The search is on

Accorsi finds the response overwhelmingly positive as he recruits the region for players for Salem CC’s upstart football program

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

CARNEYS POINT – On the chance you see ever-moving Jay Accorsi walking across campus these days you might mistake him for one of the college’s professors the way that bursting three-ring binder is tucked under his arms.

It’s not one of the three playbooks he has built for the football teams he’s coached in the past, but it is something just as important for the Salem Community College football program he’s trying to build from the ground up.

The binders these days aren’t full of blocking schemes, running plays and coverage plans, they’re loaded with info on players who have shown an interest in joining the Mighty Oaks in the fall — and there are a lot of them.

“This is the second one,” Accorsi said as he flipped through one of the books during one of his recent rare days in the office. “The littler one filled up so fast, I went and bought this myself.

“And this is just (from) the internet and the ones who reached me. Every day I’m putting 15, 20, 30 kids’ names in there. I can’t keep up with all the interest on the internet. I haven’t even put in the ones of the kids I’ve met — and I’ve met at least 2, 3, 4 at every school. 

“I knew it would be popular, I knew there would be a lot of players, I just never envisioned it would be this many.”

From the moment the board of trustees gave the OK to bring football to the school for the first time, Accorsi, the team’s interim (and presumptive permanent) head coach, has been scouring South Jersey pitching the program to high school players who ultimately will be its lifeblood.

He started with the Salem County schools first, then worked his way through Cumberland, Atlantic and Cape May counties and is just finishing up Gloucester County. Camden County will be next and the hope is to get into Burlington County before the holidays.

And that’s just locally. There’s sure to be interest in the nearby states and perhaps a trickle down from current junior colleges about the make the move into the NCAA landscape.

Every place Accorsi has stopped, the reaction has been the same. Coaches and administrators who initially weren’t aware Salem was starting football beamed with excitement at the news. They quickly made him aware of players that fall into circumstances that fuels Accorsi’s belief JUCO football could flourish in New Jersey in general and at Salem in particular.

“It was how I thought it would be, but it’s even more refreshing,” he said. “Everybody’s just been, ‘Hey, coach, it’s about time.’ They’ve had to send their players off to so many different places. Now they don’t need to. They have a place right in their backyard.

“The response has been exactly what I thought it would be and so much more. Every coach has said that and I think that’s awesome.”

And some of the players he finds on those visits aren’t even current players.

At one school, the former head coach Accorsi remembers playing against at Rowan stopped him in the hall on his way out of a meeting with the current head coach to reminisce. When he learned the Mighty Oaks were starting football and the type player they expected to attract, the former coach told Accorsi to wait right there.

The school’s security guard played for the former coach and went to a Division II program where things didn’t work out. The old coach called the guard down from the front office and they all talked. Within minutes, the new recruit, who had been playing in a local semi-pro league to stay in shape and had some pretty good film, filled out a questionnaire, applied to the college and completed his paperwork.

“There are so many of those,” Accorsi said. “I just happened to be there that day. It’s just an awesome story. This is a perfect opportunity for a person like that.”

The Mighty Oaks plan to officially launch the program on Jan. 28, at which time they’ll introduce the permanent head coach and other details related to their inaugural season in the fall.

With all the interest so far, Accorsi suspects they will have a “pretty good number” of players for spring practice. They’re in the binder.