Joe Carr is modest, though he has no reason to be. Sitting in Wayne’s Great American Pub, the casual eatery he manages when he’s not coaching football, his eyes light up when he talks about the game he loves, though he rarely discusses his own achievements.
Though he prefers to focus on the accomplishments of others, such as his players, his staff and his fellow coaches, Carr has an unrivaled history of success in the region. Since 1990, he’s coached high school football defense in the region, turning down college offers and head coaching gigs. He’s never wanted to leave his home, preferring instead to stay close to his family and watch his three children grow.
Though this hasn’t afforded him the accolades many other coaches with his knowledge base have been awarded, it has given Carr a unique influence over the football culture and young athletes coming out of the region.
Top Training
With his 34th season wrapped up, and his sixth at Malvern Preparatory School, Carr has expanded his list of protégés to include Navy commit Jake Bauer and Duke commit Andrew Pellicciotta as well as NFL-ers Dan Connor and Mark Jones and NCAA legend Rondell White, among others.
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“He’s unlike any high school coach I’ve been around. He is more like a lot of the NFL coaches I played under. He’s authentic and direct and lays out the expectations and goals clearly,” says Connor, the all-time leading tackler at Penn State University, of his former mentor. “He doesn’t treat his players like children either. He’ll treat you like a man, but in return expects you to handle yourself like a man. He instills confidence and belief in his guys and never over-complicates the game.”
Jones, prolific NFL punt and kickoff returner from 2004 to 2009, echoes Connor, noting, “he instilled a sense of confidence in us—reminding us that we were on the field for a reason and encouraging us to strive to be the best players we could be.”
From the Start
Though Carr is now a near-fabled figure in the local football scene, his journey had a rather ignominious beginning starting with his time as a college student, though it’s still in line with the now 62-year-old’s character.
A Radnor High School graduate, Carr was a two-way player at Bloomsburg University until his mother became ill. He dropped out of college, moved home and began working for his father. Then as now, his family came first.
Short on luck as a college dropout, Carr had a contact at St. Katherine of Siena School, who knew him from his playing days and invited him to help coach there.
“First year we weren’t very good. Maybe we won one game. And then the following year we went to what’s called the CYO ‘Parade of Champions’ and we won it,” Carr remembers.
At a low point during the winter after his first season at St. Katherine’s, a good friend of his and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer Herb Magee gave him a piece of advice that changed his outlook completely.
“The Eagles game is going to come on; it’s like 12:15 p.m. So [Magee] comes into the pub and I have this piece of paper out and I’m drawing up some plays and trying to get stuff figured out, right?” Carr begins.
MaGee asked the young Carr what he was doing. Carr responded honestly, telling him, “trying to find ways to win games.”
At that point, the man with the second-most wins in NCAA basketball history looked him up and down and said, “You want to win games? I’ll tell you how to win games.”
Carr’s eyes widened as the Hall of Famer before him prepared to share potentially life-changing advice.
“Go get real good players,” MaGee said. “You’ll win games. Now go get me a Coors Light.”
Carr was shocked. It couldn’t be that simple, he thought, but he came to realize it was the truth. As a football coach at Strath Haven High School — a public institution where recruiting was illegal — for the ensuing 17 years, Carr had no choice but to create good players.
“He really put the players in great positions,” says Sean Steinmetz, a former pupil and linebacker at West Chester University. “He made scouting reports every week that really broke it down on kind of a college/NFL level for us. He gave us what the other teams’ percentages were and what their tendencies were going to be.”
With the players he built up at Strath Haven, Carr went to four consecutive state championships at the turn of the millennium, winning two back-to-back in 1999 and 2000. In 2008, he took a job at West Chester Rustin High School, where he remained until 2016 when he went to help Dan Connor back at Archbishop Carroll for one year before picking up the gig at Malvern Prep.
Carr’s current head coach, Dave Gueriera, effuses praise, saying, “It’s impossible to replicate…[he’s] been in almost every situation that you could ever imagine in a football game. He’s coached on so many different teams. For me, it’s just a great resource to have someone who has all that experience. It’s invaluable.”
Gueriera continues, “There’s always a calmness or confidence that I would say comes over me just knowing that [the defensive] side of the ball is going to be well-prepared and they’re going to play hard.”
A Strong Future
As of December 2024, Carr is already planning ahead for the next season of Malvern Prep football. Though he’s now one of the elder statesmen in the Philadelphia region’s high school football scene, he shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.
He’s still in the film room all weekend during the season, checking tendencies and percentages, filing scouting reports and giving high school defenses college-level outputs.
Over the past four years, Malvern Prep has a 33-5 record, and its defense has allowed only 8.5 points per game with nine shutouts. As Carr looks to continue his dominance on the field in 2025, he remains committed to making better individuals of his players off the field.
Connor has a better sense of perspective on Carr than perhaps any other. “I’ve been fortunate to play under a lot of legendary coaches: Kevin Clancy, Joe Paterno, Tom Coughlin, Jason Garrett, Ron Rivera. But the two people I model the way I coach are my dad and coach Carr.”
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