Matt McGloin apologized to supporters Tuesday for suddenly resigning as a Lackawanna County commissioner last week to take a college football job that he quickly quit.
McGloin doesn’t know what he’ll do next, but said he won’t try to reclaim his elected post Wednesday at 10 a.m. when commissioners Bill Gaughan and Chris Chermak are scheduled to accept his resignation.
“I apologize to the people of Lackawanna County for the way things have played out,” he said in a telephone interview. “I'm sorry if I offended anybody. My intentions, I know, have always been good. I always try to do the right thing and what's best.”
Last week, county solicitor Don Frederickson said the resignation would only take effect when the remaining commissioners accepted it. Frederickson also said the county has a policy of allowing someone to return to a job as long as it isn’t filled.
On Thursday, the county Democratic Party executive committee voted to recommend three possible replacements – former county planning and economic development director Brenda Sacco, Scranton School Director Bob Casey and Olyphant Council President James Baldan.
The county common pleas court judges will pick the replacement from the three, but decided to wait until the resignation is accepted.
McGloin, a former Oakland Raiders and Penn State quarterback, said the job as an analyst on Boston College head football coach Bill O’Brien’s staff came about quickly.
He has regularly kept in touch with O’Brien, whose instruction turned McGloin into a professional quarterback when O’Brien coached at Penn State in 2012.
“And this was a position that popped up,” McGloin said. “And he had reached out about this job he had.”
Rumors that McGloin planned to leave the commissioner job began circulating Feb. 16 during a fundraiser for District Attorney Brian Gallagher’s election campaign.
In the days after that, McGloin declined to return telephone calls seeking to determine if he planned to quit as commissioner. He showed up for the Feb. 19 commissioners meeting and voted, but eluded reporters seeking to question him afterward.
“I had only a few days or so to really make this decision, and I wasn't able to talk about it,” he said. “Things in the professional football world, things in the college football world move very fast.”
He and his wife, Bailey, a physician assistant who opened an aesthetics business last year, talked about the move before he decided to take the new job. They planned to move the family to the Boston area later this year, he said.
He kept quiet about taking the job because football programs “want to make the announcement” of a new hire to influence recruiting of players, he said.
“They (colleges) want to be able to promote all that,” McGloin said.
After days of rumors, McGloin announced Feb. 21 that he would resign as a commissioner effective Feb. 24.
He arrived at Boston College - which is in Chestnut Hill, a village a few miles west of Boston - on Feb. 23 and began his football duties the next day.
“And it was great being back in that world and being back at the facility, being around the weight room, watching film, kind of, being back,” he said.
Still, he almost immediately realized, “there's no way that this is going to work for me, being away from my family for an extended period of time.”
“And that moving our children from the only house they've ever known, it wasn't the best for them,” he said.
Football sometimes requires uprooting several times as teams change coaches and players. When he and his wife had no children, moving was less of an issue, he said.
“Add your family and your kids to the mix, and it just becomes a much different process,” he said. “It just wasn't the right time to make a life-changing move for our family ... You're talking about a new house, new schools. You're entering into a world where you're now in the moving business. You may have to move every year or every two years.”
McGloin said he didn’t really understand the implications of his move until he was on the job at Boston College.
“Reality set in that I've created a whole new life for my family, a new path for my family, a new path for me, and how much that was going to impact them,” he said. “So, I called my wife. I said, ‘Bailey, I'm coming home.’”
When he came home, his wife told him about something their 6-year-old son, Marshall, said while he was away.
“She waited until I said that I was coming home to tell me that our 6-six-year-old actually said to her, ‘I'm glad dad doesn't live in Boston. I'm glad he lives here,’” McGloin said. “So, I had a great conversation with Bill O'Brien about it, and he was understanding. He completely understood, which was, a really, really good feeling.”
McGloin said he’s proud of the record he and Gaughan compiled in his 13 months on the job.
“We really did some wonderful things. Obviously, we've received criticism for the (33% property) tax increase,” he said. “But it was necessary. We had no choice but to do it. I certainly wish them well in all that they're doing. There's a lot of really, really wonderful people that work there.”
A sportscaster and real estate agent just before he was a commissioner, McGloin said he doesn’t know what’s next.
“Maybe I'll end up back in the media world. I don't know. We'll see,” he said.
