By BRIAN TORTELLA
Correspondent
@tortreports on Instagram
Dan Uszaki entered his car ready for his one-way, hour-plus-long commute to Burlington County.
A Deptford resident at the time, the longtime Northern Burlington High athletic director actually enjoyed the drive. After all, he did it for the two decades.
He loved Northern Burlington, too. The administration, teachers, students. Everything about the Mansfield Township school made him feel like he was at home.
But there came a breaking point for Uszaki. Raising two children, he often missed the majority of their athletic events, leaving him to question whether or not the sacrifice was worthwhile.
“It was always a hustle,” Uszaki explained. “Not only was I an athletic director, which takes up a lot of time, but I was an athletic director far away from home. On a good day I could get there in 50 minutes. On a bad day, I would get there in an hour and 15 minutes. For 22 years I did that commute up and back. Two-and-a-half hours of my life in a car.
“I was so excited when FaceTime started becoming a thing. I said ‘This is great because I can watch my kids do this.’ But then after a year or two of FaceTiming, I thought it was the worst thing ever. I thought, ‘I’m going to sit here and watch my kids grow up through a device?’ I need to be able to get out to those events.”
A 1998 graduate of Central Bucks East High (Pa.), Uszaki played volleyball, basketball and football during his scholastic days before becoming the first member of his family to go away for college. He earned his bachelors degree in English/Language Arts from Ursinus College in 2002, student-taught at North Penn High and got his first teaching gig at a private boarding school in Malvern, Pa.
It didn’t take long in the classroom for both Uszaki and his authority to realize that he wasn’t just an average teacher. Extremely rare for a newcomer, he was named the English department chair after his first month on the job.
“I think very early on, people were recognizing me for my energy. And I didn’t appreciate what people were telling me,” he said. “That department chair thing sounded kind of silly — it was a small private boarding school, and at that time I was only getting paid $22,000 a year.
“But actually, that was someone saying ‘hey look, some of these teachers have been here 10 years, but we want you to be the guy who organizes it all.’”
Learning the ropes of the education system and thriving in the classroom, everything was going well for Uszaki.
Then disaster struck.
What was supposed to be a fun day of paintballing turned into a nightmare. Uszaki, who was living in Mantua at the time, suffered a severe injury to his right eye after getting directly blasted by a paintball shot.
“Somebody was being very irresponsible with a paintball gun, and they decided to shoot into a crowd of people as a joke. Unfortunately, they hit me in the one spot that they should not have hit me,” recalled Uszaki, who now has to wear custom contact lenses. “If it hits me anywhere else on my body, I continue my life there, but it took me down this weird career path.”
Uszaki embraced the difficult obstacle of losing nearly all of his vision in his right eye and took it as a sign.
“I ended up in Rose Eye Hospital in-and-out for over a year. I had to reinvent my life,” he said. “I decided I was going to be a teacher of blindness and visual impairment.”
A highly motivated Uszaki — who was teaching and coaching at Northern Burlington at the time — immediately pursued his first masters degree in Health and Behavioral Sciences with an emphasis on Blindness and Visual Impairment from Columbia University.
The only problem?
Columbia University is located in Upper Manhattan, which was 112 miles from where he lived and 78 miles from his work.
Uszaki relocated to New York City to be closer, but that didn’t last long. He quickly recognized that city life wasn’t for him. South Jersey is where he belonged.
“After about a month, I decided I wasn’t going to live in New York. You want to talk about a commute now?” said Uszaki, who finished up the program in 2006. “I was living in a townhome in Mantua and I was commuting to Northern Burlington doing my second year of teaching and coaching sports, with one eye, and taking classes up in New York.
“On some days, I would go right from Mantua to Northern Burlington, up to New York City — Harlem, 125th and Amsterdam — Take my two classes and leave there at 9:00 p.m. and start the two-plus hour journey back to Mantua just to do it all over again.”
Uszaki met his eventual wife, Kim, just prior to moving out of state. A Lindenwold native and Paul VI graduate, she was South Jersey through and through, leaving Uszaki with perhaps the biggest reason to stick around at the time.
“A week before I moved to New York City, I met this girl I really liked,” he said. “She ended up becoming my wife. So I knew there was something that kept pulling me back to South Jersey.”
The pair tied the knot in 2007 and have two kids, both of whom attend Gloucester County Institute of Technology. Their daughter, Charleigh, is a sophomore who plays field hockey and varsity flag football. Their son Chase is a junior varsity bowler for the Cheetahs.
Uszaki earned his second masters, in Educational Leadership and Administration, from Georgian Court University in 2008 and was named the athletic director at Northern Burlington in 2012.
When the opportunity arose for Uszaki to leave the only place he had known as an administrator, it was a no-brainer, for one reason only — family.
“I love Northern Burlington, but when I saw the GCIT job open up, I had to take it,” said Uszaki, who also earned his PhD in Educational Leadership and Administration from Creighton University. “I said, ‘I love this place, but I love my family more.’”
Uszaki went from rarely ever getting to see his children compete in person to getting the chance to be at nearly everything when he started in September as the new athletic director at the Gloucester County school.
“It was the only reason,” he said of leaving Northern Burlington for the opportunity to be with and see his children on a daily basis.
