SJR

Over the span of 35+ years as a high school football coach, Tony Karcich won 338 games and posted an .815 winning percentage, making him the winning-est football coach ever in the history of Bergen County. Along the way, his teams captured 20 state championships, 3 at Bergen Catholic and 17 at St. Joseph Regional High School.

Not surprisingly, his accomplishments have earned him a truly astonishing series of honors. He is the only person ever inducted into both the St. Joe’s and Bergen Catholic Hall of Fame. He is a member of the New Jersey Football Coaches Hall of Fame, and the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association Hall of Fame. In 2016, he received the Mickey Corcoran Lifetime Achievement Award from the Bergen County Coaches Association, and in 2017 he received the Dr. John Bateman Education Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.

And if that isn’t enough, in 2019, Max Preps published a list of the 50 greatest all-time high school football coaches in the United States. TK was number 18.
United States. TK was number 18.

In the nation. All time.

As the Athletic Director of St. Joseph Regional High School for the past 25 years, Tony Karcich oversaw an athletic program that has become one of the most dominant and renowned programs in the state of New Jersey, despite the relatively small size of our school.

There is no question that, in taking on the role of AD in 1993, Coach Karcich instilled a winning attitude into the culture of the SJR community that remains very much alive to this day. Football aside, he nurtured programs that had already enjoyed success, particularly the basketball, baseball, wrestling and ice hockey programs of the late 80s and early 90s, and watched proudly as they amassed a host of league, county and state titles. In 1988, he oversaw the addition of lacrosse as our thirteenth varsity sport and has worked tirelessly with the administration to improve our facilities including the construction of the field house and installation of the turf field in 2003, the renovation of the school gymnasium in 2016 and the addition of our wrestling room in 2017.

Finally, he has been an essential part of the growth and development of countless student-athletes who have gone to excel in college athletics, not to mention the fourteen St. Joe’s athletes who have played professionally in either the National Football League, National Hockey League, Major League Baseball or Major League Soccer.

However, none of those things, as impressive as they are, really speak to the most important reason why we have gathered this afternoon to dedicate the Coach Tony Karcich Field. And that, very simply, is the quality and character of the man himself.

The word ‘legend’ is defined as someone who is “extraordinarily famous and widely admired”, someone whose “accomplishments were achieved over a span of time” and someone whose career is defined not just by his achievements, “but by the qualities of character that have distinguished his life.” That is Tony Karcich, exactly.

He is certainly famous; along with Brother Peter Russell, he is inarguably the most recognizable figure in the 56 year history of St. Joseph Regional High School. But the qualities of his character – honor, intensity, integrity, preparation, leadership, sportsmanship, and above all, a burning passion for excellence in everything he does – these are, in the end, the defining elements of the person we honor today. His two favorite expressions say it all.

In the simple phrase “Find a way” he challenged his players to reject excuses and get the job done by giving their very best effort and leaving everything they had on the field.

And most famously, he would tell his teams and his colleagues to “Do things the right way” – be respectful of everyone you encounter, win with honor or lose with grace, and always, no matter what the situation, conduct yourself with class, and act with the decency you would expect to be accorded yourself.

For more than three decades, Coach Karcich held himself to highest possible standards and never lost sight of the fact that he was a role model to the young men of our school. And so we dedicate this field in his honor today for one very simple reason: as a coach, teacher, colleague and friend, Tony Karcich has been, and remains, simply the best.