Retiring Principal Gerlufsen Honored For Service To Brick Schools

BRICK, NJ — Ron Gerlufsen has made friends and endeared himself to untold numbers of students, parents and staff during his nearly 17-year career in the Brick Township Schools.

As Gerlufsen, the principal at Warren H. Wolf Elementary School, serves his final days before he retires, the Parent-Teacher Organization at Warren H. Wolf made sure he knows he will be missed.

Gerlufsen, who has been principal at since the school was established for the 2013-14 school year, on Friday was presented with a "buddy bench" dedicated to him by the PTO of Warren H. Wolf Elementary School, PTO officials said. Brick Township Mayor John G. Ducey also presented a proclamation declaring Friday "Ron Gerlufsen Day" in the township.

Before he was principal at the Warren Wolf School, Gerlufsen was a vice principal at Brick Memorial High School from 2006 to 2013. But he's better remembered for his roles as head coach of the boys basketball and boys tennis teams during his first years in the district.

Gerlufsen, who also was the athletic coordinator at Brick Memorial, overseeing the day-to-day operations under then-district athletic director Bill Bruno, coached the basketball team to its first NJSIAA Central Jersey Group IV final amid a 22-win season in 2005-2006. It was a season that saw the Mustangs win the Shore Conference Class A South title after sharing it the previous season, and win the WOBM Christmas Classic. Brick Memorial also qualified for the Shore Conference Tournament for the second straight year. Those achievements earned Gerlufsen the Ocean County Coach of the Year award from NJ.com, according to a report in the Greater Media news archives.

"I’m fortunate that I had a group of kids who were dedicated to the sport with a willingness to put the team before themselves,” he said in that report.

Gerlufsen's boys tennis teams, meanwhile, had four straight winning seasons and qualified for the NJSIAA and Shore Conference tournaments all four seasons, and finish fourth in the Ocean County Tournament in 2005.

“More than a coach, he’s been like a father figure,” Jay Frank, who played basketball for Gerlufsen, said in that 2006 report. "He helped me to be successful. I couldn’t ask for a better person as a coach.”

Gerlufsen graduated from East Stroudsburg University in 1971 and coached boys basketball and girls tennis at Manasquan High until 1981. Then he then spent 15 years coaching college basketball, at the University of Massachusetts, then at Shepherd College in West Virginia before taking on the men's basketball program at Savannah College in Georgia. But he returned to the high school ranks to be "more rooted in the community," coaching in Fort Myers, Florida, for three years before taking the position at Brick Memorial to come back to the Jersey Shore.

Photos provided by Warren H. Wolf Elementary PTO