Ware on the rise

Penns Grove board approves football, basketball coach Damian Ware to be assistant principal at high school

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

PENNS GROVE – Damian Ware is going to need a bigger plate.

Already Penns Grove High School’s head football coach and head basketball coach, Ware added assistant principal to his resume Monday night when the school board approved him for that position at the high school. He will oversee discipline and attendance.

The 48-year-old former Penns Grove athlete has been in school system virtually his entire life and will be leaving his fifth-grade classroom at the Paul W. Carleton School for the administration post.

He is just starting his first season as the Red Devils’ head football coach (after 10 years as an assistant to the school’s last three head coaches), tasked with rebuilding a program that went winless last season, and is coming up on his 14th season as their head basketball coach.

He plans to hold onto both coaching positions and is comfortable maintaining all three positions.

“He’s definitely capable of doing it,” Red Devils athletics director Anwar Golden said.


Being in the high school every day as an administrator, Ware said, will allow him to reach many more students than just the teams he coaches.

“I pride myself on being able to compartmentalize, being able to use what you need when you need to use it and putting other things to the side so you can focus on those things,” he said. “It’s tough sometimes when you have multiple things, but if you can compartmentalize and do things and make sure you take care of any responsibility first that you may have before you try to do another thing (it’s doable). Where it gets a little clunky is when you try to do everything at once; that’s when it becomes tough.

“There’s 24 hours in a day, so you have plenty of time in a day to get everything accomplished if you are prioritizing and focusing on what you need to do for that plan. I’m very good at planning, very good at compartmentalizing and I’m very good at structure. Those are three things I pride my life on. That’s how I’ve gotten to the point in life where I’m at and been successful, because I can separate things and use them when I need to and put them away when I need to.”

Ware has had offers to become assistant principals at other schools the last couple years, but turned them down out of loyalty to Penns Grove in a career that sounds a lot like the title of a Drake song.

“I really feel like I’m tied to Penns Grove,” he said. “I’m a Penns Grove graduate, my son’s a Penns Grove graduate and this is going into my 20th year as a Penns Grove teacher. I started off as a long-term substitute and now I’m moving to an assistant principal. Yeah, I started from the bottom and now I’m working to the top.

“I have of loyalty. That’s one thing I pride myself on, being loyal, and working to build things. I don’t like having things handed to me, so I like to build and work towards any goal I try to accomplish.”