Spotswood Defensive Coordinator Steve Gluchowski (right) with the Chargers’ Matt Dmitzak at the team’s 2022 postseason banquet, Gluchowski has taken over as head coach at New Brunswick. (submitted photo)
The New Brunswick football program had not won a state title in decades before it won a pair in 2003 and 2006 under John Quinn, and now it’s been almost two decades since those championships.
That will be the long range task at hand for Steve Gluchowski, who was recently hired as the Zebras’ new football coach, taking over for Nate Harris.
It’s the first head coaching job for Gluchowski, who comes to the Hub City after two seasons as defensive coordinator for Chris Meagher at Spotswood, who turned around a struggling program last season to go 7-3.
The 46-year-old Gluchowski is a 1994 graduate of Sayreville, where he played for Sal Mistretta, further extending the legendary mentor’s coaching tree, which lost two of its most prominent names to retirement this past season in Edison’s Matt Fulham and Sayreville’s Chris Beagan. Both won championships recently; Fulham this past season, and Beagan in 2016 and 2018.
Met the Zebra for the first time today and hit the weight room. Great first day! pic.twitter.com/ksqGwGyKkM
— New Brunswick Zebras football (@NBzebrafootball) April 27, 2023
While the goal is always to win a championship, Gluchowski will have other goals to reach first, most notably bringing New Brunswick football back to some level of prominence. And to do that, he will have to grow the program, with many student-athletes moving out of town or playing other sports in recent years.
In the past five years under Harris, the Zebras went 10-34, with their best season a 4-6 campaign in 2021.
Click below to hear new New Brunswick football coach Steve Gluchowski talk with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko: