Soccer Team Faces Future Without Coach Lubrecht

Leaving plenty of success and even more memories behind, longtime Watchung Hills Regional High School girls soccer coach Pete Lubrecht will not be returning to the Warriors this fall, as he heads east to begin a new career.

After 12 years at the Warriors helm, a run that featured a 143-72-19 record, two conference titles, four sectional championships and a Somerset County Tournament crown, Lubrecht was named the new athletics director at Roselle Park High School.

Lubrecht, who completed his master’s degree last summer, said the opportunity escalated pretty quickly.

He said he heard in the middle of May that Roselle Park was looking for a new AD, he sent in his resume—hoping, if nothing else, at least to get some interview experience—and he got a call to come in at the
beginning of June. Within a week, he said, he was hired.

And while Lubrecht certainly looks forward to his new venture, his departure from Watchung Hills was anything but easy.

"(Becoming an AD) was a career goal, but not short term, I wasn’t very aggressive about it,” said Lubrecht, who in addition to guiding the girls soccer team, taught social studies at WHRHS and served as an assistant coach for the varsity girls basketball and track and field squads. “I was in no rush to leave, things were good. It wasn’t like I needed to get out of Watchung Hills, quite the opposite.”

What proved to be Lubrecht’s final season with the brown and gold was also, perhaps, his finest, as the Warriors compiled a 16-3-4 record, won the Somerset County Tournament championship in a thrilling overtime match with juggernaut Pingry in the final, and claimed the state North 2 Group IV crown.

One of the players most responsible for Watchung Hills’ 2010 successes was sweeper Amy Park, who, as a junior, anchored a defensive unit that allowed just one goal in the state tournament.

Park not only played soccer under Lubrecht, but is also a member of the basketball and track teams, and has been since her freshman year.

Park said she found out about Lubrecht’s departure about a week before school ended in June, as she was having lunch with soccer teammate Monique Goncalves.

At first, she said, she thought it was just a rumor, and she didn’t want to go up to Lubrecht and ask because she was afraid it would be true.

 “When he saw us, he could see from our faces that we knew and we all just broke down,” Park said. “It was really sad that he was leaving, but I’m really happy for him. He’s really going to enjoy it. We always have this running joke that we were going to spend 12 seasons together, and that’s not going to happen.  He said he feels like he’s kind of abandoning us, but we know it’s for the best.”

From a career perspective, Lubrecht said he’s had no regrets or second guesses since deciding to leave Watchung Hills. But it’s leaving behind the people—like Park—that he’s had the most difficulty with.

“(Leaving) is weird, to say the least,” Lubrecht said. “Then you start to think about the actual people involved in that, and that’s a very different thing to wrap your mind around. How do you say goodbye to an Amy Park, who I have coached in every sport and every season she played in for nine seasons? Above and beyond anything else are the kids, that’s the hard part, the students and the teams. It’s human nature. You have relationships with people and when you change or end them it’s very different, very emotional.”

Before coming to Watchung Hills, the Randolph native coached girls soccer at Pequannock High School for five years, and then the Morris Knolls boys for three seasons.

And while Lubrecht will get to spend all his time focusing on athletics, which he likes, the competitive spirit he fed being involved on the ground level day in and day out with a team is something he will certainly miss, even if there are other perks to the new gig.

“I do love to compete, so I am going to miss that,” Lubrecht said. “I hate losing—I don’t even like losing to my kid at chess or checkers—and I don’t know how that’s going to go. I’ve been involved with soccer in the fall every year, pretty much since 1974. But, hey, I haven’t been to a high school football game in eight years.”