Football practice begins all across the state of New Jersey on August 12th, but just two weeks before camp gets underway, Andy Steinfeld has been unceremoniously let go as East Brunswick football coach after five seasons.
Matt Pazinko, Steinfeld’s Offensive Coordinator and “right-hand man,” as he calls him, has been named interim head coach for the coming year.
Why the late change? In an exclusive interview with Central Jersey Sports Radio, Steinfeld says it was all a surprise to him.
He says it started a couple of weeks ago when Athletic Director Frank Malta told him he would have to re-interview for the job.
In New Jersey, coaches must be approved for their job on an annual basis. And though Steinfeld says he never had to interview for it after any of his first four seasons, he didn’t question it, given that he had retired in January after more than 23 years as a physical education teacher, and figured as football coach he’d be considered an “outside employee.” That interview took place on July 23rd. “I had no problem doing it,” Steinfeld says.
Steinfeld says the seven-member committee he interviewed with included three “community members” who were “against our program, bashed our program,” and had complaints about East Brunswick’s middle school football program.
Steinfeld says the middle school team recently allowed seventh-graders to participate. And he says the community members – who are involved in youth football leagues in town that aren’t affiliated with East Brunswick schools – told him they were against that concept, saying those students “shouldn’t be playing for the middle school” and believe that the Bears program is “taking players away from them.”
Steinfeld says Malta still believed that he would be approved, but this past weekend, visited him personally to deliver the news that there were not enough votes on the Board of Education to approve him, and that he was no longer the coach.
Steinfeld addressed his team and team parents Monday night, getting nothing from support in return. Malta also addressed the parents, and Steinfeld says Malta has been “nothing but professional and supportive,” both during his five-year tenure in East Brunswick, and during “this unfortunate situation.”
Malta, reached Monday morning, said he could not comment on the matter. A request for comment from the Superintendent’s office was not immediately returned.
Steinfeld was 18-28 in five seasons, but in one less year, had four more wins than his predecessor, Bob Molarz, who saw the Bears go 14-47 under his watch, never winning more than four games in any of his six seasons at the helm from 2013-2018.
Steinfeld’s Bears went 4-5 his first year, then 4-4 in the wacky COVID year, coming out of it with an 8-2 campaign and a playoff appearance in 2021, losing 28-14 in the opening round of the playoffs to Toms River North.
And East Brunswick has been cyclical with talent over the years. Marcus Borden won titles in 2004 and 2009 as Bears’ head coach. The first of those teams won the Central Jersey Group 4 title over Jackson, finishing 10-2, but they went 2-8 in 2005, and 5-5 each of the next two seasons.
In the 2009 title season, when they beat Brick Memorial 9-0 to win the CJ4 title in the snow at The College of New Jersey in Ewing, East Brunswick finished 8-4, and went a respectable 6-4 the next season, before going 1-9 in 2011 and 2-7 in 2012, Borden’s last season at the helm.
Click below to hear Andy Steinfeld talk with Mike Pavlichko of Central Jersey Sports Radio:
