Central Jersey Sports Radio Boys’ Basketball Coach of the Year: Piscataway’s Bob Turco helped Chiefs turn themselves into GMC contenders again

See that headline up above? Most people would have written that to say “Bob Turco turned Chiefs into GMC contenders.”

But if we’d written that, he probably wouldn’t be too happy.

Turco left St. Thomas Aquinas after last season to take over a Piscataway program that has had more than its share of success over the years, but it had been a while since they were considered one of the top teams in the Greater Middlesex Conference.

It was a major coup for Piscataway.

After getting the Chiefs’ job at the end of last April, Turco kept the kids together, and had them play together as much as they were allowed to over the summer and in the fall. They bonded, competed and got better.

And when the season started, they kept getting better, kept improving. All the credit to them, says Turco. He saw their potential, but they bought in, he’ll tell you. They realized their potential, he’ll say.

For that, Turco will take it, but he’ll also tell you this award belongs more to his players than him, because they are the ones that turned themselves into contenders.

Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that he’s an excellent coach.

He’s one of only two current GMC boys’ coaches who have ever won the GMC Tournament, the other being Colonia’s Jose Rodriguez, his former player at Carteret. He’s 398-129 in 19 seasons as a head coach at four schools – in addition to Piscataway and STA, he also was the head man at Notre Dame in Lawrenceville, which followed his first head coaching job at Monroe.

He’s also now been to the county finals at all four stops along the way, after making the GMC title game this year, falling to Colonia.

“I probably should retire now,” he jokes. But he won’t.

Those he counts as his mentors have impeccable credentials in their own rights. There’s Bob Molarz, who gave him his start as a seventh- and eighth-grade coach at Carteret. He spent a few years at Colonia where he learned how to run a program – and about defense – from Ken Pace. Then it was back to work with his brother, Dave, at Carteret. Later, the two coached against each other when Bob was at Monroe and his brother was at St. Joe’s in the 2010 GMC Tournament Final, the only siblings to face off as head coaches in that game. He worked under Ken Pace at Colonia as well, another GMC Tournament Champion.

OK, so maybe it’s not just the players’ award, too. Maybe it actually does “take a village,” as Turco would put it.

Click below to hear from Piscataway Coach Bob Turco, the 2024-25 Central Jersey Sports Radio Boys’ Basketball Coach of the Year: