It has been an emotional last nine or 10 days for Northampton Community College.
Last week, he lost his mother, Katie, and on the same day that she was buried, Cocca was inducted into the National Football Foundation Lehigh Valley Chapter Hall of Fame.
Then to start this week, he has resigned his post as NCC's softball coach after four seasons.
After four highly successful seasons, including four consecutive trips to the NJCAA Region XIX Final Four, Northampton softball coach Tony Cocca has stepped down from his position.
A long-time fixture on the Lehigh Valley sports scene, Cocca took over the Spartan program in December of 2010 and guided the program to an 82-49 overall record, including a 59-25 (70%) mark in region play. "It's time to turn the program over to someone younger," remarked Cocca, "I really enjoyed my time at Northampton, but as a coach you know when it is time to hang it up and I felt it was time. The program is good shape, there is a really strong core of players coming back and the commitment to the program is excellent. I want to thank all of the young ladies that I had the opportunity to coach during the last four years."
Cocca recruited three of the top shortstops in program history, with all three earning First Team All-Region honors; Morgan Neel (2011, 2012), Kristin Steiner (2013) and Taryn Zietlow (2014). In addtion, Cocca recruit Shelby Belzecky (Parkland) earned NJCAA First Team All-American honors during the 2013 season.
The Spartans finished 2014 with an 18-13 record and a third place finish in the Region XIX Tournament.
Northampton will begin the search for a successor immediately.