Sometimes opportunities come and you have to make hard decisions and that’s the dilemma Tyler Ward faced when being offered the position as head football coach at Maryland’s Calvert Hall College High School recently.

Ward, who moved from Alabama to take over as head coach of Bethlehem Catholic the past two seasons, will now look to make a more permanent jump to the private all boys school about three hours away from the Lehigh Valley when he accepted the position to become their new football coach.

“From where I’m headed this is a really good opportunity for me for stability,” said Ward. “This is too good of an opportunity to pass up. I didn’t even realize I was going to have a chance at it and really had to think about what this would do for my family. I love Beca, but this was a hard decision I had to make.”

Ward, a native of Charlottesville, Virginia, was 13-13 in his two seasons at Bethlehem Catholic. He was a defensive back at Lehigh and graduated in 2014. He then spent time coaching at Franklin and Marshall before coming back to coach at his alma mater from 2016-19 before spending time as a high school coach in Georgia and Alabama for three seasons as an offensive coordinator before accepting the Becahi position.

The Hawks won the District 11 4A championship in his first season at the helm and reached the district finals again last fall, losing to Southern Lehigh 28-7.

Calvert Hall will be a bit of a different animal, as they play in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference against private schools.

The Cardinals went 7-5 last season and reached the MIAA A Conference semifinals. They did play Pennsylvania’s LaSalle College High School and Kiski School last season.

Calvert boasts a fierce Thanksgiving Day rivalry with Loyola Blakefield and the Cardinals have lost three straight in the series, speculating as one of the reasons former head coach Josh Ward (no relation) stepped down from the program.

Calvert Hall did win the 2021 MIAA A Conference championship and reached the league championship game in 2022.

Ward was selected to become the head coach out of 80 applicants and will work full-time at the school, just like he does at Beca.

“From a Beca standpoint this place is amazing,” he said. “The community was very good to me. Thought we accomplished a lot and having to tell the kids I was going to leave was the hardest thing I had to do. My family is really enjoying their time here in Bethlehem and we were getting nice and settled, but this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. It’s a prestigious school and athletic area and it’s a little bit closer to a college type atmosphere.”