By BRIAN TORTELLA

Correspondent

On X @tortreports

Joe Ursino has been at Woodstown for nearly 20 years, but if it weren’t for a phone call, the foresight of a Hall-of-Fame administrator and his strong mentality, there’s a possibility he wouldn’t be where he is today. 

During his 25-year tenure as the athletic director at Woodstown High from 1986 to 2010, Glenn Merkle interviewed numerous potential head coaches.

However, there were not many people who were able to make a first impression on Merkle — who always had firm expectations — like Ursino.

A 2001 Audubon graduate, Ursino had just finished up his Teacher of the Handicapped Bachelor of Arts degree from Rowan University and had just three total years of coaching experience under his belt — two of which came as a volunteer at Audubon while he was at Rowan and one as an assistant in his first year at Woodstown.

In need of a head girls varsity basketball coach prior to the 2006 season, Merkle took a gamble on the inexperienced 24-year-old.

And if the last two decades filled with dedication and commitment have shown us anything, it proved to be a risk well taken.

“I don’t know. Honestly, I am so lucky he did,” Ursino said when asked why he thought Merkle gave him a varsity coaching opportunity at such a young age. “Because I knew I wanted to coach. I didn’t know that I would become a varsity coach as quickly as I did. At the time, I was about 24 or 25 years old.

“When I was a young kid coming in and trying to coach, Merk was firm and direct,” he continued. “He made you understand why he wanted to do things the way he did it. I frequently find myself saying now, ‘I know why Merk taught it this way’. It was from equity to expectations to sportsmanship and spectator control — everything. Very strict.”

Ursino played football during his first two years of high school and basketball through his junior year at Audubon before stepping away to get a job. His major at Rowan — Teacher of the Handicapped — was an easy choice, as his brother is autistic. That just so happened to open the gateway that led him to Woodstown.

His brother’s case manager at the Audubon School District, Gina Scharff, later took a supervisory job at Woodstown. 

“When I graduated from Rowan, she had moved here as the Director of Special Education,” Ursino recalled. “I called her and said, ‘Hey, I just graduated, I’m just trying to find a job, basically,’ and three weeks later I had a job here.”

He started at Woodstown as a special education teacher in 2005 and later became a guidance counselor in 2013. While he was a counselor, he completed his School Administration Master’s Degree.

After 11 years and more than 100 career wins at the helm, he gave up coaching the girls basketball team in 2017 and left Woodstown for the Director of Special Education role at Lindenwold.

That lasted all of 16 months.

“I had honestly always thought I would return here as the director of guidance, because at the time we had the position,” he said. “The woman who pretty much was my mentor was the director of guidance. When she retired, the district did not fill her position. Which, granted, wasn’t devastating to me because I actually really loved the job I had at Lindenwold. I just wasn’t around Woodstown, you know what I mean?

“But then (former Athletic Director) Andrea Bramante retired and I said to myself, ‘okay, well, this will most likely be the only opportunity I have to go back to Woodstown as an administrator.”

Just like that, he was back in Salem County — this time in a position where he could most thrive. 

“He was definitely excited. We always had that saying, ‘Sweat Orange, Bleed Blue.’ That’s Joe, because he did,” Bramante, who was at Woodstown for more than 32 years, including the last five as athletic director, recalled. “He had a passion to not only be at Woodstown, but to be in a role where he was working with coaches and student-athletes. That’s what he was able to do, and excited is probably not even the right word.

“When I first met Joe, he was a special education teacher at Woodstown and then I became the director of guidance. He eventually applied for a school counselor position and we hired him,” Bramante continued. “He was outstanding because of the love he had for his students. He had a passion to help kids, and that’s what his role was and he did a great job. He was an excellent basketball coach and did great things for the girls and the program. He took them to another level. Fast forward to when I was retiring, and Joe had applied, stepped right in, and once again used his wonderful skill set. He used that and became a very admirable athletic director.”

Living in Mullica Hill at the time of the start of his tenure as athletic director made the job a little more challenging for Ursino with his two children much younger at the time.

“This job is difficult when you’re not in close proximity, especially when you have kids that are very active,” Ursino said. “Knowing that my son was going to play sports, I could see all of this coming. So when I got the job as athletic director in December of 2018, I was living in Mullica Hill, and it was fine. My kids were still a little younger, so it wasn’t too crazy. And it just so happened, I made a joke to my neighbor about selling my house in Mullica Hill. Six weeks later, my house was sold in Mullica Hill.”

Ursino and his wife, Catie, relocated their family to Woodstown in July 2019. Their son, Joseph, is entering eighth grade and plays basketball and baseball — and he’s quite the fisherman, too. Daughter Olivia is a rising sixth-grader who plays softball and has a strong passion for singing and music.

Now entering his 20th year at Woodstown, Ursino loves interacting with his students — something made easier by his additional role as assistant middle school principal.

You’ll often see him doing things not normal for most athletic directors, like wandering the cafeteria and talking with students. But that’s what he loves most about his job.

“There aren’t too many athletic directors that go down to the cafeteria and do lunch duty and things like that. For me, it’s a rite of passage,” Ursino explained. “The younger kids see the older kids interact with me. So, as the younger kids become sophomores and the sophomores become juniors — there aren’t too many freshmen who walk through the building and are like, ‘Hey Mr. U.,’ but as they become older and play more sports and know who I am, they become familiar with me. I like to be another resource.”

“Part of it is personal for me in the sense that I had great athletic directors at Audubon,” he added. “Don Borden was my athletic director and became the principal by the time I graduated. Fred Schwartz was in there as well, and Donna Covely was there when I was volunteering. In the sense of athletic directors that I have seen from afar or watched operate or have had as part of my career, they were really good.

“I’m working in athletics, I’m working with students. I still get to be somewhat of a guidance counselor. I still get to use those skills. I’m obviously always teaching when I can.”

Woodstown athletics has had great success in recently despite experiencing major coaching turnover. A whopping six varsity sports — football, boys and girls basketball, field hockey, softball, and girls lacrosse — either just finished their first season with a new head coach or will begin one under new leadership this fall. However, all of those squads qualified for the playoffs, with five winning at least one postseason game during this past school year.

For Ursino, it’s all about everyone being on the same page — and, most importantly, working together. That is the ultimate recipe for success.

“We’ve had some turnover in terms of coaches coming in, but you can’t tell that,” he said. “I have a very good relationship with all of our coaches. In this job, that’s more than 90 percent of measuring success to me. How do we work together? How do the kids understand what our expectations are? The coaches are on board with what my expectations are and we just have good people who put the kids first. We all work really well together. When you have something like that, it’s really easy to get up and come to work.

“I want people who have the same determination to want to be successful,” Ursino added. “I want them to be able to connect with the kids. If they can’t relate and connect to them they’re not going to listen. They have to trust the person in front of them, and that person in front of them has to show they can be a coach and they can be a human.”

Ursino admits that while winning is nice, it’s not everything. Given that the school is located in the least populated county in the state, it faces some geographical challenges.

“When you go to these sports banquets and listen to these kids talk, a small percentage of them get to talk about state championships and winning all four years of their career,” Ursino recognized. “Not every kid gets the chance to do that. But when most kids get up there, they’ve all had the chance to be on the bus, build a relationship with their teammates, talk about team dinners, talk about their coach. Everybody wants to win. But it’s not the end all, be all. And I don’t want that to be what drives us, because it’s not realistic.

“People congratulate me when we win,” Ursino continued. “My response has always been that as long as the refs get there and the buses show up, I’ve done my job. The hard work comes from the coach and the kid. But if they feel comfortable and they feel motivated, you probably are going to see the results like we do for a Group 1 school in Salem County.”

As Ursino prepares to start another year in Orange-and-Blue, he keeps the same “Kids first” mentality — and that stretches way beyond sports. 

“When kids leave here, they should be able to turn around and say to anyone they meet in the next phase of their life what they loved about being here,” Ursino said. “Some of it may be winning, but most of it I want to be about the overall experience that they’ve had. Is it going to happen for everybody? No, you have to be honest. But it can happen for a large majority if you just take the understanding — and this is what we talk about in preseason meetings — there’s so much that goes on in a kid’s life. You can’t lose sight of that just because they’re on a field or in a sports venue. You have to give them the opportunity to grow.”
Note: Ursino will now only serve as athletic director starting the 2025-2026 school year.

What people from all stages of his journey have to say about Joe Ursino:

Dave Ricci, Ursino’s high school basketball coach and health/physical education teacher at Audubon, current superintendent of the Estell Manor School District:

“I taught at Audubon for 16 years and Joe was one of my favorite students. I thought highly of him to bring him on my staff. The big thing is that I’m happy for Joe and his accomplishments. It’s good to see great kids do well. My wife and I have two daughters, Kenzie (rising senior) and Lexi (graduated), who play for Haddon Township. We would go and play Woodstown and it’s great to see Joe. I look forward to seeing Joe in either field hockey and lacrosse.

“I feel proud that one of my former students is successful in what we feel is important. It’s great to see someone who has a great family and great kids succeeding in life. He’s a wonderful young man with a great personality. He knows how to deal with people and kids. To be the athletic director at Woodstown and to take pride in it and do the best job he can, it’s a big deal. He was like that as a student and he’s like that now.”

Don Borden, former athletic director, principal and superintendent at the Audubon School District:

“Joe is somebody who has an affinity for athletics. He has an affinity for the students he serves. I’m sure those things combine to make him someone who would want to help coaches be as successful as possible in terms of helping their student athletes achieve their maximum potential. Joe was a great kid, a great young man, and I’m sure he’s a great AD.”

Tori Smick, former player of Ursino’s who held the WHS girls basketball all-time scoring record prior to last season:

“I know him as ‘Coach U.’ Everyone else knows him as Mr. Ursino. He is truly one of the best people that I know. He was so instrumental when I was in high school, through his support and his guidance with navigating how to get into college. He was always so supportive, and, like I said, truly one of the best humans that I know. To this day, I still keep in touch with him and still talk to him. He was so instrumental in my success, and the confidence he had in me when I was playing basketball. He was so supportive and such a good person.”

Contact Brian Tortella: btortreportssj@gmail.com.