Wrestling: Kurtz right guy now to lead Voorhees

One of the worst kept secrets of this past summer was made official when Ricky Kurtz was approved as the fifth head wrestling coach in Voorhees history during Tuesday night's Board of Education meeting.

Courtesy of Ricky Kurtz

"It feels good. I was hoping it would go this way," said Kurtz, a longtime assistant and former two-sport star at Delaware Valley who is also the head football coach and a Special Education instructor at Voorhees. "I love the kids. Being there for the kids is really what it's all about."

Kurtz, 34, went 3-6 as the interim head wrestling coach down the stretch this past season when Eric Hall, who guided the Vikings (4-17 overall in 2019-20 and its worst record since going 3-19 in 2007-08) to three sectional championships over the previous seven seasons, was suspended following an unspecified incident that occurred during a dual meet at Bridgewater-Raritan in late January.

"[Kurtz] did a great job filling in last year," athletic director Brian Baumann, a former wrestler and assistant coach for the Vikes, said during a phone interview on Wednesday afternoon. "He kept in touch with kids over the summer. He's really the right guy for us right now. It's a good move."

Baumann added that Kurtz gives the struggling program, which did not have a district champion for the first time since 2005 and was unable to fill all 14 weight classes in 2019-20, some sense of "continuity" given the uncertainty surrounding what this wrestling season may look like in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. 

Given the enormous challenges of being a head coach in football and wrestling -- which run in back-to-back seasons -- Baumann noted that Kurtz is a one-year hire for the latter and is likely not a long-term solution.

"Ricky would probably love to be an assistant [wrestling coach] for as long as his body can handle it," Baumann said. "I think it's tough [to coach both sports] at a bigger school. We're not a real small school and we're not a huge school."

Voorhees graduated four starting seniors from the previous season, including former state qualifier Seven Rich, along with Region 4 qualifiers Garrett Loescher and Zach Tong. The trio combined for 70 wins. So what are the goals this season?

"Make them better and continue to grow as a team," said Kurtz, whose football team is off to a 1-2 start in his second season at the helm. "Maybe get some more guys out and continue to build the program. We're going to prepare as if we're going to have a season."

Kurtz took one piece of advice from a former coach and continues to implement it in his own career to this day.

"Take one piece of everybody you coached or coached with that's positive and make it your own."

Hall guided the Hunterdon County program, which is sitting on 636 victories and is coming off just its seventh losing campaign in 45 seasons overall, to nine straight winning campaigns before a 1-11 start this past season in what was expected to be a rebuilding year. Kurtz, a star quarterback at Del Val who once threw for 368 yards and four touchdowns in a 31-7 win over Voorhees in 2003, won a Region 5 title and finished fourth at 160 pounds in Atlantic City as a senior in '04 under coach Paul Petro, and Kurtz became just the second Terrier wrestler to reach the 100 wins plateau (101-33) that season.

Under Hall, who was excellent with the media and always willing to promote his school's wrestlers and the sport in general, Voorhees enjoyed a resurgence following 12 seasons of mostly hovering around the .500 mark, which included four of the program's five previous losing campaigns. His teams went 183-73, with six seasons of at least 20 wins, including a program record 24 in 2018-19, as well as coaching in its 600th victory -- 48-22 over Livingston on Jan. 27, 2018. Hall coached 25 district and seven region champions, along with eight state placewinners, including Lewis Fernandes, who became the Vikes' all-time wins leader with 153 and its only two-time state champ in 2019, as well as three-time placewinner Jadaen Bernstein, a two-time state finalist and three-time HWS Tournament champion.

Hall's father, Bob, started the program in 1975. Together, they amassed a combined record of  515-172-5 -- the most wins to date for any father-son duo at the same school in HWS history (Vince and Andy Fitz have 506 together at Del Val). Under his father, Eric Hall was a four-time district and region champion (the only wrestler in school history to win four region titles) and a state runner-up at 145 pounds as a senior in 1996 -- dropping an 8-4 decision to Lyndhurst's Donnie Pritzlaff in a classic bout that featured numerous stoppages for Pritzlaff's bloody nose -- before continuing his wrestling career at Virginia Tech. He graduated as Voorhees' all-time wins leader with a mark of 120-19 and ranks fourth behind Fernandes, Bernstein (135-19 from 2009-13) and two-time state medalist Kyle DiNapoli (127-28 from 2012-16) -- all coached by Eric Hall.

Bob Hall built the program into a state powerhouse as his teams went 332-99-5 over his 23 seasons, while capturing 13 of the school's 17 sectional titles along with its only four state championships in Group 2 (1982 and '95) and Group 3 (1985 and '87). In 2010, Eric Hall was hired as the program's fourth head coach, following stints by former Phillipsburg coach Rick Thompson (30-26 in three seasons from 1998-2001) and Bob Angstadt (88-86 in nine seasons from 2001-10), who led the Vikings to their only other sectional title in 2004.