The St. Pius coaching factory: 1979 team gave Georgia three 200-win coaches
The 1979 football team at St. Pius was remarkable, not so much for what it did on the field but rather for the impact a trio of those players would go on to have as coaches in Georgia.
Keith Maloof, Paul Standard and Ed Dudley were all senior starters on that St. Pius team. Each one went into the coaching profession, where each has become a successful head coach. Each has won 200-plus games and played for a state title.
“We were the best class at St. Pius. I’ll stand by that,” Dudley said. “We weren’t the best football team. We weren’t the best football players. But, man, we had a great group.”
Dudley, who was the team’s center, has won 241 games and is entering his fourth season at Blessed Trinity. Dudley has also made stops at Buford, Walton, Ware County, Carrollton and Winder-Barrow. He won 110 games and five region titles at Walton, two region titles at Ware County and one at Blessed Trinity.
Maloof, an all-county linebacker, won 232 games coaching at Tucker and Norcross. He won 210 of those, along with seven region championships and two state titles (2012-13), in 26 seasons at Norcross. He became the winningest coach in Gwinnett County history before retiring in 2024. The football stadium at Norcross is now named in his honor.
Standard, who played guard and on the defensive line, won a school-record 174 games and eight region titles during his 20 seasons at St. Pius and earned his 200th victory last fall at Gilmer, where he’s been for five years.
The ultimate “we’ve-all-arrived” moment came in 2012 when each man guided his team to the state championship game. Maloof’s Norcross squad defeated Lovejoy 21-14 to win the 6A title and complete a 15-0 season. Dudley’s Ware County club lost to Deshaun Watson-led Gainesville 49-13 in the 5A final, and Standard’s St. Pius team fell 10-3 to Buford in the 3A final.
“I think the most enjoyable moment of our careers is when all of us were playing for a state championship in 2012,” Maloof said. “All three of us had teams playing in the Georgia Dome. At that moment all three of us had reached the pinnacle in our career. I really cherished that moment, and I think Dad would have been a really proud papa.”
“Dad” was George Maloof, one of the patriarchs of Georgia high school football. He coached the Golden Lions from 1958-83 and won a state championship in 1968. He also raised a generation of leaders, some of them football coaches, including his sons Kevin and Keith. But even Maloof, who played for Bobby Dodd at Georgia Tech and started the St. Pius program on his way to the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, had no way of knowing he was grooming three guys who currently have won 673 games between them.
None of the three even expected to become a coach. Dudley — “the brainiac of the group,” according to Standard — went to Rhodes College with plans to become a stockbroker. Standard went to The Citadel and expected to have a career in military service. Maloof didn’t dive into coaching until after his career at West Georgia, where he helped the Braves win an NCAA Division III championship in 1982.
Dudley also gave credit to St. Pius assistant coach Ron Mangrum for sparking his interest in coaching. Maloof and Standard tipped their hats to Kevin Maloof, who preceded them at St. Pius and for whom they both worked as assistants at Meadowcreek and Dacula. Kevin Maloof won 175 games and five region titles in 26 seasons before retiring in 2010.
But the foundational lessons came from George Maloof, who schooled all of them in football, life and building relationships.
“I think the time I realized it the most was when Dad was on his deathbed and about six of the guys from his 1968 championship team came in, and they’re talking to him,” Keith Maloof said. “They’re telling him thank you, how if it hadn’t been for him they wouldn’t have made it through that foxhole I was in, or I couldn’t have worked through my issues I had at work. And I’m listening to these grown men tell Dad how much he meant to them. That’s when it kind of hit me the impact that he had on so many people at St. Pius.”
Standard said, “Other than my father, he was without a doubt the greatest influence on my life as a teenager. Coach, there was just something about the way he inspired us, the way he coached us, the way he mentored us.”
Standard said one of his proudest moments came in 2003 when Maloof was on hand to watch St. Pius beat Marist to end a 21-game losing streak to the rival War Eagles.
“That meant so much and I’ve got picture of him and I together after the game and it’s in my office,” Standard said.
Now all three men have sons who are following in their footsteps. Gordon Dudley coaches the wide receivers on his father’s staff at Blessed Trinity. P.G. Standard is his father’s offensive coordinator at Gilmer. Tyler Maloof, who served under his father as an assistant at Norcross, will begin his fifth season as head coach at Lanier.
The sons know each other, too. How could they not? P.G. Standard and Tyler Maloof were born on April 27, 1990, hours apart at different hospitals. Keith Maloof won the pool for which baby would arrive first.
Two of the three old-timers are still active. Maloof was the first to step aside; he and wife Lisa get to watch Tyler’s team play on Friday.
Standard, whose wife Cindy recently retired as an occupational therapist, still enjoys the job and said, “When I wake up one day and say it’s not any fun, I’ll probably put in my papers. But right now it’s still good.”
Dudley is taking it season-by-season. “I don’t know how much longer,” he said. “I know I don’t want to be that old grouchy coach who says, ‘Back in my day,’ right? Lynn and I will look at it again in December, but at some point you’ve got to land the plane and leave this to younger people.”