Tag: 250 Wins

Sunday Conversation: Woodbridge’s Joe Goerge on 250 (or 251?) career wins, spanning NJ and NY

Sometimes, you can do the math over and over again, and it just doesn’t add up.

Such was the case when Woodbridge football assistant Jason Goerge – who coaches with his father, Joe, the head man for the Barrons – called me to discuss a milestone his dad was close to reaching.

Or, maybe he’d already reached it?

After beginning his career at Port Richmond on Staten Island, Joe Goerge eventually landed in New Jersey at Franklin. He won two championships, then resurrected the program at Dayton before heading to South Brunswick, where he won three more state titles. He left there to go to St. Joseph by the Sea back in New York, then came back to South Brunswick before arriving in Woodbridge in 2024.

The St. Joseph by the Sea website put his record at 221-137-4 heading on a web page introducing the 2021 coaching staff. They went 4-5 that year, putting him at 225-142-4. Back at South Brunswick, the Vikings went 5-5 in back-to-back seasons, for a total of 10-10, putting him at 235-152-4.

With a 10-1 season last year, and a 3-0 season this year, that’s 245-152-4.

But before coming to Woodbridge, a Mike Kinney article on NJ.com gave him a 238-158-4 record “at five schools – South Brunswick (twice), Franklin and Dayton in New Jersey, and Port Richmond (where he began his career) and St. Joseph by-the-Sea.”

That would make him 251-159-4, and that his 250th career win actually came two weeks ago in a 26-23 win at Watchung Hills.

Since school websites are not always up to date, and to be honest, we trust Mike Kinney more (and Athletic Director Joe Ward, who confirmed the same)… we’re going with those numbers.

But really, what are we talking about here? Joe Goerge has reached quite the milestone. He’s won multiple championships at multiple schools, including 1994 and 1996 in Central Jersey Group 3 at Franklin, along with Central Jersey Group 5 titles in 2012, 2015 and 2017 at South Brunswick.

A jubilant football coach holds a championship trophy aloft while surrounded by celebrating players in their uniforms, cheering and raising their hands in triumph.
Joe Goerge celebrates with his players after South Brunswick’s 2015 Central Jersey Group 5 championship over Manalapan at Rutgers University. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)

Over the years, he’s touched the lives of thousands of boys and turned them into young men with the life lessons football provides. Accountability, respect, hard work, and overcoming adversity.

Certainly, the championships will be remembered.

But the joy, for Goerge, is in the teaching, and then seeing them years later with their families, their kids, using the lessons they learned – whether at Port Richmond way back when he first started in the 1980s, or in 2040 when he sees anyone on his current Barrons squad, either with their wives and kids, coaching, or maybe playing in the NFL.

To see what they’ve become, what they’ve made out of their lives, that’s the real victory.

And you can be pretty sure there are a lot more than 250 of those victories in Joe Goerge’s career.

And at the rate he’s going, there will be many more to come.

Click below to hear Woodbridge football coach Joe Goerge talk with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko about his long and storied career in coaching, and win No. 250 – whenever it came!