Sometimes rumors are just rumors.

For the last few days there’s been scads of internet r-mongering regarding DeMatha football coaching legend Bill McGregor allegedly talking with various Catholic schools about making a coaching comeback at a rival school.

The noise started on the message board over at the fab DCSportsfan.com, where the most knowledgable and wackiest prep sports obsessives in the market gather. The site has a real high batting average when it comes to local high school scuttlebutt, so some buffoons took the McGregor rumor and ran with it.

The chatter got loud enough, and football in the Catholic conference is taken seriously enough, that the leader of one of the rival schools came out and addressed the issue very publicly.

St. John’s College High School President Jeffrey W. Mancabelli issued the following two-sentence statement today:

“I feel compelled to dispel some web rumors and report that St. John’s College High School’s Varsity Football Head Coach Joe Patterson is returning next season. Joe and his staff are already working diligently on our goal of the 2012 WCAC Championship.”

Mancabelli, unlike most folks spreading the McGregor talk, used his real name while saying the status quoin the football program’s not going to be messed with for at least a year.

Will that be enough to quiet the mongerers? Or will they just point out that Mancabelli didn’t mention 2013????