KARLI SHORT, DAUGHTER OF MCKEESPORT LEGEND BRANDON SHORT, WAS KILLED IN 2021.
Following a thundercloud of controversy in McKeesport surrounding its football program, a prominent figure who played in the NFL whose daughter was murdered, and those who testified as a character witness for the accused killer, McKeesport Area High School has a new head football coach.
The McKeesport Area School District Board of Directors on Thursday, June 25, voted, 5 to 3 with one abstention, to accept the verbal resignation of head football coach Matt Miller. The school board contended that Miller verbally resigned to the school’s athletics director, even though Miller contends he never resigned on paper.
Two people connected to the school’s football program testified as character witnesses for Isaac Smith, who was on trial for the 2021 murder of Karli Short. Short was the daughter of Brandon Short, a star football player for McKeesport in the mid-1990s who went on to play at Penn State and the NFL.
Brandon Short vowed to get justice in the killing of his daughter in the form of a murder conviction. In late May 2026, Smith was found guilty of Karli Short’s murder and the murder of her unborn baby. He is to serve two life sentences.
What angered Brandon Short was the silence of the then-McKeesport head football coach, Miller. Miller did not distance himself or the football program from the program’s members who testified on behalf of Smith.
“A program I love, a program I gave everything to as a player, felt like it showed up in support of the man who killed my daughter,” Short’s statement said, which was read at the special school board meeting by board member Mark Holtzman Sr. “I did not believe it was possible, but this stark reality made the most difficult thing that I’ve ever experienced even worse.”
Miller was somewhat already on thin ice with some school board members prior to the controversy. Miller, who had been coach of the McKeesport Tigers since 2016, led the team to the WPIAL Championship game the past three seasons, but lost all three times. The last WPIAL title loss was on Nov. 15, 2025, when the Tigers were upset by Aliquippa, 21-12. For Holtzman, the controversy was the icing on the cake for Miller’s removal.
For Matthew Holtzman, a fellow board member, he had previously called for the entire coaching staff to resign due to the controversy.
“We had two people from our coaching staff testify in a murder trial against one of most illustrious alumni, and he felt like the athletic department turned its back on him,” Matthew Holtzman said. “And he’s very important to us and very important to the city of McKeesport. And the community at large, if you saw the reaction on social media, wasn’t super comfortable with the coaching staff we had in place. And I’m happy that we got a verbal resignation and we accepted it.”
The Short family started The Karli Short Better Tomorrow Foundation in her honor. It supports college students whose lives have been affected by gun violence. It has raised at least $1 million since its inception.
