south-jersey-football – Riverview Sports News

UPDATED: Adams puts family first in his decision to step away as Woodstown’s head football coach after 14 seasons, process of finding his successor will be ‘methodical’

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

WOODSTOWN – After spending more than half his life coaching other families’ kids, 18 of those years at his current school and 14 as its head coach, and a whole life ahead of him with his own, John Adams figured it was time.

Thursday afternoon, at the end of an emotional week, he quietly stepped down as Woodstown’s head football coach. He did it genuinely for family reasons.

He informed his coaching staff of his decision earlier in the week and told athletics director Joe Ursino the next day. He chose to tell the players during their weight room session Thursday, a day when the Wolverines’ basketball team had a home game and the other winter sports involving his football players didn’t have a competition.

“I basically said it came down to one major thing,” Adams told Riverview Sports News Friday morning in his first public comments on the decision. “I always would sacrifice things for the program but I always said to myself if my kids ever started having to sacrifice things for me to coach then I’d know I would need to step away.

“My son was starting to get into sports. He’s young, but it was one of those things my wife said to him do you want to play soccer or do you want to go to daddy’s game, because there was a conflict of time. His games would have been Friday nights for his age group and he said he wanted to go to daddy’s game, which I appreciated but at the same time I said a young kid shouldn’t have to be picking something I’m doing. That weighed heavy on me most of the season.”

Another element that made the timing right was the maturity level of the veteran underclassmen to handle such a transition.

Adams, 41, steps away about a season’s worth of wins short of 100 for his career, although he’s never been one to keep up with the numbers. His most recent teams have been a favorite in South Jersey Group I football only to meet some hard-luck finishes before reaching their ultimate goal.

After coming up short in the most heartbreaking of ways each of the previous two years, the Wolverines finally won the SJ Group I title this season and then fell to Glassboro on a last-minute gadget play in the Group I state semifinals.

The former Temple walk-on took the head coaching position in 2010 he admittedly wasn’t ready for but grew into the post and over the next 14 years won five division titles and made 12 playoff appearances. At least three of the seniors on this year’s team will be in the next wave of Wolverines signing to play college football next week – linebacker Jack Knorr (Kutztown), running back James Hill (Kutztown) and quarterback Max Webb (Misericordia).

“I would love to know what people could say negatively about the 14-year career he’s had as our head coach,” said Ursino, who came to Woodstown the same year as Adams. “I’m biased. John and I are friends and also as a former head coach I just look at him and look back on my career and kind of wish I could have had as much of an impact that I’ve seen John have. He was just as much a life figure, a life coach, as he was a football coach.

“I sent him a text message yesterday that it was a bittersweet day. The sweet part is we’re lucky to still have him in our building, still lucky to have him as a leader and someone who can lead our students to be productive citizens when they leave our high school. But it’s bitter because the feeling when you have a coach who’s had so much success and as much of an impact step away, it’s just a really big challenge because I want to make sure that position is filled with the respect of John in mind.”

Adams will remain at the school as a teacher, class advisor and union rep and hopes to stay involved with the strength and conditioning program if that’s the desire of the new head coach. He is hoping the school will stay in-house for his successor and the current staff, which has been together for the length of Adams’ tenure, has several viable candidates within it.

He didn’t rule out a return to coaching in the future, but for now he’s at peace with being a dad to his kids and fan to the Wolverines.

“I did pick the brains of some coaches who previously stepped away in other sports,” he said. “One thing I noticed was some of them said (they) probably stayed a year or two too long and I didn’t want that to be me. That’s why yesterday was so emotional.

“I still have a passion for it. I love the kids to death. But I didn’t ever want to get to a season where I was like gosh, can this get over, like I’m just done.”

Ursino said the process of finding Adams’ successor will not be a quick one, but a methodical one that will provide “multiple opportunities for candidates to demonstrate their ability and knowledge” so the administrative team can make an “informed decision” to identify the coach best to further their mission of “promising every Wolverine a future.”

“This is certainly not going to be the kind of shoot-from-the-hip and let’s get this in place (decision),” he said.

Adams is the third of Salem County’s five head football coaches to vacate since the end of the season, probably the largest shakeup on the county gridiron scene in a long time.

Penns Grove coach John Emel stepped down to take the West Deptford job. Salem’s Danny Mendoza stepped down a couple weeks ago to explore other opportunities. That leaves Schalick’s Mike Wilson and Pennsville’s Mike Healy as the last head coaches standing in Salem County.

Healy now becomes the longest-tenured head football coach in Salem County, beating Wilson by two years.

Reaction internally to Adams’ decision was swift and emotional. Players and former players offered the coach their thanks and messages of gratitude and appreciation on social media all night.

In reply to a post by one of his underclassmen, Adams wrote, “I am going to miss coaching you but I know the leadership is strong with you and the rest of the soon to be seniors. … I am excited to become a fan now.”

The John Adams File

YEAR	RECORD	NOTES
2023	9-3	Diamond Div. champs, Group I state semifinalist
2022	8-2	Diamond Div. champs, CJ-I semifinalist
2021	9-3	SJ-I finalist
2020	4-4
2019	9-2	CJ-I semifinalist
2018	2-8	SJ-1 first round
2017	4-6	SJ-I first round
2016	6-4	SJ-I first round
2015	6-4	Diamond Div. champs, SJ-II first round
2014	7-3	SJ-II first round
2013	11-1	Diamond Div. champs, SJ-II finalist
2012	7-4	SJ-II semifinalist
2011	6-4	Diamond Div. champs, SJ-II first round
2010	3-7
TOTAL	91-55	5 division titles, 12 playoff appearances

New challenge awaits as the Penns Grove football coach is approved as West Deptford’s next coach tonight (UPDATED)

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

PENNS GROVE – John Emel has been at Penns Grove for virtually his entire high school coaching career. He likely could have stayed at the Salem County school forever. It would take something extraordinary to lure him away.

Extraordinary has arrived.

Emel was approved Monday night to become the next head football coach at West Deptford High School. He will succeed Jason Morrell, who stepped away from the Eagles’ sidelines after six seasons to move into administration.

“It’s just an opportunity to go to a place that … is a premier job in the state of New Jersey,” Emel said. “They’ve won seven sectional titles in 21 years; we’ve won three here in the last 12; it’s comparable. It’s a Group II school. With a bigger school you get some more assistant coaches, more players, a freshman program … That’s an advantageous situation.”

There were seven initial interviews, cut to four, then two, and Emel rose to the top of the list in every aspect in all three rounds. He was approved with a minimal amount of pushback from the board 6-1 with two abstentions in the roll call vote.

“I’m excited for the challenge,” said Emel, who didn’t attend the two-plus-hour meeting but listened in remotely. “It’s a great community and they’ve got great kids, and I know that from being there before. That’s the two things that I’m sure about so I’m ready to get to work.”

Emel, 39, had an “emotional” conversation with Penns Grove athletics director Anwar Golden earlier in the day. It was that working and personal relationship he has with Golden, a former Salem High teammate, that made his decision so difficult.

He plans to meet with his new team Tuesday and start the conditioning program there over the winter break while continuing to teach at Penns Grove until the end of the school year.

The change does not impact his position as president of the the West Jersey Football League Coaches Association and he will continue as director of the Battle of the Beach football series. Penns Grove and Schalick are both expected to play in that event in 2024.

Emel has been coaching high school football for 20 years, 18 at Penns Grove and the last 10 as the Red Devils’ head coach. He was the second-longest tenured head coach at his current school in Salem County, a distinction that now falls on Pennsville’s Mike Healy.

The move to West Deptford marks a return to the only break in his tenure. He was an Eagles assistant for two years (2012-13) before returning to Penns Grove as head coach in 2014.

“I only left there because of my love for this place,” Emel said. “When I was there as an assistant that was the kind of place I could stay forever … So it’s very similar to this.”

That admiration is the driving force in West Deptford never playing Penns Grove as long as he is the coach there.

“I want them (Penns Grove) to win every game,” he said. “The reason I went to West Deptford (previously) was because I knew we would never play Penns Grove. I’ve had opportunities to go (other nearby programs) and turned them down because I didn’t want to compete against this place.”

With the opening, Penns Grove is expected to post the position to find what Golden called “the best candidate for the school district and for the students to lead the football team on the field and off the field.” It plans to appoint a committee whose members are “engrained and entrenched in Penns Grove High School” to ascertain the best fit. There is no timetable.

The successful candidate will be taking over what Emel called “a big job” in a community “that demands a ton of attention and work into the program” but with an administration that is “super supportive of football.”

He set the standard. His Red Devils teams were 70-41, made the South Jersey Group I playoffs every year and won at least one playoff game five of the last six years. They won three division titles and two of the school’s three sectional crowns (2018 and 2019) during a three-year stretch in which they went 35-3 with a 25-game winning streak. He currently has five players in college football at the Division II level or higher.

He tried to be as much a mentor to his players as he was a coach, and many of his former players have messaged best wishes and words of encouragement since the news was released.

“It’s been productive,” Golden said of the Emel Era. “He was ahead of the curve. He was always available communication wise, he did what he needed to do from a coaches perspective, he was a competitor. He advocated extremely well for the team and the district and represented us well as a coach among his peers. He definitely gave us an edge about things.”

This past season the Red Devils went 6-6 with a win over a Group I state finalist after a 1-4 start and trailing 19-0 at halftime of their sixth game. They played for the WJFL Diamond Division title on the last weekend of the regular season and produced two 1,000-yard rushers who are both eligible to return with most of the 32 players he finished last season with. The JV team went undefeated and they have a weight room Emel calls one of the best setups in South Jersey.

“The future is bright here; there’s a lot to look forward to,” he said. “So it’s (the move) not even about next year. It’s just an opportunity long term. I was comfortable staying here and I really like my administration here. It’s nothing to do with all that stuff. … It was time for a new challenge.”

Tag: south-jersey-football

Adams steps aside

The John Adams File

Emel on the move