Joe Goerge celebrates with his players after South Brunswick’s 2015 sectional championship over Manalapan at Rutgers University. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
Joe Goerge is back for a second run at South Brunswick.
The 67-year-old Goerge – who led the Vikings to unprecedented success in his seven-year tenure from 2012 to 2018, including a 63-17 record and the only three state titles in program history – was approved Thursday night by the South Brunswick Board of Education.
Goerge stepped away after the 2018 season. His sons Michael and Jason had been coaching with him for a decade-and-a-half, and their daily drive down during football season from their teaching jobs in Springfield and Elizabeth was getting to be too much.
At the time, the coach said he wasn’t retiring, and after a season as an assistant at Matawan with his sons, Goerge took the head coaching job at St. Joseph by the Sea in Staten Island. He began his coaching career in the early ’80s at Port Richmond on the Island, before coming to New Jersey and coaching at Franklin, where he won state titles in 1994 and 1996, presiding over a powerhouse that won titles before him with Len Rivers in 1984 and ’87, Charlie Weis in 1989, and Joe Stinson in 1990.
He later coached six years at Dayton, then came to South Brunswick, which hadn’t won a championship, but where Rick Mantz – who’d had great success at Hillsborough – began a rebuild that took the Vikings to their first playoff berth in 30 years in his debut season with a team that featured future Rutgers star and NFLer Mohamed Sanu.
Goerge arrived on the scene in 2012, and promptly won a sectional championship, winning two more in 2015 and 2017.
After a two-year run at Sea, Goerge has a career coaching mark of 226-146-4.
Click below to hear Mike Pavlichko talk with Joe Goerge about his return to South Brunswick:
That’s a fake person that’s not me! He is a great coach
That was not me i don’t know who used that as a name! Coach was a great coach and wish nothing but the best for him and his family
That’s not me somebody used me and Matt’s name he was a great coach