Sussex County Sports Blog

By Dan Cleary

9/1/2009 - Parzero Perfect For Pats

Matt Parzero has that certain bounce in his step and optimism in his voice that he just can’t hide. Not that he wanted to, but the first-year North Warren football coach is excited.

And why shouldn’t he? Opening day is still a couple of weeks off and the former Lenape Valley standout, who by the way still looks like he can play at the tender coaching age of 32, is embarking on a journey in which he hopes lasts as long as his mentor Don Smolyn, who is entering his 34^th season at Lenape Valley.

Parzero has his work cut out for him, but he is ready for the challenge. The Pats went 0-10 last year and have had only three winning seasons in the program’s 35-year history. Parzero reminds me a little of another North Warren football coach in Marty Yudichak.

Yudichak tried his best to change the football culture at the Blairstown school and had some success. But North Warren will forever be a soccer school and Yudichak realized that and he left.

This is not to say that Parzero can’t turn the Pats around. He certainly can and he has a game plan. The first thing he did was install the Delaware Wing-T offense that has been perfected by Smolyn over the years. Parzero, also a former Smolyn assistant, knows the offense inside and out and he realizes that the Delaware can make up for a lot of physical shortcomings if it is executed right.

Parzero also runs his practices very similar to Smolyn’s, in fact when I went up to North Warren to talk to Parzero, he was running “perfect play” drills. Perfect plays are a conditioning and learning tool in which the team has to run a play to perfection and then run a short sprint.

The team has to run a certain amount of perfect plays in a row before a practice session can end. The funny thing is that when I was visiting Smolyn, he was running the same exact drill the day before. So Don is not a bad guy to emulate, to say the least.

It was neat to see how excited Parzero was about the upcoming season. He knows full well that the Pats have a tough road ahead, but he is ready to make the sacrifices and put in the hard work to get it done.

Now if he can get his kids and the North Warren community to follow his lead, there is no reason why the football program can’t be a successful as soccer.

NEW FACES--In all my years of covering sports in the area I have always enjoyed interviewing first-year head coaches. The slate is clean and all the usual sports clichés come flowing out of their mouths like Niagara Falls, but not because they are avoiding answering questions, it is just they haven’t mastered the art of dealing with the media.

And in this day and age, dealing with the media is almost as important as the Xs and Os of the sport. Coaches have to spend more time with the media than ever before as high school sports coverage has taken off in the 21 years since I covered my first game.

A big part of that growth in Sussex County has been the emergence of Mugs Media, thanks to the hard work of Jerry Morelli, and the internet. There are numerous websites dedicated to high school sports and the days of waiting for the next day’s paper to find out final scores is over. One click and you can find almost every score from High Point to Cape May in any sport.

So here are a couple of helpful hints to all the new head coaches out there in how to deal with the media. No. 1, until you have developed a trustworthy relationship with a member of the media, nothing is off-the-record. You can say it is off-the-record, but there is no law that makes it so. If you don’t want something on air or in print do not say it. Plus you never know who else is listening and that can present a whole different type of problem for a new coach if a parent or administrator hears the wrong thing.

No. 2, return phone calls. If you want your team to get the maximum amount of coverage, return phone calls to the local paper, radio and especially ME! (just joking). The more info the media has about your squad the more positive information can be disseminated.

No. 3, be honest and try to avoid “coachspeak.” Sure, clichés are easy and quick, but an explanation as to why “today wasn’t your day” can go a long way. On the high school level, no one wants a coach to publicly beat up their kids, but coaches can be creative when explaining their team’s shortcomings.

And finally, talk to the media after a tough loss. Sometimes you won’t be approached after a defeat, but if you are, it shows a lot of class to speak on behalf of the program. It sets a good example for your team and also shows good sportsmanship.

Believe me, reporters do not take joy in interviewing losing coaches, but it is part of the gig, so answering a couple of questions will make everyone’s job easier.

And speaking of new coaches, there are two new field hockey coaches in the area which is news in itself. The turnover of field hockey coaches in the old Sussex County Interscholastic League was as high as a change in the Papacy.

Over the course of the last two decades there has been a core of field hockey coaches that had given the SCIL its identity. Bev Keur of High Point, Lisa Bechtel if Newton, Irene Chernati of Wallkill Valley, Stefanie Gastaldello of Vernon and Wendy Morris of Pope John have been the face of the league.

And in the last 10 years, Karen Ruitenberg of Kittatinny and Joanne Hoover of Lenape Valley have followed suit. But that has changed.

After nearly 20 plus years at PJ, Morris has left and she is now the head coach at the Pennington School in South Jersey. Morris was relieved of her lacrosse coaching duties last year and it was no shock that she would leave PJ all together.

Readers of this blog know how fond I am of Wendy and I wish her all the best. But I also hope new Pope John coach Susan Blanchard enjoys the same success and isn’t just a stop-gap. We will have to wait and see.

And the other outstanding coach that has stepped down is Ruitenberg, who wants to spend more time with her family. Karen did an outstanding job in her tenure and went out on a high note as the Cougars shared the final SCIL crown with Newton in her last season.

She has been replaced by former Mount Olive standout Heather Grimm, who played at Rowan University and was an assistant to Gina DeMaio at Hackettstown the last two seasons. Grimm definitely looks like she has the chops to keep Kittatinny a winning program.

That’s it for now, see you on the sidelines.

Search the Site

Sponsors

Sussex County Sports Blog

By Dan Cleary

9/1/2009 - Parzero Perfect For Pats