Longtime girls high school soccer coach Bill Pfeifer will begin his 30th year as a head coach when he returns to the sidelines for the 2025 season with Moon Area.
During his career, the Moon Area head coach has amassed over 500 career wins, guided teams to several WPIAL and PIAA titles, and won NFHS national girls’ soccer coach of the year honors.
Now, Pfeifer can add Hall of Fame inductee to that list of accolades.
On Saturday, Pfeifer along with eight other individuals, will be inducted into the PA Sports Hall of Fame Western Chapter. He will be the second person from the Beaver Valley to be inducted this year as he will be joined by world-renowned boxing trainer Tom Yankello, who is the western chapter's 2025 “Inductee of Distinction”.
When he first got the news of being inducted into the Hall of Fame, Pfeifer was surprised but humbled that he was selected being only a handful of individuals from the sport of soccer to be inducted.
“I was told by the committee that I had good credentials and my stats were outstanding but I was surprised because the sport of soccer is only starting to find its way into the Hall of Fame now,” Pfeifer said. “I was hoping for the best, expecting the worst but I couldn't be disappointed with the outcome. When I found out that I was in, I was thrilled.”
Pfeifer’s Hall of Fame career has made many stops across the Beaver Valley and beyond but has always been rooted around the small town of Sewickley.
As he was beginning to become a head coach at the high school level, Pfeifer met Bill Piper who ran Sewickley Sports Arena formerly known as SporTrak until he died in 2019.
Along with meeting Piper, the coach also picked the brains of longtime Robert Morris men’s soccer head coach John Kowalski, Quaker Valley head coach Gene Klein and Fox Chapel head coach Jim Perry who mentored Pfeifer during his early years.
“I did camps with John up at Robert Morris, worked with Gene's high school team at the arena, I knew Jim from going to school with his son Mark [Perry] and his daughters so I learned a lot through working with all of them as well as Bill. From them first being my mentors to then becoming friends later in life, those are some of the people that I looked up to the most.”
After time at Center High School and Seneca Valley, Pfeifer began his first stint with Moon Area which stretched from 2001-17. During his 16-year tenure, he helped guide the team to three WPIAL and PIAA titles.
