Coaching again

Accorsi hits the recruiting trail in first day as Salem CC’s interim head football coach, would like to be the permanent leader when inaugural game comes next fall

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

CARNEYS POINT – Jay Accorsi really thought he was done with coaching. When he told the Rowan football team he coached for 30 years – the last 22 as the head coach — on the last day of spring practice 2024 he was retiring he thought that was it. When his time was done, he was done and never looking back.

But like a lot of people of that certain age it didn’t take him long to get tired of being retired. Oh, the break was fun for a while, he got to follow his son’s final year of college soccer, but then he got the itch to do something familiar.

There was this little project he’d been quietly dabbling in for a while, this burning question of why there was no junior college football in New Jersey in general and South Jersey in particular when there were so many high school players either going elsewhere to play on the next level or just giving up the game (and the possibility of going to college) because they had no options. 

He had been gathering information in his travels with the Profs, and his retirement days gave him a chance to do an even deeper dive on the subject. The more he worked it, the more he believed this could really work in the right environment.

He took his data to Salem Community College president Mike Gorman and, guess what, he’s back in the game.

On Thursday night, the junior college’s board of trustees approved adding a football program to the school’s lineup of sports and installed Accorsi, who had been the paid consultant in the exploration, as interim head coach (and the betting favorite to become the permanent guy when that move is made.)

Suddenly, the man with the Santa Claus look was given the gift he had always been giving. 

As the interim head coach, it’ll be Accorsi’s mission to recruit players and do whatever it takes to “help the athletic director with everything that’s needed to help the program” as it moves towards a Fall 2026 Opening Day. His first task: Hit the recruiting trail Friday, starting with all the football-playing schools in Salem County (and Pennsville on Monday).

“It’s funny, I never thought I was (going to get back in); I walked away and was happy,” Accorsi said. “Everybody said I would get bored. I was OK for a while and then I got bored.

“Then the football bug hit. The concept of this idea really helped me be creative and put some information together and think if this could actually work. For me, the great part is, that was kind of validated tonight by a board to go ahead and proceed with something that I’ve thought about forever and really started to work on last winter.”

Salem athletics director Bob Hughes couldn’t be happier with the direction things are moving. The Mighty Oaks were going to announce the interim head coaching move Friday in conjunction with their classifying the sport with the NJCAA, but Hughes went ahead and pulled the trigger after Thursday’s board meeting.

“I’m excited to continue to grow the relationship with Jay,” he said. “He’s been a fantastic addition to the college and the athletic department and I’m excited with him to help us get this program truly off the ground.”

Gorman remembers that first conversation with Accorsi about the possibility of bringing football to Salem. Although he was familiar with the former coach and it was that association that got him in the door, Gorman thought they were talking about something else until about five minutes into the conversation.

“I honestly thought he was selling something,” Gorman said. “I knew of him as a football coach, but I didn’t know he was bringing in a proposal of that nature. I thought maybe he was representing a company that was doing equipment or whatever, but until we got into that conversation I didn’t know what we were specifically talking about.’

Actually Accorsi was selling something. He was selling football to a school that had never had it before.

As a former high school and college football player himself and visionary for the college, Gorman could see the merits of bringing the sport to campus. The college had done an analysis five years earlier and thought it was feasible, but with the onset of the COVID pandemic and other factors decided it wasn’t the time to proceed.

Sure, there’s is a financial risk – it’ll run nearly a half-million dollars in startup costs – but the college is said to be fiscally aligned to handle it, but in its mission of “changing lives,” as Gorman puts it, there was really no other capacity that could bring on such increased enrollment in such a rapid period of time.

(The news of the decision is spreading so quickly the athletics department received a half-dozen inquiries from prospective student-athletes before 10 a.m. Friday.)

The timing was absolutely right. As Accorsi had discovered in his research there was a plethora of underserved high school football athletes in the region and only one junior college football program between Central New York and Louisburg, N.C.

It was in that opportunity Accorsi and the college converged.

A national search will get underway to find a permanent leader of the program. It’s a safe bet Accorsi will be the odds on favorite — and he does want the job — but he knows nothing is guaranteed. And frankly he prefers it that way.

“When I was the assistant coach at Rowan and KC (Keeler) left to go to Delaware, I met with the AD several times and it was decided to do the national search and at the time I was very happy about that because I said I just don’t want you to hand me the job,” he said. “I want to earn it against everybody in the country and I feel the same way about this. I want to put myself in a position to earn the title and be able to do it down the road.

“They (Rowan) went to a national search, I had to interview, I had to go through the process. I learned a lot. I was very happy that I became head coach, but I was happy they did it that way and they didn’t hand it to me. I believe you earn things in life; you’re just not given things.”

From there he became the longest-tenured head coach in the program’s history, posting a record of 143-78 with seven conference titles and seven trips to the NCAA Division III playoffs. Two of his teams reached the national semifinals.

He seems to fit at least one of the criteria the policymakers are looking for in the permanent head coach.

“I want somebody who belongs to this area,” Gorman said. “I want somebody who’s really invested in Salem County and the region as a whole and believes in what we’re saying. This isn’t about the X’s and O’s about the game. This is about changing lives for young people.”

But what if he doesn’t become the guy after putting in all the legwork to get the program off the ground? As he has said nothing’s guaranteed.

“I’d still feel like I accomplished something because my main goal was to provide an opportunity for students and especially those in New Jersey to play football in an opportunity where they hadn’t,” Accorsi said. “So if I helped create that which we’re doing today then I’ve reached my goal and I helped do that. 

“I firmly believe that’s why I decided to do this and be involved in this because I wanted to make sure an underserved population was getting what they needed and that’s what I’m really proud of.”

And if he doesn’t land the job he can go back into retirement mode again — until the next big thing comes along to pique his interest.