NIU's Bill Bleil joins Pitt's football staff

Reprinted with permission from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette PITTSBURGH - University of Pittsburgh football coach Walt Harris took one more step toward filling his coaching staff yesterday when he announced the hiring of Northern Illinois University tight ends assistant Bill Bleil. Bleil will coach tight ends and tackles, which is a post similar to the one he had at Northern Illinois. He'll have his work cut our for him because the Panthers lost two of the three starters at those positions. "Tackles and tight ends work so closely together it is a good combination of groups to coach," said Bleil, who has 22 years of coaching experience. "I like to work with athletic players as does every coach, but to me, it is more important to have a motor that doesn't stop. I believe if guys work hard and play hard they can accomplish an awful lot." Although Bleil is new to the Panthers staff, it won't be hard for him to settle in because he has close ties to many of the coaches already on staff. That is especially true with offensive line coach Tom Freeman, who he will obviously work closely with. "I've known Tom for a long time," Bleil said. "I think he is an excellent coach and a winner. And I've known [defensive coordinator] Paul Rhoads for a long time as well as [assistant head coach] Bob Junko. So this is really a great situation for me to step in." Bleil has also had a relationship with Harris that dates to 1992 when he became an assistant coach at Pacific. That was the year after Harris left Pacific to take a job with the New York Jets, but Bleil said Harris kept in touch with the program and would visit from time to time. Bleil, who is a native Iowa and a graduate of Northwest-ern College (Iowa), coached at Western Carolina from 1997-2000 before joining the staff at Northern Illinois. He also worked at Northwestern, Eastern New Mexico, New Mexico Highlands University and Dana College. "We are very pleased to secure a person with the varied experiences that Bill has," Harris said. Harris still has to fill the post of receivers/offensive coordinator.