The Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education was expected to approve the hiring of Ocean Township High School head baseball coach Del Dal Pra as the new athletic director at RBR last night, bringing one of the Shore Conference’s most popular and successful coaches to a program that is hoping his positive attributes are contagious.
“RBR is the perfect fit for me because I live here in Red Bank and have relationships already with a number of the coaches,” Dal Pra said. “I’m really excited about getting over there. I’m ready for this.”
Dal Pra’s hiring will likely bring a sense of excitement to the RBR athletic department, as his enthusiasm, charisma and dedication to the kids have helped make him a proven leader. After turning the Ocean baseball program into one of the very best in the state, Dal Pra realized it was time to move on to bigger things.
“I graduated grad school (Kean University) four years ago and I’ve been a finalist for a few AD positions since then, but it just never came to be,” he said. “But I wasn’t too upset about it because I loved what I was doing. But in the past two or three years I’ve worked a little harder at finding the right fit, and now I’ve found it.”
Dal Pra’s rise to this position is a long time coming, as the Rumson-Fair Haven graduate has enjoyed success at a number of levels over his playing and coaching careers.
At RFH, Dal Pra played baseball and football while also wrestling in the winter. He was the captain of Bulldogs’ football team, and was also a captain on RFH’s only Monmouth County championship baseball team back in 1984, earning a spot in the RFH Hall of Fame for his accolades.
He went on to play baseball and football for William Paterson College and Glassboro State College (now Rowan University), earning an All-Conference nod football in 1985.
His coaching career began in 1990 as an assistant baseball coach at Glassboro, before returning home to take on an assistant coaching position at RFH in 1992. In 1996, he took over the head coaching duties at Henry Hudson High School in Highlands, where in two years his teams went 22-22-1 and captured a Central Jersey Group I title.
In 1998, Dal Pra became the head baseball coach at Ocean County Community College, where his team went 22-15 and earned a spot in the Garden State Athletic Conference playoffs. The following year, he left OCC to serve as an assistant coach at Middletown North High School, before taking over the Ocean Township program in 2000.
Under Dal Pra’s tutelage, the Spartans enjoyed instant success, going 15-8 in 2000, and starting a run of nine championship seasons in nine attempts.
During that time, Ocean has won four division titles, three Monmouth County titles, two Shore Conference Tournament titles, three state sectional titles and one overall state title.
From 2002 through 2007, Dal Pra’s teams won over 20 games, with the 2006 season highlighting the impressive run, when the Spartans captured A North division, SCT, CJ Group III and Group III championships.
While his overall record as a head coach is impressive (197-100-1), it is his record at Ocean (176-76) that is truly remarkable.
Dal Pra, who has also groomed 11 All- Shore players and five All-State players along the way, has also headed some successful American Legion teams over the summer, capturing three county titles and two district championships during his tenure.
It is that track record, combined with a well-earned reputation as one of the more dynamic and well-liked personalities in the Shore, that led to Dal Pra’s hiring at RBR.
And while he is certain to find it difficult to leave Ocean Township, he’s looking forward to the challenge.
“Back in 2005 I got some great experience as the interim AD at Ocean Township when Rusty (Todd) was out,” he said. “That’s when I realized that I could do it, and as a coach I always told my players to strive for somethingmore. So that’s what I did.
“It’s going to be tough leaving them (at Ocean), no question about it. I’ve spent 10 years there (nine seasons coaching) so I’ve made a lot of good friends.”
It has been those friends and peers that have helped Del Pra become the educator that he is today.
“I’ve had such tremendous mentors while at Ocean – guys like George Conte and Rusty Todd – I just hope to supplement all the things that I’ve learned from them into the RBR programs,” he said. “I also spent five or six years at RFH with Walt Reiser and his staff, and I learned a lot from those guys as well.”
While he will not have as much of a hands-on role with the different programs he oversees, Dal Pra still plans to be as active as possible in helping the programs flourish.
“I’m looking at it like this – I’m not coaching baseball anymore, but instead I’ve got a stake in the success of 27 programs now. The ultimate goal at Ocean was to win that state championship, and now I’ve got 27 other chances to be part of that.”
His first order of business will be to explain to the various coaches at RBR what he expects from them, which incidentally is nothing more than what he expected of himself throughout his coaching career.
