’ve been in this for 35 years, including seven as an assistant, and it’s just time for me to do something else. I’m getting old and grouchy.”

It was revealed in January that Pensyl was leaving his job as athletic director to take on a new position in the school district’s administration — executive director of student and support staff services.

Pensyl said that the current era of coaching, which requires a 12-month commitment to the kids, has drained him and his new job would be difficult to do while still coaching.

“I think some of the younger guys are outworking me right now,” he said. “I don’t think I could give 100 percent anymore, and I always give 100 percent.”

Pensyl has carved his niche as one of the most successful coaches in District 11 basketball history and it’s winning two district titles that gives him the most pride.

“The win the other night was just great for our kids and the community,” he said. “I was just happy that they got to experience that. Hopefully, we’ll still have a few more games because I think we have the talent to win some games in the state tournament.”

Pensyl is proud of his wins as a coach, but what people may not know about is the wins he has earned away from the court. The area in which Pocono Mountain West is located, similar to Allentown, features a number of kids who don’t come from traditional, two-parent households.

There are times when Pensyl must go the extra mile to take care of his players and make sure they’re doing the right things outside of basketball.

“I never got into coaching for the wins and losses, although certainly I was competitive and wanted to win,” he said. “The longer I was at West, the more understanding I think I became as a person. Hopefully I did help some kids along the way. I am quite confident that I did. And there are other people who did as well. That’s probably the highlight of what we did here at West, helping kids.”

Pensyl said he never cut corners with players and disciplined them whether it was a championship game or the first game of the season.

“I was steadfast in what I believed in and what was right for our kids,” he said. “I made them follow rules and tried to make them into men and in some cases it was difficult because they weren’t getting support from other places. Probably my legacy is that I really think I did it right in how we treated kids.”

Elizabeth Robison, the superintendent of the Pocono Mountain School District, said she came into the district at the same time as Pensyl and she values everything he has meant to the students in the district.

“Going through West as the principal, I saw what Brad did for the kids and it was more than about basketball,” she said. “I don’t think people realize how much he did for all of the students at West. He fed them, he made sure they had clothes. There was a lot of nurturing he did beyond the sport of basketball.

“We’re going to miss what he brought to the program because he developed students, not just basketball players.”

Robison is happy that Pensyl will still be involved with kids in an administrative role.

But Pensyl said he’s looking forward to spending time with his five grandchildren. Three of them live in upstate New York and two live in Virginia.

“I want to be a grandfather,” he said. “My wife and I have tried as much as we can to make sure our family is close and we are.”

He said that he won’t be coming to West games next season because he wants to let the new coach get his own program established without the former coach around to draw comparisons.

In his role as athletic director, Pensyl wants to have a Pocono Mountain West person coach West kids. He hopes to have a new coach in place as early as a week after the season ends.

Of course, Pensyl and West hope the season doesn’t end until the night of March 25, when the state finals are held in Hershey.

The Panthers (22-4) are matched up with District One’s Lower Merion in the first round. That game will be played at 5:30 p.m. Saturday at Pleasant Valley.

“This has been really nice to see this current group grow; it’s a really nice team with very few problems,” he said. “We have three 1,000-point scorers and all three of them — Isaiah Wiggins, Lance Singh and Jalen Vaughns — are going to play college basketball and they’re going to receive some scholarship money to play. The bottom line is that we’re playing outstanding basketball right now.

“We’re good right now. I don’t say that all the time. But if I was coaching somewhere else, I wouldn’t want to play us right now.”

A SHARP PENSYL

A list of accomplisments for the retiring Pocono Mountain West coach:

* 523-207 career record, 299-90 in 15 years at West.

*16 20-win seasons

*2 district, eight league titles

*District 11 qualifier all 28 seasons

*Four state tournament appearances

*Only head coach in Monroe County to win more than 500 games.

*One of four District 11 boys coaches to win 500 games. John Donmoyer (624), Bob Wilson (551) and Bill Paulik (539) are the others. Ron Hassler won 536 games, but 47 came in three years at District One’s North Penn.