Uszaki now gets to help make decisions that will directly impact his children’s high school experience, something he couldn’t pass up. After being on the job for eight months, he’s grown to love the environment GCIT has to offer.
The Sewell-based school puts a focus on career and technical education, preparing students for both higher education and the workforce through numerous full-time programs like digital media, automotive technology, cosmetology, theater and more.
Uszaki is also known for his passion for business and entrepreneurial pursuits outside of education, making him the perfect fit for what GCIT offers. In 2022, Uszaki and his family won ABC’s “The Great Christmas Light Fight” with their “Deptford Dazzling Lights.” The top prize was a $50,000 award, which Uszaki used to found Glow, an award-winning Christmas display drive-through light show in Washington Township.
Uszaki, who relocated from Deptford to Washington Township at the beginning of the school year, has immediately brought his creative mind over to GCIT, founding the “Varsity Club,” which puts an emphasis on school spirit, pride and branding. He currently has 15 students who complete tasks such as making signs, posters, table cloths and anything that brings the GCIT Cheetah spirit to life.
“We’re going to make GCIT — not that it looks bad right now, I think it looks great — but we’re going to make it more interactive,” Uszaki said. “This is going to be about the overall improvement of the district. The main objective is pride in our district.”
A task Uszaki recently took into his own hands was branding a blank wall outside an entrance to the building, decorating it with school colors and decals. To Uszaki, expanding and representing school spirit is extremely important.
“When I started recognizing that I could be a positive agent of change and not just someone who complains and says ‘oh, I want to change this but I can’t.’ I started developing what I call this servant leadership tone and incorporating everyone’s feedback,” he said. “I can separate and brand things the way I want to. That window outside was all me. I designed that and printed it.”
Being able to make what may seem like small changes like that is a key reason he became an administrator in the first place. Although it was a challenging transition to GCIT at first, he said, there’s no place he’d rather be.
Most recently, Uszaki, 46, won the Directors of Athletics Association of New Jersey (DAANJ) Athletic Director of the Year award at the banquet last month in Atlantic City.
It’s safe to say Uszaki has come a long way since being the English department chair at that small private boarding school fresh out of Ursinus — but his superiors saw something in him that he didn’t even see a few months prior.
“At first, I think I’m going to medical school. Second, I think I’m going to become a lawyer,” recalled Uszaki, who never thought he was going to get into education. “I end up going into my senior year of college living in Wildwood in the summer. While I’m there, I’m thinking ‘I want summers off for the rest of my life, maybe I should teach.’
“I say that jokingly, but I did have a passion for kids and entertainment, things of that nature. It just seemed right.”
As passionate as they come, it’s safe to say Uszaki made the right decision in pursuing a career in education.
While making a lasting impact on countless lives, his message remains clear: family comes first, always.
“Over the course of my career, I’ve been recognized for being a compassionate person expanding opportunities for kids, but also keeping the right amount of emphasis on ‘don’t let this job ruin you.’ You have to take care of yourself first and everyone else second, but you always keep them on common ground.
“Always keep family first, always do right by the kids, and you will go down a successful path as an athletic director or an educational administrator.”
What people from all stages of his journey have to say about Dan Uszaki:
Gene Darling, head baseball and basketball coach at Northern Burlington:
“Dr. U. and I worked together in basketball and baseball for many seasons. He was always open-minded when it came to scheduling and supporting the program’s needs. Our working relationship has since grown into a lifelong friendship, even after he moved on from Northern Burlington.
“My favorite memory is sitting together at 2 a.m., eating tacos and realizing we had just won the state championship. In that moment, all of our hard work was finally being celebrated.”
Dr. James Sarruda, former superintendent at Northern Burlington from 1993 to 2022:
“It takes a special person to be a successful athletic director. The responsibilities require long hours each day, and the work continues well beyond the school day and into the weekends. As superintendent, I have always viewed the athletic director as a key leadership position, as school athletics have a significant impact on school climate, student experience and school pride.
“Dr. Uszaki is that special person. During his 21-year tenure at Northern Burlington, Dan’s impact on both the school and the community will be remembered for generations.
“I remember a meeting Dan and I attended at the NJSIAA several years ago, where we sought to have Northern Burlington host a state track meet. In order to be considered, we were required to meet with the executive director and present our proposal. We understood the level of commitment that hosting such an event would require, but Dan never hesitated. His perspective was simple: if it were in the best interest of our students, then we needed to make it happen. So we made it happen and Northern hosted the state meet. It is just one point of pride we share.”
Jule Dolci, football coach at Northern Burlington:
“I think as a head coach and athletic director you make a lot of l sacrifices, some smart and definitely some that we will all regret. One of those sacrifices is usually any type of social life. You live and breathe with the program. You end up surrounding yourself with people that are willing to get into that foxhole with you. You share everything with each other, every up and every down in your life. It didn’t matter if it was related to the program or the family: you are there for each other.
“Dan was always that guy and that’s why I will always consider him more than an A.D. or even just a friend. He was always willing to get into that foxhole with you. I am proud that he finally stopped making some of those sacrifices and he will be able to spend more time with his wonderful family. Working with someone for over 20 years creates too many memories to list. The important part is that we were together through it all and that relationship will always be there. GCIT is getting a good one.”