“I’m going to encourage my coaches to try to coach like I did, in the sense that I want them to stay involved with the kids throughout the off-season,” he said. “Coaching is not a three-month gig; it should be a year-round activity. You have to make sure the kids are getting in the weight room in the off-season, or that they’re playing in some kind of summer league. And you have to be there for them if they need some extra help off the field.
“I’m looking forward to working with these guys and making sure that commitment is there, because the kids deserve it,” he added. “The kids deserve a coach and an AD that will be there for them through the wins and losses, as well as academically.”
While Dal Pra hopes to nurture the same type of success he did while at Ocean, he also knows that his role as AD goes well beyond success on the field. And that is the part of the job that he relishes most of all.
“We won nine titles in nine seasons at Ocean, but what I’m also proud of is the number of kids that we helped,” he said. “There were some kids that people told me would never graduate, and we were able to not only get them to that point, but many of them went on to college and became outstanding members of society.
“To quote my friend Kenny Hoff (Ocean’s head wrestling coach), ‘It’s easy to coach the good kids. It’s coaching the bad kids that are the real challenge.’ We took pride in creating that structure that could help the kids that maybe weren’t getting the support they needed from home, or just needed someone else to talk to or help guide them.”
Dal Pra also plans on encouraging everyone in the athletic department to support each other to the fullest possible extent.
“At Ocean, we had a great camaraderie among the coaches,” he said. “You could go to a football game and see the basketball, baseball, softball and wrestling coaches, and vice versa. All the coaches really stuck together and were very supportive of each other.
I don’t know if that type of camaraderie is there right now at RBR, but I will certainly encourage it.
“The kids pick up on that,” he added. “And it becomes especially important in today’s day and age, where kids’ athletic interests are becoming so specialized. By forming a close-knit community within the athletic department you encourage kids to play multiple sports, like in the old days.”
And Dal Pra knows exactly where to start in trying to create that family atmosphere within the athletic department.
“You have to make sure (the coaches) are committed,” he said. “They have to sacrifice a lot, at times, but if you’re going to create the type of foundation that we had at Ocean Township, you have to make sure you have the types of coaches that want to be part of something special. That will attract the kids, and the success, both on and off the field, will come from that.”
As a new chapter begins for Dal Pra, who lives in Red Bank with his wife, Roseann, and their three sons, Will, Gus and Hank, the new AD knows that leaving behind his friends, colleagues, students and players at Ocean will be difficult.
“I know two days that will be particularly tough for me,” he said. “In October when Ocean comes here for a football game, that will be tough. I coached football for a number of years, so I’ve got some good friends over there. And then on March 3, when baseball starts, it will be tough too.
I’ve been involved in baseball, either playing or coaching since I was seven years old, so it will certainly be a strange feeling for me. I’m ready though.”
The reaction from the Ocean Township community has been overwhelmingly positive, according to Dal Pra, though the news of his departure was not officially announced until last night.
“It’s been pretty positive so far,” he said. “I think everyone understands that this is the next step for me, and they know that I’ve been looking for this opportunity for a while now. The parents understand. I’ve been very fortunate at Ocean because the parents have been very supportive of me.
They recognize how much I care about the kids, and how much I’ve sacrificed over the years.”
As for his replacement at Ocean, whoever takes over the Spartan program certainly has some big shoes to fill.
“They’ve got a number of great candidates for replacing me at Ocean,” Dal Pra said. “Cippy Appicelli (a former All-State player while at OT) is coaching the senior American Legion team right now and is doing a great job. And Tommy Siciliano (a 2001 OT grad), who was my freshman coach last season, would be another great candidate. They’re both full-time employees at the school, which probably gives them a leg up. Either one of them would be a great choice.”
Replacing a coach like Dal Pra cannot be an easy thing to do, however, by hiring one of his former players, Ocean is more likely to hold on to some of the fundamental strengths that have been the basis for the Spartans’ success.
“Whoever they find to replace me, I would hope that the new coach would strive to maintain the type of program we have in place there, while putting his own kind of stamp on things,” Dal Pra said.
Meanwhile, Dal Pra will be putting his stamp on the RBR athletic department. And if history repeats itself, you can expect the success to follow.