Tag: wjfl

Adams steps aside

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

YEARRECORDNOTES
20239-3Diamond Div. champs, Group I state semifinalist
20228-2Diamond Div. champs, CJ-I semifinalist
20219-3SJ-I finalist
20204-4
20199-2CJ-I semifinalist
20182-8SJ-1 first round
20174-6SJ-I first round
20166-4SJ-I first round
20156-4Diamond Div. champs, SJ-II first round
20147-3SJ-II first round
201311-1Diamond Div. champs, SJ-II finalist
20127-4SJ-II semifinalist
20116-4Diamond Div. champs, SJ-II first round
20103-7
TOTAL91-555 division titles, 12 playoff appearances

Eagles moving

Pennsville appeal to WJFL approved, moving into what should be a more competitive division for a team on the rise that went 6-4 last season

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

Pennsville enjoyed its best football season in eight years this fall and were rewarded for it by being moved into a weak division with more travel when the initial West Jersey Football League division reshuffle was announced last month.

The Eagles knew they were going to appeal .

They had that appeal heard and approved 6-0 Friday and now they will play in a division more closely aligned with their upward trend and program goals.

“When you look at what we’re trying to do as a program, the West Jersey Football League was set up to help teams that were at all areas and all levels, whether you were trying to rebuild your program, whether you were trying to maintain your program or whether you were trying to be a competitive program,” Pennsville athletic director Jamy Thomas explained. “We want to be a competitive program. That division we were in was not going to allow us to continue to do that for the next two years.”

Basically, the Eagles changed places with WJFL newcomer Mastery Charter and – pending the outcome of other appeals – are now set to play in a division that includes Audubon (5-5), Camden Catholic (3-7), Collingswood (4-6), Overbrook (6-4), Paulsboro (1-7) and West Deptford (3-8). The other teams in that alignment are a mix of Group I and Group II programs that had a combined record of 22-37 last season.

They initially were assigned a division with Buena (0-8), Clayton (5-5), Gateway (2-8), Gloucester Catholic (2-7), Lindenwold (1-9) and Pitman (6-4). The other teams in that alignment had a combined 16-41 record.

Mastery Charter was 2-5 as an independent this past season, 4-8-1 over the last two years. In terms of the WJFL geographic footprint, Pennsville would only add one-tenth of a mile to its prospective travel had it played all its games in the new division on the road. Mastery Charter, which does not have its own field, would have traveled a total of 58 miles in its initial placement; it now travels 112 miles.

The outcome of other appeals was not immediately known. WJFL member schools now have until Dec. 20 to vote to approve the changes.

“I’m very excited about it,” Pennsville coach Mike Healy said of the change. “I think it’s going to give us more opportunities to get in the playoffs, the big reason we wanted to move up.

“We bring back most of our team and we really want to kind of help our competition level because we believe we’re ready to start handling that.”

Given the relative strength of the division, the initial alignment would have made it difficult to bank power points necessary for playoff consideration. Essentially, the Eagles could have won their new division and not made the playoffs, which teams in stronger divisions could have a lesser record and not even won a division game and made the postseason field.

Pennsville finished tied for second in the Royal Division and was the first team out of this year’s South/Central Jersey Group I playoffs, but won the regional consolation tournament.

“That was the concern we had,” Healy said. “Just looking at how the playoffs have shaken out the last couple years, the number of wins, whether right or wrong, is not the most important thing. It’s who you’re playing, the group of schools you’re playing and their competitiveness.”

The Eagles graduate only four seniors, but they could not use their projection of experience as an argument towards their appeal. There is no guarantee they will have immediate success in their new division, but the alignment will better allow them to pursue those goals.

“I see the trajectory of our team moving up; we need to challenge ourselves,” Thomas said. “We want to be a playoff team and a South Jersey contender and a state contender and we have to do that from a division that provides us those challenges throughout the regular season to get better.”

Cover photo by Lorraine Jenkins