Pitt hires Michael Stacchiotti as strength coach

Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi hired Michael Stacchiotti as the program’s new head strength and conditioning coach, according to an announcement from the team on Friday. The move came less than two weeks after the departure of longtime Pitt strength coach Dave Andrews for Iowa State.

Stacchiotti most recently served as an assistant strength and conditioning coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2019. Prior to that, he served in the same role at Mississippi State in 2018. The year before that, he held a higher rank as the associate director of strength and conditioning at Cincinnati. And earlier still, he worked at Colorado State as well as Girard High School and Ursuline High School in the Youngstown, Ohio, area.

“Michael came highly recommended from some of the top strength coaches in the country," Narduzzi said in a statement. "He is cut from the same mold as Buddy Morris and Anthony Piroli, two of the very best in the business. We also got tremendous feedback from a number of Tampa Bay players, including [former Pitt safety] Jordan Whitehead as well as William Gholston and Beau Allen. Everyone said the same thing: Michael is a highly disciplined professional who is going to impact our offseason immediately.”

The newly appointed strength coach is a graduate of Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio, where he played fullback and linebacker and was a captain of the football team until the end of the 2013 season. In addition, he is a native of Girard, Ohio, which is about five miles from Narduzzi’s hometown of Youngstown. Narduzzi is also a graduate of Ursuline High School, where Stacchiotti previously served as a strength coach.

“It is an honor and privilege to join Coach Narduzzi’s staff at the University of Pittsburgh,” Stacchiotti said. “I consider this home. I take great pride in being from the Rust Belt and we will have a blue-collar mentality in everything we do. The goal at Pitt is to win championships and we will have a relentless work ethic in the Pitt Iron Works as we pursue that goal.”

With his head strength and conditioning coach now in place, Narduzzi will also need to replace the remainder of Pitt's strength staff, as two assistants under Andrews followed him to Iowa State and the other left Pitt as well.