After six years as Athletic Director at St. Thomas Aquinas, longtime administrator Jerry Smith announced Friday morning he’ll be stepping down at the end of the school year, on June 30th.

Smith – who will turn 79 in late August – has long been a household name in the world of Middlesex County athletics, having coached basketball, baseball and track at multiple schools, including a long baseball career as head coach at JFK in Iselin. He remains one of the winningest coaches in GMC history, going 248-119 in 15 seasons with the Mustangs, including eight division titles, and sectional championships in 1992 and 1997.

He’s in the Woodbridge Township Athletics Hall of Fame, and the Hoboken Athletics Hall of Fame as well. It was from there he retired as an eighth-grade middle school teacher in 2004 to lead the St. Joseph-Metuchen athletic program, where he remained for more than a decade, which saw some amazing St. Joseph basketball teams in the mid the early 2010s, with a Karl-Anthony Towns-led squad qualifying for three straight Tournament of Champions, winning it all in 2014 with Towns, Wade Baldwin, and Marques Towns, all D1 recruits.

We talked with Jerry at length for a wide-ranging interview, from how he got started in coaching and athletics, the development of programs at St. Joe’s and Aquinas, and even how he never meant to get into coaching – he initially had gone to seminary to be a priest.

Click below to listen to Jerry Smith talk with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko about stepping down from St. Thomas Aquinas at the end of the year: