East Brunswick coaching change saga ends with few answers, and questions about Bears’ future

The East Brunswick Board of Education – complying with a vastly watered-down request from Central Jersey Sports Radio, at the district’s asking – has fulfilled its OPRA request, providing dozens of emails related to the unceremonious dismissal of Bears football coach Andy Steinfeld in July.

The emails shed some light on the process, but with redactions citing “deliberative process privilege,” “personnel records” and “attorney-client privilege,” they still leave many questions unanswered.

The main takeways include:

• St. Bart’s Buffalos President Chad Seyler questioned the Board’s posting for the football head coaching job, citing a lack of publicity over it to attract qualified candidates.
• Superintendent Dr. Victor Valeski saw Steinfeld’s retirement from teaching as an opportnity to re-evaluate the football program.
• The head football coach position was originally posted in February, with only four applicants, only one of whom – Steinfeld, himself – actually interviewed.
• Parents in the district expressed their concerns to school administrators and didn’t appreciate Steinfeld being let go just two weeks before preseason camp was to begin.

The main questions, however, still remain, including why the Board of Education didn’t seek a new coach relatively quickly after the season, as typically is the case, as well as why Selyer and Buffalos treasurer Dave Lonski were on the committee that re-interviewed Steinfeld, since they had no connection to – and no children involved in – any of the district’s football programs.

In an email dated July 29th, with the Subject “Confidential Board Updates,” Dr. Valeski updated the Board on multiple subjects, including the “Football Head Coach Vacancy.”

He wrote: “Andy Steinfeld retired from EBPS last school year. While coaching positions are never guaranteed, Andy’s action created an opportunity to make sure we had the best Head Coach candidate as we look to build our football program with Dr. Bucior as our new high school principal. The position was posted in February and we initially had four candidates. We established an interview committee with community membership and district leadership.”

The email then named all the members of the committee, which included Seyler, Lonski and Vito Tropeano – whose son graduated from East Brunswick the month before, in June, and played for Steinfeld his senior year after transferring back home from Elizabeth. Tropeano told Central Jersey Sports Radio earlier this fall he was in favor of Steinfeld being retained.

Also on the committee was Ed Bucior, the new East Brunswick High School Principal, as well as Athletic Director Frank Malta, director of HR Nicole Tibbets and Valesky.

Central Jersey Sports Radio initially reported those names earlier this month.

After mentioning that Steinfeld’s interview date was “shifted due to vacation conflicts,” he added that “as we got closer to the interdate [sic] date, three of the four candidates decided not to participate.”

The next nine lines of text in the first email are redacted, but Valeski followed by saying that the administrators on the panel agree that they should keep Matt Pazinko, previously an assistant, as interim head coach to have an “easier transition without a pause in the summer season with it being so close to our first game.”

Tibbets followed up asking about the three candidates who eventually did not interview for the position, saying “do you know what contributed to their decision or what their reason was for not moving forward?”

Valeski replied by indicating one of the candidates had “applied for the wrong job,” another got an offer elsewhere, while the third simply didn’t respond to a request for an interview, something he noted was “odd.”

Seyler appeared to address the issue of a lack of candidates weeks earlier, clearly unhappy about how the whole process was going. In an email dated July 19, he wrote to Valeski and Board of Education President Laurie Lachs: “Is this a joke. Closed application process with zero publicity. And I’m going to be a conspiracy guy here and think the other applicants might be the assistant coaches at Eb [sic] and they pulled out. Sent from my iPhone. Farce once again.”

Seyler asked Tibbets again via email, three days later, “Just a quick question. Why was the job opening application closed so quickly and not publicized? I know a few coaches that would have been interested but had no idea there was an opening.”

Tibbets replied that the position had been posted on February fifth, adding “It was open until we began scheduling interviews earlier this month.”

The job was never posted for publicly, however – only internally. Sources with knowledge of the situation told CJSR that Pazinko had initially been askes to hold down the fort as interim coach until they could post for the job publicly and make a permanent hire, having had no other internal candidates. When Pazinko refused, the sources said, the decision was made to retain him for the year.

But since coaches are on a one-year agreement in New Jersey – although State Assemblyman Benjie Wimblerly (D-Paterson) has a measure to change that – Pazinko would have to reapply for the job if he wishes to come back as East Brunswick football coach next year.

The Bears finished 2-7 this year, a slight improvement over the past two seasons under Steinfeld, with wins over Hamilton and South Brunswick. The Bears finished 1-9 last season, and 1-8 in 2022, but were 8-2 in 2021, coming off a COVID-shortened year that hurt many local programs, but apparently not as much in East Brunswick.

High school sports are often cyclical, and even longtime coach Marcus Borden – now an analyst for Central Jersey Sports Radio – had similar down years around his two state championships in 2004 and 2009. That included an 0-10 season in 2001, a 2-8 campaign in 2005 and a 1-9 season in 2011, after the second title. Borden spent 30 years as Bears’ head coach, retiring after the 2013 season – on his own accord – with a lifetime record of 142-131-1.

While Valeski’s desire to re-examine the football program is not without merit considering the team’s record over the past two seasons – a combined 2-17 during that span – typically that evaluation is done immediately after a season, with new coaches being hired in December, January and even as late as March.

When Joe LaSala left Woodbridge in March, even that was considered late in the game, and the coaching carousel hit several other schools, as South Brunswick’s Joe Goerge left to take the Barrons’ job, and Roselle’s Ibrahim Halsey left Roselle to coach the Vikings, with the Rams hiring Tyrone Turner.

On July 30th – the day Central Jersey Sports Radio broke the story of Steinfeld’s dismissal – Valeski wrote in an email ostensibly to the Board (though no “To” emails or names are shown in the files shared with CJSR): “I got word that our former Head Football Coach Andy Steinfeld is giving an interview to Central Jersey Sports Radio this afternoon. At this point, I do not intend to give remarks to the media on this issue. Andy was not fired. He fulfilled his contract and retired from the district.”

The night before, a parent of a football player – who asked that his name not be used when contacted by CJSR – wrote to Valeski after having attended a meeting with parents and players about Steinfeld’s dismissal, saying “Now that the players have been participating in voluntary workouts since the middle of June, we have had (2) 7 Vs 7 games and we are scheduled to hand out the gear this week, we now find out that our coach has not been hired for the 2024 season. I have a few questions concerning the decision that has been made at the 11th hour.”

Among the questions:

• “If there was no intention of hiring Coach Steinfeld back, why did we wait until now to make that decision? Since, he has already started planning for the 2024 season, including, but not limited to, team events, team dinners, meetings with the quarterback club, starting the push the limit fund raiser, just to name a few things that are already in motion at this point of the season.”
• “Since when are non-district staff/board members permitted to sit in on interviews, ask questions and provide feedback on district personnel decisions?”
• “Since there was a committee to conduct the interviews and provide recommendations, was this committee approved by the board?”
• “If there was a creation of a committee, why was no one that is currently involved in the football program invited to join such a committee? Considering the people that are part of this committee were people that currently do not have anyone involved in the High School/Middle School football programs.”

He also called the decision not to retain Steinfeld “completely unfair for everyone involved in the football program.” Reached by Central Jersey Sports Radio today, the parent said he never received as much as a word from Valeski even acknowledging his email.

Reached for an interview request on several occasions, the district said it could not comment on the matter, including questions about the interview and committee process and whether it followed district policy or New Jersey state law.

Ultimately, while Steinfeld says the main complaint from Seyler and Lonski during his interview were about the East Brunswick middle school program, which starting in 2022, had seventh graders playing with eighth graders. That program remains as is, just without Steinfeld as head coach.

So what changed from the winter and spring to July that necessitated a coaching change just two weeks before preseason practice got underway? The season was well over by then, there appear to have been no new developments to or complaints from parents to speak of, and the district never removed seventh graders from the program.

But there was one person missing. That’s Lou Figueroa, the assistant superintendent who was let go as a “cost-cutting measure” when the East Brunswick school district face a major budget shortfall. We spoke to him off-the-air in October, and while he couldn’t discuss any internal conversations, he had one stirring response to the whole situation: “This wouldn’t have happened on my watch.”

Figueroa is running for a seat on the Board of Education this November 5th, along with a slate of two other candidates, all seeking full three-year terms: his wife, Jennifer Figueroa, and Jamie Falco. Anna Braun is running on the same slate for a one-year unexpired term.

As far as actual football goes, should Pazinko not seek the head coaching job after this season, the East Brunswick students in the Bears football program will be playing for their third different head coach in three seasons.