OPINION: Controversy over East Brunswick football leaves more questions than answers

The news that East Brunswick’s football coach, Andy Steinfeld, would not be brought back to lead the Bears in 2024 was surprising, to be sure, but not nearly as stunning as the timing.

It came just two weeks before the start of preseason camp.

Most coaching changes are made shortly after the season, in December or January, with new hires coming on in January or February. Even March is a bit late.

So to have the decision made in late July, with preseason camp across New Jersey set to start on August 12th, certainly raised a lot of eyebrows.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Steinfeld spent more than two decades as a teacher in East Brunswick, retiring this past January. He spent a similar amount of time involved with the football program, whether as a player under Marcus Borden, or working as an assistant on his state championship teams, or as the head coach for the last five years, where he won more games than his predecessor did in six seasons.

Steinfeld was made to interview for his job before a committee of seven people, which included three “community members” who Steinfeld says “bashed his program.” Their main gripe seemed to be that Steinfeld and the district allowed seventh graders to participate on the East Brunswick middle school team, delving into a pool of players who would normally be in the town’s Pop Warner programs.

All that said, this leaves us with many more questions than answers:

Why wait until late summer to make a change?

Working with the knowledge that the community members involved with the committee seem to be “football” people and presume to know the game, why would any of them push for a change now?

Even Joe LaSala – who stepped away from Woodbridge in March – already had been snapped up, by Fairleigh Dickinson University, as a wide receivers’ coach. Who on Earth is going to leave their team two weeks before camp, and start from scratch somewhere else?

It’s grossly irresponsible, at best. The community members should know better to bring it up now, and the Board of Education could have told them to go away and come back in four months.

Either make the move in December, right after the season, or the could have even done it in January, after Steinfeld retired as a teacher. Sure, it would still be a smack in the face to a man who has given his all to East Brunswick football since he was a teenager, but at least it would have made more sense from a timing perspective.

What’s most telling is that there were no qualified internal applicants for the job before Steinfeld’s interview, and the district never even bothered to post the job publicly.

Surprise, surprise.

Why was a “committee” formed to interview Steinfeld?

We reached out to a handful of coaches this week. While coaches are reappointed annually at public schools in New Jersey, and approved by local Boards of Education, it’s often a formality.

But none we spoke to said they ever had to interview before a committee other than when they originally got hired. Steinfeld said he assumed it was because he was no longer a teacher in the district, as of January, so he didn’t think it was unusual, and went along with it.

Why were there seven members of the committee?

Steinfeld has said on the record that even principals don’t face seven-member committees when they’re interviewing for a job. Maybe, maybe not. One coach we talked to said the committee he interviewed with when he got hired included the Athletic Director, the coach of another team at the school, the high school principal, and one parent.

And he never had to re-interview for his post either. Most coaches we talked to said such an interview – after holding the position for several years – is not the norm.

Why were “community members” tied to local youth football programs on the committee?

While including a parent on a committee may be a good idea, why were three of the seven members on the committee from the community? At least one of the members even represented a local Pop Warner organization. And this is where the questions really start to fly.

Why would the East Brunswick school district invite essentially someone from a competing interest to sit on its committee and determine the future of the program? Isn’t that a conflict of interest?

When St. Joseph-Metuchen set out to begin a football program a couple of decades ago now, did they form a committee with members representing Immaculata or Bishop Ahr? Don’t worry, we’ll answer for you. The answer is “No.” (Ironically, the man who started the St. Joe’s program was Bob Molarz, Steinfeld’s predecessor at East Brunswick.)

If East Brunswick High School had “Dollar Pizza Day” for lunch every Friday, and a local pizzeria claimed its business was being hurt because seniors were staying in for pizza instead of visiting their restaurant at lunch, would the district cancel it? Of course not.

So why is a member (or multiple members) from the local youth football program, who has no children enrolled at East Brunswick High School, influencing who the district hires as its coach?

Will seventh-graders remain in the middle school program?

We didn’t get a response back last week from East Brunswick Athletic Director Frank Malta about whether seventh-graders still can compete in the middle school football program. However, a number of new kids have signed up for the program.

Which, naturally, begs the next question…

If seventh-graders are still in the program, what was really achieved?

Steinfeld is out as the East Brunswick High School football coach, and assistant Matt Pazinko is in as Interim coach for a year. So, if the seventh-grader issue was the main sticking point, and it remains in play, what was really achieved in East Brunswick?

Essentially, the five-year head coach was been replaced two weeks before preseason camp, and that’s it. Luckily, Pazinko has been in the program a long time as well, and that will lead to some stability for the kids, but let’s not forget why Steinfeld, Pazinko, or anyone else have been at East Brunswick High School for a long time: the kids.

That’s why we all do this. As another Middlesex County coach told me over the last few days: With Steinfeld, “There was no ego. It was always about the kids.” One AD called him a “gentleman” who ran a quality program because he could “tell kids were being coached well.”

It should always be about the kids.

Too bad the East Brunswick Board of Education didn’t take that into consideration.

Too bad the East Brunswick Board of Education took the easy way out and didn’t vote on Steinfeld’s reappointment. Without a vote, none of them are on the record as saying “no” to Steinfeld and caving to outside forces who have no investment in the Bears’ football program.

That means none of them can be held accountable by the taxpaying public for this whole fiasco.

Maybe, in that case, all of them should be.

As often happens in these types of situations, the kids come last, and the egos come first.

It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last.

Editors’ Note: We reached out to the East Brunswick School District for comment from the Superintendent or any other official they deemed appropriate. We were asked to email a request, but we did not receive a response, to our initial email and another follow-up. We also reached out to one of the community members on the panel, whose name is being withheld because it has not been made public. That person declined to comment.