Handchen new athletics coordinator at Memorial

Rich Handchen, who has served as golf coach at Brick Memorial for the last two spring seasons and has served as a physical education teacher in the district for the last 24 years, has been named athletics coordinator at the school.

He will work closely with Sara Petraccoro, who coordinates much of the paperwork, and will report to Bill Bruno, the athletic director for both high schools in the township. Don Blair is the athletic coordinator at Brick Township and also coaches girls cross country there.

Handchen succeeds Ron Gerlufsen, who stepped down from the position to become vice principal at Brick Memorial. Gerlufsen also resigned as the head basketball coach after guiding the team to its greatest season in school history, ending with the NJSIAA Central Jersey championship game. Candidates were interviewed for that position last week.

"It's a busy office; the phone's always ringing," said Handchen. "There's always something to do. I finally got the chance."

Handchen will teach physical education for three periods at Brick Memorial and will spend the other part of the day handling duties in the athletic office, which he said includes making schedules, and arranging for bus transportation and game officials. He has prior experience handling his schedules as golf coach. Added to his duties this fall is the start of girls volleyball, which will play a junior varsity schedule.

"Everything is in place," said Handchen. "Hopefully, we won't get a lot of rain like we did early in the week when we had to move things around for field hockey. It will make the job easier."

Handchen taught at Veterans Elementary School for the past 10 years.

Prior to that, he spent 11 years at Veterans Memorial Middle School. In his first year in the district, he was a "floater," with changing assignments from school to school, depending on the need. He then went on to Brick Township High for two years before going over to Veterans Memorial.