Salem head coach steps down from storied program after one season in his return to Garden State
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
SALEM – Another Salem County football coach is on the move. Salem’s Danny Mendoza has stepped down after one season with the Rams, but hopes to coach again.
Mendoza officially stepped down from the Rams’ coaching position Friday and told his team earlier Wednesday.
“It’s a personal decision for me and my family and I’m looking forward to what’s next,” he said. “I will enjoy the process and find the best situation.
“I appreciate the opportunity. I wish Salem High School and the Salem community nothing but the best going forward.”
There are other opportunities out there for him. He is believed to be a front-runner for the head coaching job at Absegami High School.
Mendoza is the second Salem County head football coach to move on this offseason. Penns Grove’s John Emel recently was named the new coach at West Deptford. Penns Grove athletics director Anwar Golden declined to comment Wednesday on the progress of the Red Devils’ coaching search.
Salem athletics director Darryl Roberts said he respected Mendoza’s decision and the school appreciated “everything he did coming in and taking care of the kids and keeping the program going.”
Roberts said the Rams have “some options” in terms of finding Mendoza’s successor but wasn’t at liberty to discuss them at this time. There wasn’t a timetable for naming the new coach, but officials hoped it would be sooner rather than later.
“We don’t want to run into the same situation as we did last year, going into May and June not knowing who the head football coach would be,” Roberts said.
The “Jersey-born and Florida-bred’ Mendoza came to Salem in June after two seasons as head coach at Wellington (Fla.) High School with the vision of taking the Jersey grittiness and Florida flashiness and molding them into his own program.
He didn’t have a lot of time to lay the groundwork, coming aboard in June, and with no spring football in New Jersey his first on-field work with his players didn’t come until camp opened. In addition, he had a spartan coaching staff that had him coordinating all three phases of the game and his predecessor was still at the school.
The Rams played a brutal schedule, mostly on the road while they waited to occupy their on-campus stadium, and started the year 0-6. They won their first game over Paulsboro on Oct. 7, then followed it the next week with a win over West Deptford in a rainy inaugural game of their new stadium.
They did make the Group I playoffs and lost a tough opening-round game on the road at South Hunterdon.
“It was obviously a difficult situation when you’re not getting the players in who were there before,” Mendoza said. “With the schedule we had with no stadium, it was definitely a tough deal, but you never go into anything without challenges and expectations and you look forward to every challenge.
“With a very young team I believe they learned a lot. I believe they might not understand now, but I think later on they’ll know what they went through how much stronger it’s going to make them if they decide to use this year’s tribulations to propel them to do better next year under whoever that coach may be.
“I’ve always as a competitor loved difficult situations. I loved to play the best, but at the same time you’ve got to build that up and there was just a lot of things up in the air for just so long. It was definitely an experience, but at the same time I learned a lot. I believe I became a better coach this year and I believe we taught these kids a lot of things that they would have never had their minds open to as well.
“I think we did a lot of good things and I believe this program is 100 times better the way I’m leaving as opposed to when I got it.”
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