Senior Classic Announces 2025 Coaches
By: Ed Weaver | Big 30 Athletic Corporation | March 27, 2025
The coaching staffs for Team PA and Team New York have been finalized ahead of this weekend's Big 30 Senior Classic at Portville (NY) High School.
Aaron Straub (Elk County Catholic) and Derrick Francis (Otto-Eldred) will be co-head coaches for the Pennsylvania boys and Patrick Wight (Cuba-Rushford) has been chosen to coach the New York boys.
Shawn Gray (Otto-Eldred) of Team PA will face off against Michelle Alvord (Wellsville) in the girls game.
Aaron Straub
After graduating from Elk County Christian High School in 1975, Aaron Straub returned to his High School alma mater in 1979 and has remained there ever since. Aaron has coached the varsity boys basketball team at Elk County Catholic High School for the past 43 seasons. Prior to coaching the boys team, he coached the girls team for two seasons. Coach Straub's 2006 team captured the PIAA State Class A championship finishing the year with a record of 33-0. His overall combined 45-year record at Elk County Catholic is 1,015-269.
Aaron has served as the Athletic Director at ECC since 1985 and is the PIAA District 9 Chairman. Coach Straub and his wife Joanne have been married for 43 years and have 3 children and seven grandchildren.
Derrick Francis
Coach Francis began his coaching career as an assistant coach for the Smethport Soccer team in 2005, then transitioned into basketball while coaching with his wife, Kristina, as an assistant coach of the Port Allegany Lady Gators from 2014-2017. He also organized and coached the local 814 Academy Travel Team in 2018.
Francis took over as the assistant coach of the Otto-Eldred boys team in 2019, and remained in that role until the 2022 season when he took over as head coach. Francis has been the Terrors' boys basketball coach since 2022, compiling a 76-7 record and four NTL championships. The Terrors are four-time Randy Stebbins Tournament champions and Coach Franics was named the Big 30 Coach of the Year and NTL Coach of the Year in 2023.
Francis, a 2002 Cuba-Rushford graduate and Alfred State alum, resides in Duke Center with his wife and two children: Landon (18) and Baylee (15).
Patrick Wight
Patrick Wight is a 2001 graduate of Cube-Rushford, where he was a two-time Allegany County 1st team All-Star, as well as a 1st team Espressway Conference All-Star. In his senior year, Wight was a member of the Great 8 Basketball team and an All-greater Rochester honorable mention. Wight attended the University of Pitt-Bradford after graduation and received his degree in Sport and Recreation Management with a minor in Athletic Coaching.
Wight was an assistant coach at Allegany-Limestone from 2015-2022, where he was a part of three section title teams in 2019, 2020 and 2022. In the 2022 season A-L won the Far West Regional title and advanced to the New York State Final 4. In 2023 Coach Wight took over as head coach at Cuba-Rushford and has compiled a 48-17 record, and was named 2025 Section V Class C2 Coach of the Year.
Coach Wight and his wife, Elise, have five children: Landon, currently serving int he US Army in Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Braeden, who played in last year's Big 30 Senior Classic; Evan; Aubrey and Grayson.
Shawn Gray
Shawn Gray recently completed his seventh season as the head coach of the Otto-Eldred Lady Terrors. He is a Terror Alum and played for legendary coach Joe Vecellio for three seasons, calling the Terror Dome his home, until 1991. Gray was then a 3-year starter and letter winner at Allegheny College, under the direction of Phil Ness, winning a regular season NCAC title in 1993. Prior to taking the helm for the O-E varsity girls, Gray was the Jr. High boys coach and a volunteer assistant varsity boys coach under Dan Dalton for numerous seasons.
During Gray's seven seasons at O-E, the Lady Terrors have amassed over 130 wins, won back-to-back NTL titles in 2021-2022 & 2022-2023, played in four District 9 title games and won the first District 9 championship in Lady Terrors history in 2023. Gray was voted NTL and Big 30 Coach of the Year in each of the 2021-22 & 2022-23 seasons. He is the husband of Jeannine Gray and "Pop" to future Terrors, Ryan and Maddox Hendershot.
Michelle Alvord
There are not too many coaches in the Big 30 who have the interesting path of Michelle Alvord. She is best known as a Section V coach of the year and Section V champion as a coach and player at Wellsville, where she has guided the Lions to a 207-90. Her teams have reached the finals or semi-finals 11-of-14 years in Wellsville.
Alvord had a standout career at Wellsville (Hall of Fame member) and Keuka College, where she is in the Hall of Fame with 1,557 career points and 927 rebounds, both second all-time. She played two seasons under former Providence coach and current St. Bonaventure coach Jim Crowley. The next year, she took her first high school job at Class D Friendship Central School and took the team to the Section V finals with a 14-7 record and was named coach of the year. The next season, it was at Class D Whitesville where the team went 9-12. The interesting part happened next, as she went to Keuka to coach college basketball and won 18 games over two years including wins over RIT, Clarkson, and Cazenovia College. Alvord went back to Friendship for a year, then coached JV basketball at Hornell and Wellsville before being named head coach at her alma mater in 2011. She took the Lions to an 18-3 record in that first year and has enjoyed tremendous success with the student-athletes since.
