Greensburg Central Catholic has the same football coach, but it's hard to believe it's the same Muzzy Colosimo who guided the Centurions to a WPIAL Class AA title last year.

"It's like I lost a fourth-grader from my body," Colosimo said.

You might not recognize Colosimo. He still is a king of one-liners and still has a passion for coaching. But through a diet and laser treatment program, Colosimo, 59. has lost 84 pounds since last football season. He used to be 5 feet 4, 291 pounds. Now, he is 207.

Colosimo has become a spokesman for the "Zerona" program he says helped change his life. He was featured in a full-page ad for the program in Monday's Post-Gazette. He also was featured on WTAE-TV news.

"I'm still not the guy who weighed 98 pounds when I graduated from Hempfield High School," Colosimo said. "I gained about three bodies since then. I hadn't seen my belt buckle since 1990, but I can see it now.

"I used to have all the fat-guy tendencies. I used to lick the spaghetti plate clean. It was nothing for me to drink 12 20-ounce Pepsis a day. But I decided I needed to do something, and now maybe I can be an inspiration to fat people, to let them know it can be done. You can turn things around. Maybe I can help change someone's life.

"It's a pain to get old, but it's even more of a pain to get old and be a fat guy."

Colosimo hopes to eventually slim down to 175 pounds. He eagerly awaits the start of this season. Tomorrow will be the official start of high school football practice in Pennsylvania.

"I want to coach for 11 or 12 more years. I still have fun with it," Colosimo said. "But as a fat guy, I couldn't even walk out and argue with the officials any more."

Ambridge will kick off the official start of practice with a "Midnight Madness" practice tonight. The players will have a non-contact workout from 10-11:30 p.m., take a break, and then practice in pads from midnight-1 a.m.

The Rally at the Wolvarena Sept. 4 is certainly an interesting event for WPIAL football as four district teams -- Woodland Hills, Central Catholic, McKeesport and Thomas Jefferson -- will play four out-of-state teams at Woodland Hills' Wolvarena in Turtle Creek. Two of the out-of-state teams are from Florida and the other two from Ohio.

Another game on that first Saturday also provides an interesting matchup as Gateway will travel to Harrisburg to play perennial power Bishop McDevitt. The star of Bishop McDevitt's team is senior Jameel Poteat, a talented running back who recently made a verbal commitment to Pitt.

WPIAL football has five new teams this season -- Central Valley, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Altoona, Hollidaysburg and Erie McDowell.

Altoona, Hollidaysburg and McDowell had teams in other districts before joining the WPIAL. But Central Valley is a new school, a merger of Monaca and Center. And this is OLSH's first year with a football program.

OLSH coach Bill Daniels has had 40 players at summer conditioning, but only eight played football before.

Central Valley coach Mark Lyons expects 68 players in grades 10-12 at the first practice. A natural question for Central Valley is how are the Monaca and Center players getting along?

"I get asked that question all the time," Lyons said. "Actually, it's going pretty well. But this is the easy part. The tough part is that first game, when we have to send out a player for that opening drive and some other player who is used to playing all the time doesn't get to go out on the field. So ask me that question in a couple of weeks."

• Former Center football coach Larry Taddeo is now an assistant coach at Aliquippa.

• Duquesne basketball recruit T.J. McConnell, a Chartiers Valley graduate and Post-Gazette Athlete of the Year, was the fourth-leading scorer in the Pittsburgh Basketball Club Pro-Am Summer League, averaging 17 points a game. Players from Duquesne, Pitt, Robert Morris and other colleges played. Only Pitt's Gilbert Brown, Ashton Gibbs and Gary McGhee had higher averages.

Mike White's "High School Sports Edition" videos are featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.