Sidelined
Montclair
State
Helps Players
Become
Coaches
By Steve Politi
“I wanted to pursue coaching as a career and what a better place to
—Mike Palazzo
start than the place I’m most familiar with?”
Tyler Stakiwicz thought he had come up with the perfect compromise. He would go to law school after graduating from Montclair State so he could someday become a lawyer, but he would also volunteer as an assistant coach with the men’s soccer team that had become his passion as a player.
But slowly, that volunteer job was taking up bigger and bigger chunks of his time. He frequently skipped his law school classes at Rutgers-Newark, and even when he went, he found himself distracted with soccer strategy when he should have been focusing on torts and contracts.
Still, he managed to get his law degree and pass the bar exam, but it became clear to him that he didn’t want to spend his life in the courtroom. He wanted to coach. Even if that meant – gulp – a salary that had started as nothing and had grown to just $5,000 a year.
“I think my mom would prefer it if I was off saving the world as a human rights lawyer,” Stakiwicz says with a laugh, “but she’s okay with it.”
What Stakiwicz is doing may sound unusual, but, quite the contrary, it’s actually the opposite. Just look on the sidelines for the Red Hawks and you’ll see dozens of former players making the transition into a new role.
For years, the NCAA has used this slogan in its marketing campaigns: “There are over 380,000 student athletes, and most of us go pro in something other than sports.” This is especially true at Division III schools, where it’s a harder climb to the professional ranks.
Still, that doesn’t mean athletes have to give up the sports they love when they graduate. In fact, it is very common in the Montclair State athletic department – which, it should be noted, is led by a Montclair State alum in Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Holly Gera – for athletes to step right into coaching roles on their teams when their playing careers are over.
To wit: Stakiwicz is one of five coaches for the men’s soccer team. All five, including head coach Todd Tumelty, are former Red Hawk soccer players. The softball team, the volleyball team, the men’s and women’s basketball team and both swimming teams have former Montclair State athletes on their coaching staffs. The football team, meanwhile, has seven former players as coaches in various roles, including former walk-on Mike Palazzo.
“I wanted to pursue coaching as a career,” Palazzo says, “and what better place to start than the place I’m most familiar with?”
It’s a career, Palazzo knows, that will require sacrifices. Even coaching legends like four-time Super Bowl winner Bill Belichick have stories about jobs with long hours and low (or no) pay, and Palazzo has his share already.
He was a 5-foot-5 defensive lineman, not exactly the typical frame for a college player at that position, so he started coaching as a student assistant. He left Montclair State last season to get more experience at Towson State University, but the job was unpaid.
He couldn’t afford an apartment, but since the long hours meant he wouldn’t be spending much time there anyway, he slept under his office desk in the football building.
“I think my mom would prefer it if I was off saving the world
—Tyler Stakiwicz
as a human rights lawyer, but she's okay with it.”
“I had a blow-up mattress,” he recalls, “but by the end of the year, it would slowly deflate and I would wake up sleeping on the floor.”
He has returned to Montclair State this year for a full-time gig – and, fortunately, a salary that allows him to get an apartment – even if he’s not there much. Still, an entry-level job at a place like Montclair State means doing a little bit of everything, from breaking down film to recruiting to even setting up the field for practice.
“It’s not something you get used to, but you’re going to have to tell yourself that you’re not going to get a big-time coaching job right off the bat,” he says. Still, he is in no rush to leave. “I’m a Jersey guy. I was born and raised in Jersey. If I can stay, I will.”
All of the players-turned-coaches interviewed for this story talked of their positive experience with their teams as the top reason for wanting to stay as an assistant coach. But there are practical ones, too.
For students majoring in education, their four-year eligibility window will close before they finish the five-year program. So staying on as a volunteer coach while they complete that degree, for some, is a no-brainer. Others are pursuing graduate degrees.
“I just had such a good experience playing for Montclair, and it has a good graduate school program for sports administration,” says Tierney Conlon, a Caldwell native who finished her lacrosse career last spring as the all-time assists leader in Division III history.
“I just had such a good experience playing for Montclair,
—Tierney Conlon
and it has a good graduate school program for sports administration.”
When she considered her options, moving into a spot on the coaching staff was the easy choice. She’ll take a course called “Social Problems in Sports” this winter while making the transition from star player to assistant coach – something that isn’t easy for everyone.
“It’s totally different,” says Conlon, who already coaches a club lacrosse team and has started recruiting high school players. “There are a lot of great players who ‘get it’ but can’t relate to other people. It takes a special talent.”
Stakiwicz thinks he has that talent. Unlike Conlon, he wasn’t the star player on his team – “In fact, I was a million miles away from it,” he says – and he believes it was that lack of natural ability that forced him to get a deeper understanding of the sport.
He realized when his playing career was over that he didn’t need to be on the field to get the same enjoyment out of the sport. He just needed to be around it, and coaching was a natural fit.
He still has that law degree and is licensed to practice in New Jersey, but a legal career that would pay “about 200 times more,” he jokes, is his fallback option. He supplements his income as a private instructor and a club-team coach, but Red Hawk soccer is his passion.
“Why? I don’t know,” he replies when asked why there are so many former athletes like him on coaching staffs at Montclair State. “I would hope that people like it, that we treat people well and they want to come back.
“One of the selling points I make when I recruit is, guys don’t leave Montclair. They stay. They come back. I would hope it’s because they have a good time here and enjoy the experience.”