Salem CC women’s basketball program looking for new coach after Marsh resigns after three seasons, tumultuous 2025-26
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
CARNEYS POINT – Brian Marsh has resigned as Salem Community College’s women’s basketball coach after three seasons and a tumultuous 2025-26 campaign. He will remain as the assistant director of financial aid for the college.
Marsh came into the program as an assistant coach and recruiter when the school brought the program back for the 2023-24 season and was handed the team that August when the original coach left before the Mighty Oaks played their first game.
He had a 23-43 record, with a high-water mark of 11 wins last season.
“It was a very difficult decision,” he said. “I’ve been very committed to this program to get thing up and running … it just became two full-time jobs. My coaching’s supposed to be a part-time job and I was doing 60-70 hours a week for the past couple years.
“With recruiting and getting this program started and everything that’s going on it just became very difficult. Obviously, with it being a very frustrating year this year … I just figured it was time to kind of move on and enjoy life. Everything that happened in my life this year (including the loss of his mother and brother) I just thought maybe it was a good time to kind of move this thing on … There’s a quote I saw that sort of goes here: Even lions get tired.”
The athletics department will begin a national search immediately for Marsh’s successor, but there is no timetable on naming his replacement. The job should have some appeal. The college recently added football and volleyball to increase its visibility. Marsh said he had 22 applicants in his most recent search for an assistant coach.
“We’re very grateful for the time and the commitment that Coach Marsh gave to the Salem Community College’s women’s basketball program,” athletics director Bob Hughes said. “His passion and commitment to the young women here was truly remarkable.”
This year’s team went 3-17 and suspended the season with three games left following the arrest of four players that left it without enough player to field a competitive team. They only had eight available players as it was.
The season also was impacted by the postponement of three midseason games when injuries cut into the roster and other off-court issues.
“We strive to create a great student-athlete experience for every student-athlete in every program here at SCC,” Hughes said. “Clearly we fell short of that having to end the season early and we’ll work to make sure the team is given every opportunity to complete the seasons moving forward.”
Even as the turmoil churned, Marsh, 54, always expressed hope he would be coaching the team next season and was actively recruiting locally for it.
“It was a frustrating season,” Marsh said. “Coach Kia (trainer Kiarrah Johnson) did an excellent job of keeping our girls healthy, but when you have eight girls and we just couldn’t keep them healthy it was a balancing act.
“I give my team a lot of credit. My players fought hard and they wanted to finish this thing like I did, and I gave them a lot of credit for that. We easily could have packed it in, there were teams that packed it in in January, but we kept fighting and kept fighting. Obviously at the end we just didn’t have enough players and it was very disappointing.
“It was just a very frustrating year on that end. You try to keep fighting and fighting, eventually it gets to a point where you don’t want to put your players in danger or get them out there playing 40 minutes so they even get more injured. It was one of the those things that unfortunately was out of my hands, the circumstances. The players played hard every game. We could have had a much different season had we been healthy.”
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