By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
By day, Steven Groeger worked as an engineer for the state Department of Transportation.
But after hours, Mr. Groeger coached youth soccer teams, wrote sports articles for The Lawrence Ledger, and helped then-Superintendent of Recreation Pat Colavita Sr. in the Lawrence Township Recreation Department.
It soon occurred to Mr. Groeger that perhaps he should be working at a job he enjoyed — and it was not engineering. When Mr. Colavita retired, he jumped at the chance to take over as the township’s superintendent of recreation.
But now, after 32 years as the man in charge of the Lawrence Township Recreation Department and the organizer of many special events, Mr. Groeger has announced his intention to retire at the end of the year.
"It’s time. At this point, I know it’s a cliché to say it, but I want to spend more time with my family. So many people take vacations, but there was not a time when I could take off. Plus, I am at the point where I am getting older. I’ll be 64 when I retire in December," he said.
Mr. Groeger, who graduated from Lawrence High School in 1968, came home after earning a degree in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, and found a job with the state Department of Transportation in the commuter railroad division.
"I was doing a lot of things recreationally (after work)," he said. "I just found I was coaching, I was working part-time for Mr. Colavita, and I was writing sports for The Lawrence Ledger. I felt I could be working at a job I enjoyed. I felt that recreation was something I would be happier doing."
Mr. Colavita — the father of former Mayor Pat Colavita Jr. — retired in 1981, but stayed on as a volunteer for most of 1982. Mr. Groeger considered his options, and decided to leave his engineering job and take over as the superintendent of recreation in August 1982.
Mr. Groeger reasoned that he was involved in recreation activities in his spare time, so why not make the switch and do something he enjoyed as a career. He acknowledged that he was "in the right place at the right time, and I took advantage of it. I have not looked back."
"I have said on many occasions, the Recreation Department is the one department in this place that people go to because they want to," he said. "You don’t go to the Police Department because you want to. You don’t go to the Tax Collector’s Office because you want to."
"We are here to make people happy and provide things for children and their parents and senior citizens to do. It is a challenge to meet all of their different needs — active sports and passive recreation. It’s nice to know you are doing things that make people happy."
When Mr. Groeger took over in 1982, the Recreation Department consisted of himself and a secretary. There was no computer, so all program registrations were done by hand. There was no Office on Aging, nor was there a Lawrence Senior Center. There were fewer program offerings, too, he said.
An arts and crafts program was offered on Saturday mornings for children. There were youth and adult basketball programs, and a youth wrestling league. For women, there was a softball league, and lots of tennis programs for women and men. There were several sites for the Recreation Department’s half-day summer camp program, and half-day sports clinics.
The Recreation Department sponsored the Halloween parade, the annual Christmas tree lighting, an ice skating night at The Lawrenceville School’s ice rink, volleyball for adults and a square dance club, Mr. Groeger said. The department also had oversight of the four senior citizens clubs.
Changes to the Recreation Department’s offerings began in earnest in the mid-1980s, starting with the creation of the township’s Office on Aging in 1986, he said. That’s around the time senior citizens began calling the department for information, which led initially to a hotline for seniors, he said.
When the Lawrence Senior Center was built on Darrah Lane in 1990, "programs for seniors really took off," Mr. Groeger said. Having a dedicated facility for seniors allowed for more programming to be offered, he said. Today, those offerings range from exercise, tai chi, yoga and line dancing classes to computer lessons in the computer lab.
In the mid-1980s, the Lawrence Township public school district built a fitness center at Lawrence High School. The fitness center offered a weight room and a swimming pool, which was open to the public after school hours. The Recreation Department offered an aquatics program, including lessons, open swim time and a competitive swim team.
Around the same time, Lawrence Township began expanding its facilities. Village Park was built in the late 1980s. There had been no new parks developed north of Franklin Corner Road, although that’s where most of the new housing developments were being built, he said.
"I was trying to expand (the Recreation Department’s) offerings," Mr. Groeger said. Thanks to a grant, there were weekly concerts at Veterans Park during the summer. There was also an after-school enrichment program, but "programs come and go," he said.
Among those that have come and gone is the adult soccer league. Some programs — the Easter egg hunt, the Halloween parade and the concerts in the park — were dropped because of funding issues and because there are opportunities to participate in those activities elsewhere, he said.
"We have done a lot of things that are outside of the traditional scope of a recreation department. If you ask people about a recreation department, they will say it’s about sports. Over the years, we have tried to be more than just traditional sports," he said.
Mr. Groeger pointed to Community Day, which allows community groups to set up tables in Village Park to show what they have to offer. He also noted the Community Garden program, which makes small plots of land available to township residents for gardening. Music, arts and drama programs have been offered over the years.
But the personal highlight of his career, Mr. Groeger said, was organizing Lawrence Township’s tri-centennial celebration in 1997 in honor of the township’s 300th anniversary. It was founded as Maidenhead Township in 1697 by English settlers, and arrangements were made for the mayor of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead to visit Lawrence Township to help celebrate.
Mr. Groeger also is proud to have convinced the late Army Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf to serve as the honorary grand marshal for Lawrence Township’s 1997 Memorial Day parade. As a child, Gen. Schwarzkopf briefly lived on Main Street in the village of Lawrenceville and attended the Lawrenceville Elementary School.
"There is one thing (about the job) I know I won’t miss — I won’t be checking the weather. I won’t be checking for rain on Community Day or the Fourth of July fireworks or the Memorial Day parade. I may never look at The Weather Channel again," Mr. Groeger said with a grin.

