BY TIM MORRIS
Staff Writer
CHRIS KELLY staff Brookdale’s athletic director, Jack Ryan, is saying goodbye to the school after spending the last 33 years helping to build one of the nation’s elite junior college athletic programs. MIDDLETOWN — It couldn’t have worked out better for Jack Ryan.
Brookdale Community College’s retiring athletic director got to travel to the national championships with his softball and baseball teams. Bo Scannapieco’s women went to Alfred, N.Y., where they won their second national championship, while Johnny Johnson’s men were in Millington, Tenn.
It was nice for Ryan to go out, after 25 years as the assistant AD to Bob Walsack and eight years as the AD, with his spring sports teams on top, but what mattered most to him were the student/athletes representing Brookdale there.
“It was a pleasure to be around them, the way they comported themselves made me proud,” he said. “They handled themselves wonderfully, win or lose. I could not have scripted my last two trips to the nationals better.”
In building Brookdale into a college with a national reputation in all sports, Ryan never took his eyes of the student in student/athlete. In his 33 years with the Athletic Department at Brookdale it hasn’t just been the athletic programs that have been the envy of colleges, but the college’s academic reputation as well. This year alone, the college had three Academic All-Americans and 15 Academic All-Region selections.
Ryan, who has been Mr. Brookdale, has witnessed so many changes in intercollegiate athletics during his 33 years there. Paul MacLaughlin fielded his first baseball team in 1970. It would be the Junior College Hall of Fame coach’s baseball teams that first gave Brookdale a national reputation.
Ryan himself coached the men’s soccer team, as well as the softball team. He became a certified athletic trainer in 1984.
The biggest changes came in women’s athletics. It was Brookdale which fielded the first intercollegiate women’s soccer team in the state back in 1978. In 1982, the Jersey Blues participated in the first-ever women’s national tournament.
In the late 1970s, it was Ryan who first started conducting fastpitch-softball throwing and introducing the windmill to the Shore area.
“The goal was to bring up the level of pitching in the Shore Conference, to make it competitive,” he said.
The roots of the recent success of Shore Conference softball teams on the state level can be traced back to his clinics.
Through softball, Ryan became an early champion of women’s sports.
“Not one player had ever played softball [when he started the program],” he said. “They [women] were taken less serious than guys.
“I wanted them to be treated as equals,” he added. “Not a lot of men were fighting for women’s programs.”
Ryan has been at Brookdale for 36 years, starting as a student in 1969.
Ryan had several goals when he replaced Walsack, two of which were on display at the nationals.
“I wanted to win a Region championship in every sport,” he said. “We went to the nationals in every single sport. Every sport understands what it takes for student/athletes to succeed.
“I wanted to make the overall program up to the level of any elite in the nation and apply the same standard academically,” he added. “We had more academic All-Americans than all of the other colleges in our conference combined.”
Brookdale fields nine varsity teams, and every one has won a Region XIX title and gone to the nationals during Ryan’s tenure. The final holdout was the basketball team that this winter won its first Region title and finished seventh at the national championships.
In total, Brookdale teams have won 27 GSAC and 22 Region XIX titles since Ryan has been AD. The Blues have won six team and individual national championships comined and there have been 12 national runners-up.
While watching his goal of seeing every Brookdale team (baseball, softball, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s tennis and golf) getting to the national championships, the high-water mark was 2002 when the softball team brought home the school’s first national title.
“Bo winning that first national championship was one of the great highlights,” he said. “I admire what he’s done. There is no one who dominates his program like him.”
Ryan isn’t saying goodbye to the Lincroft campus. He’s moving his address from the athletic department to the English department. This jack-of-all-trades, after all, has a English degree from Rutgers and has been very active in the theater. He has appeared on stage and produced plays at Brookdale (most recently Billy Van Zandt’s Garland starring Adrienne Barbeau).
“Teaching is what I like the most,” he said. “I like the process of taking a student from one point to another.”
It was a to trip this year to an English seminar in Annapolis, Md., which swayed Ryan to change college address.
“I was so engaged with what was going on,” he said. “It had my complete attention. It will re-energize me.”
Knowing what it takes to be the AD and having achieved the goals he set for himself, Ryan thought the time was right to go to the classroom.
“What I do I give 100 percent,” he said. “You work every Saturday [as AD], and during the season 20-25 Sundays — seven days a week.
“I didn’t want the standard to slip,” he added. “I’m confident the system will be in good hands.”
Ryan, who will relinquish his AD position in August, certainly leaves the athletic program healthier than it has ever been. The challenge for the Brookdale’s new AD is to maintain what Ryan has handed over.
“Bo winning that first national championship was one of the great highlights,” he said. “I admire what he’s done. There is no one who dominates his program like him.”
Ryan isn’t saying goodbye to the Lincroft campus. He’s moving his address from the athletic department to the English department. This jack-of-all-trades, after all, has a English degree from Rutgers and has been very active in the theater. He has appeared on stage and produced plays at Brookdale (most recently Billy Van Zandt’s Garland starring Adrienne Barbeau).
“Teaching is what I like the most,” he said. “I like the process of taking a student from one point to another.”
It was a to trip this year to an English seminar in Annapolis, Md., which swayed Ryan to change college address.
“I was so engaged with what was going on,” he said. “It had my complete attention. It will re-energize me.”
Knowing what it takes to be the AD and having achieved the goals he set for himself, Ryan thought the time was right to go to the classroom.
“What I do I give 100 percent,” he said. “You work every Saturday [as AD], and during the season 20-25 Sundays — seven days a week.
“I didn’t want the standard to slip,” he added. “I’m confident the system will be in good hands.”
Ryan, who will relinquish his AD position in August, certainly leaves the athletic program healthier than it has ever been. The challenge for the Brookdale’s new AD is to maintain what Ryan has handed over.

