A veteran coach in the area at the scholastic level, Joe Kuhns enters his first season as the outside linebackers coach at California (PA) in 2022.
Kuhns recently served five seasons as the head coach at Beth-Center with previous experience as a head coach at both California and Waynesburg Central, plus time as an assistant at Ringgold and Jefferson-Morgan. He also was an assistant coach at the collegiate level for four years at Waynesburg, a NCAA Division III program.
At Beth-Center, Kuhns guided the program to 17 victories over his initial three seasons and qualified for the WPIAL Class 2A Playoffs each year. He had the opportunity to coach his son, Colby, who was the starting quarterback for the Bulldogs despite battling multiple injuries.
Kuhns served as the linebackers coach at Waynesburg from 2012-15 under defensive coordinator Scott Venick, who is the current defensive backs coach at Cal. In his first year with the program, the Yellow Jackets earned a share of the Presidents’ Athletic Conference (PAC) title and posted double-digit wins for the first time in over 45 years. Kuhns worked with two-time CoSIDA Academic All-American and three-time All-PAC Honorable Mention linebacker John Sikora, who has spent the past four seasons on the coaching staff at Stanford.
A former defensive back for the Vulcans, Kuhns was the head coach scholastically at California from 2002-08 and led the program to seven-consecutive appearances in the WPIAL Class 1A Playoffs. He was named the Tri-County South Coach of the Year in 2004 and led the Trojans to the quarterfinals of the WPIAL Playoffs in each of the next two seasons. In 2007, Kuhns was a finalist for the Washington-Greene County Coach of the Year Award.
He then spent three years as the head coach at Waynesburg Central before transitioning to college coaching with the Yellow Jackets in 2012.
Kuhns started his coaching career at Jefferson-Morgan in 1993 and later served as the defensive coordinator from 1996-99. He then spent two seasons as the defensive coordinator at Ringgold when Venick was the head coach.
As a player, Kuhns was a standout two-way player that helped Beth-Center claim a conference title in 1986 and advance to the WPIAL Class 2A Championship. He was a defensive back for the Vulcans before completing his bachelor’s degree in art education in 1997. Kuhns is currently an art teacher in the Central Greene School District in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania.
Kuhns and his wife Kimberly reside in Sandy Plains, Pennsylvania, with their two children, Kennedy and Colby. Kennedy recently was a member of the volleyball and track & field teams at West Virginia Wesleyan, while Colby is a freshman football player at Washington & Jefferson.
