It isn’t easy being a first-year head football coach and in Salem County it’s been particularly challenging
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
Every football coach who comes into a new situation brings with him enthusiasm and optimism. He usually gets his first win even before the team takes the field, winning the introductory press conference.
Winning on the field, well, that takes a little longer as he tries to make headway against the reality of the underlying circumstances that brought him to the position in the first place.
It isn’t easy being a first-year head football coach and in Salem County it’s been a particularly bumpy ride.
This year has seen the largest turnover of head coaching spots among the county’s five football-playing schools since 2006 – three (Penns Grove, Salem, Woodstown) – and for two of them it’s been a tough go.
Woodstown’s Frank Trautz has had the best of it, going 6-0 with two regular season games remaining after being promoted from within an already winning staff. But it hasn’t been quite so rosy for Penns Grove’s Marc Maccarone or Salem’s Kemp Carr, two outside hires who are 1-6 and 0-7, respectively, going into this weekend’s games.
But the struggles have been the norm for new Salem County coaches. Of the 18 first-year head coaches over the last 21 years, only four have had winning first-year campaigns – Seth Brown (Schalick), Ryan Wood (Pennsville), Montrey Wright (Salem) and Trautz – but they’re the unicorns. Eleven have had losing seasons and three have broken even.
Only eight have gotten to the playoffs in their first year, with Trautz expected to join that list this year. The Wolverines are currently the No. 1 team in the South Jersey Group I power points standings.
“Where a school is hiring a football coach it’s rarely a good situation,” said Schalick head coach Mike Wilson, who went 0-7 his first year with the Cougars to 11-1 last season. “Most of the time the program has struggled and there’s a reason why they’re looking for a coach. There’s not too many programs where you just hand it off and they keep it rolling. It does happen, but usually it’s not a great job when you get that first job; there’s a lot of work to do.”
The chart below documents the struggles of Salem County’s most recent first-year coaches. It’s not an indictment on their coaching ability. Almost all of them have gone on to produce multiple winning/championship seasons once they got their program in place; Carr and Maccarone won championships at other postings. It’s just an illustration of how hard it is to get it started.
“The coach can only control so much,” Wilson said. “They need the support of the school, the administration, the community, the parents; it’s a total group effort. And you need patience because a year turnaround doesn’t happen. You need patience, your school needs patience and if you don’t have support of those other things there’s only so much you can do.
”It really comes down to how much does the school, the administration and the community want football to be successful, because if you’re trying to build a program you need all those things. It takes time and patience. Just show up and play football from August to November, you can’t do that anymore.”
Once that first-year coach gets his program blueprint established and starts to taste a little success, a whole new set of challenges present themselves. The next goal becomes finding a way to maintain that success. That, friends, is a whole different conversation.
Cover photo: Salem County’s three new head football coaches (from left) Woodstown’s Frank Trautz, Salem’s Kemp Carr and Penns Grove’s Marc Maccarone.
First Year Salem County Football Coaches (Since 2003)
| COACH | YEAR | SCHOOL | RECORD | PLAYOFFS |
| (x-in progress) | ||||
| Dennis Orando | 2003 | Penns Grove | 2-8 | No |
| Kemp Carr | 2004 | Penns Grove | 2-8 | No |
| Rob Hinson | 2005 | Salem | 5-5 | Yes, 0-1 |
| Seth Brown | 2006 | Schalick | 8-3 | Yes, 1-1 |
| Frank Larubio | 2006 | Woodstown | 5-5 | No |
| Steve Sheffield | 2006 | Salem | 3-7 | No |
| Randy Johnson | 2009 | Salem | 2-8 | No |
| Ryan Wood | 2009 | Pennsville | 7-3 | Yes, 0-1 |
| John Adams | 2010 | Woodstown | 3-7 | No |
| Dennis Thomas | 2013 | Salem | 5-6 | Yes, 1-1 |
| John Emel | 2014 | Penns Grove | 5-5 | Yes, 0-1 |
| Montrey Wright | 2015 | Salem | 8-2 | Yes, 0-1 |
| Mike Healy | 2017 | Pennsville | 4-6 | Yes, 0-1 |
| Mike Wilson | 2020 | Schalick | 0-7 | No |
| Danny Mendoza | 2023 | Salem | 2-8 | Yes, 0-1 |
| Marc Maccarone | 2024 | Penns Grove | x-1-6 | |
| Kemp Carr | 2024 | Salem | x-0-7 | |
| Frank Trautz | 2024 | Woodstown | x-6-0 |
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