Legendary Brick Hockey Coach Auriemma Honored By School Board (Video)

BRICK, NJ — After more than 50 years, more than 700 victories and countless accolades, Brick Township ice hockey coach Bob Auriemma is stepping down.

Auriemma, whose retirement was announced at the Brick Township Board of Education meeting in August, was honored Thursday night at the school board meeting. He also will be honored at the Brick Township Council meeting at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 26.

Dennis Filippone, acting superintendent of the school district, read a proclamation from the state Legislature lauding the legendary coach, whose name has been synonymous with ice hockey in Brick and at the Jersey Shore. Auriemma not only built Brick Township's high school team into a perennial power, he helped found the Brick Hockey Club, which helped youngsters learn the game and helped the spread of hockey throughout the Shore area.

"Ice hockey didn't exist in in this area before him," Brick Township High School Principal William Kleissler said. "He has touched the lives of countless young men and women and the parents of those families."

"You will never be replaced, but there will be many people who will put their best foot forward to carry the tradition forward," he said.

"We are grateful, and appreciative of Coach Auriemma’s years of outstanding service and devotion to the students, athletes and community of Brick Township," John Lamela, the school board president, said. "We are truly fortunate to have had you as a leader and visionary and we thank you!"

Auriemma thanked those assembled, which included a large complement of his family, including his wife Irene, his five children and some of his 19 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and his players, including some of the last group of Brick Dragons' players that he coached, stressing that the success was a group effort.

"It's not one person. I had a tremendous amount of help. I accept this on their behalf," Auriemma said/

Auriemma was born in Rahway and moved to West New York, NJ, where he played football under legendary coaches Joe Coviello and Warren Wolf. After graduating high school, he was accepted to Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth but chose to attend Colby College in Maine. He played football there, earning all-Eastern College Athletic Conference honors on the football field. It was at Colby where he played hockey for the first time, when Colby coach Jack Kelly asked Auriemma to be a goalie for Colby team. Auriemma became a student of the game.

He moved to Brick and began his career as a math teacher, while also volunteering to coach high school football and recreation ice hockey. He joined Wolf on the sidelines as a defensive football coach from 1962 to 1980, and initially he was the assistant high school club hockey coach under Wolf in 1962 and 1963, according to his Brick Township High School Wall of Fame biography.

In 1964 Auriemma took over as head coach of the ice hockey team and never looked back. He has 729 coaching victories, wins, making him the winningest hockey coach in New Jersey and the third-winningest hockey coach in the country.

In 1969, to further improve the hockey program, and to give more children an opportunity to learn the game, he along with Joe McKeon and Jim Blackburn decided to create the Brick Hockey Club for the children of Brick.

He retired from his math teaching career in 2012, but remained with the hockey program through last season and announced his retirement this summer.

Over those years, he has coached dozens of athletes at the high school level en route to six NJSIAA overall championships, five NJSIAA Public School titles, eight Gordon Cup championships, and championships in the Shore Conference's Handchen Cup and Dowd Cup — which is named for Jim Dowd, who went on to a 20-year career in the NHL and won a Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils. He was named the 1984 Star-Ledger Coach of the Year, and he was inducted into the BTHS Wall of Fame in 2005. He also was inducted into the Jersey Shore Hall of Fame, and the New Jersey High School Ice Hockey Hall of Fame. He is the recipient of the NJ Devils John J. McMullen Award and most recently, the 2017 NJ Devils and Asbury Park Press Community Commitment Award.

“Coach Auriemma has instilled, not only the love of the sports to his athletes, but he has also taught them life lessons that would guide them throughout their lives," said Dennis Filippone, the acting superintendent. "He has been an educator, a coach, a mentor and a friend.”

Auriemma and his wife, Irene, who was his high school sweetheart, have five children, 19 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren, with two more on the way, according to a district news release.

Watch the video of the presentation below:

Photo of Bob Auriemma coaching, by Haidy Oliveira, courtesy of the Brick Township High Schools Parents Club