Warren Wolf Returns

The subject of today’s “Hometown View” was not something I was planning on talking about just yet but since it’s in the Asbury Park Press I sort of feel I must address it. For the last couple of weeks I have heard rumblings that Warren Wolf might return to coaching football at Lakewood High School and truthfully I was hoping it was just a rumor. However late last week it was apparent this was more than just a rumor and now the word is out that Wolf will be recommended to the Board of Education Wednesday night as the replacement for Vinnie Currao, who stepped down after two winless seasons.

The 82-year old coaching icon retired from Brick Township High School after the 2008 season as the winningest coach in New Jersey history and a man admired and respected by just about everyone associated with the game of football and education. However it did not take the retired Wolf long to make noise when the Brick Board of Education named Patrick Dowling his successor. Dowling, with no ties to the Green Dragons, got the nod over two others who had both played and coached at Brick under Wolf and it did not sit well with the “Silver Fox” and many other devoted followers of the program. Wolf was vocal publically and privately and he expressed his opinions anytime he was given the opportunity that it was wrong that his replacement was “not a Brick boy.”

I saw Coach Wolf at several games last fall and he especially liked to follow the fortunes of teams coached by former players like Tim Osborn at Jackson Liberty and Dan Duddy at Monsignor Donovan. Word was he was bored and wanted back in and I’ve been told he was offered assistant coaching spots but was looking to run his own program. Enter Lakewood High School, whose program has reached rock bottom with little success and even less interest. The Piners have lost their last 27 games and have not had a winning season since 2001 and some have wondered if the school was considering dropping the program.

Nobody has been more supportive of Warren Wolf than I….as a matter of fact I was the Master of Ceremonies at a dinner last winter honoring him in Atlantic City. I fear this return to coaching will not end well and like others close to him are worried about his health. But I’ll also be interested to see what happens….Lakewood opens at Holmdel in September.