After a third of a century at the helm of the Cardinal Mooney softball program, coach Mark Rinehart is hanging it up.

Under the longtime Mooney coach who is also the longest-tenured teacher at the high school, the Cardinals accumulated a record of 478-252, had a winning record in 31 of 33 seasons, won six league titles, two district titles, and made a regional finals appearance in 2005.

In the 33 years with Rinehart in charge, the Cardinals also sent 16 players on to the college ranks, including YSU’s current starting catcher, Conchetta Rinaldi.

“I’d like to thank Mooney’s administration, my assistants, our parents, and most importantly all of my players for their hard work, commitment, and sacrifice,” Rinehart said in the press release. “I got to coach for a third of a century at the best school in Ohio, have considerable success, and go out on my own terms- it’s hard to beat that.”

When asked why he made the move, Rinehart just said that he decided it was time. That and the cold weather. Rinehart added he’s not ruling out a return somewhere down the line.

“I love the games, I love practice, I might even go out and coach again, but it just seemed like time to spend more time with my family,” he said. “Step away and go from there. We were able to have a competitive year the last couple of years and it just seemed like a good time.”

Sports grow and change over the years and softball is no different. Rinehart has noticed softball evolve since he took over, noting the gap between pitching and hitting start to balance itself out. Back in the 1990s, it was a pitcher-dominated game.

“I’ve always tried to treat my girls like athletes, that hasn’t changed,” he said. “There’s always going to be intricacies, you talk to any coach (and they’ll agree). I think the biggest change in our game from when I started is if you had a pitcher that could throw it hard, you were just going to win. You were going to win a regional and go to state. The hitting has caught up to the pitching so much and made it such a more complete game. Then they moved the (circle) back to 43 feet, and everybody’s got these high-powered bats, it’s a much more complete game. Pitching dominated, but not anymore. Now you need all the facets.”

As the game continued to evolve, opportunities to learn new things came with it. While a lot of older coaches stay set in their ways after a number of years, the Mooney skipper always took opportunities to help the program grow.

That educator mindset manifested itself in a desire to learn and a desire for his players to learn, even when they weren’t together.

“You have to hope your kids — so much is on them too — play in the summer,” Rinehart said. “(As a coach, you have to adapt). There’s two or three websites that I get practice emails and drills from. You have to stay abreast of a lot of college softball and I go to clinics, coaches meetings and just have to look at the newest things and see (what they offer.) One time, we were lucky when (football coach) Mike Stoops was out in Arizona, we got to go out for a game and I got to watch the Arizona softball team practice for a couple days. I learned a bunch of stuff there. It’s just a continual learning (process), kind of like life. If you don’t adapt, you’re going to sink.”

After coaching for 33 years, Rinehart has a lot of memories. Looking back, he said the favorite part of his tenure was helping make a name for Cardinal Mooney softball

“I think it was probably the first Steel Valley championships in 1995 and 1996 when Boardman and Fitch were in the league, and we kind of put ourselves on the map with programs like that,” Rinehart said. “Making the district championship and a regional final, we had some real wars with Coach (Michael) Kernan and Ursuline and we were able to come out on top of some of those here in the last 10 years or so. Just seeing our program get to where we could play with anybody and we were on that respected level because we had earned it.”