Centenary Announces New Athletic Director

Centenary University announced in August the appointment of Pete Vincent as new director of athletics. If that name sounds familiar, it is! A 2007 graduate of Centenary, Vincent is returning to his alma mater where he was a student-athlete-journalist. 

As an undergrad Cyclone, Vincent served as a student-assistant coach during his freshman year and then went on to play as a three-year shooting guard for the Centenary University men’s basketball team. He won the Cyclone Award, an honor given to student-athletes who demonstrate commitment, sportsmanship and leadership.

On Tuesday, Oct. 14, three current student-athlete-journalists had the opportunity to interview Vincent, gaining insight on what the future of Centenary sports might look like. During the interview, Vincent not only spoke about his plans for Centenary, but also shared his journey on becoming the athletic director at Centenary as well as why Centenary means so much to him. 

Although currently residing in Hackettstown, Vincent grew up in Jersey City where he graduated from St. Anthony High School, taught and coached at several Jersey City Catholic high schools, and most recently served as assistant director of athletics at New Jersey City University.

What was it like growing up in Jersey City?

That’s a loaded question. It was tough. I grew up in what I would consider a temperamental neighborhood; sometimes it was good, and sometimes it was bad. And so you learn very quickly how to be resilient, on your toes, and street smart at a very, very young age. 

One thing about Jersey City people is they stick together. It’s the  type of place that molds you into who you are and it stays with you wherever you go. At the end of the day you are grateful for the challenges you face and appreciate that. Jersey City is a place where you think “I'm glad that I was raised there because it made me who I am.”

Tell us about your journey in athletics before returning to Centenary.

While I was at Centenary, a classmate got an opportunity to do a free basketball clinic right down the block at Hackettstown Middle School. He invited me to join him. That wasn't the first time I coached younger kids, but it was the first time since high school that I felt like I might transition into a coaching career. I got the buzz to do it; I was drawn to it. 

Right after graduation from Centenary, I got a job teaching at St. Mary’s, a Catholic high school in Jersey City. While teaching history and criminal justice, I was offered the JV basketball coaching job. I rolled with it. I continued to coach while going to grad school for education administration. 

When Saint Mary's closed, there was an opportunity for me at  New Jersey City University (NJCU), also in Jersey City. I came on board as an academic liaison to the athletic department, similar to what [Juliana Belar] does here for our student athletes. They called me a retention coach. My job was to make sure student athletes went to class, to study hall, and get the tutoring they needed.  I got them any kind of academic resources needed to be eligible, and then to graduate. 

But all along, I was still coaching high school basketball. First at Marist High School in Bayonne and then as head coach for girl’s basketball at Hudson Catholic where I coached for nine seasons and probably had the most success as a head coach. We won over 120 games, were ranked as high as fifth in the state, won  two county championships, and finished as a state finalist two years in a row. That was where my coaching took me. 

Meanwhile back at NJCU, I became the assistant director of athletics, where I oversaw baseball, tennis, men's and women's tennis, track and field, indoor and outdoor, cross country, and bowling. I served a variety of leadership roles including co-founder and assistant director for The Rising Knight Institute, coordinator of a retention program in athletics, and outdoor sports supervisor of NJCU’s athletic complex.

Then after 14 years at NJCU, an opportunity to come back to Centenary presented itself, and I just thought it was the right time to come back and give back to Centenary, and share what I had learned.

What's your plan for shaping this position as athletic director for the Cyclones into your vision of athletics at CU?

My vision for athletics at Centenary is whether your team is winning or losing, players still have that really good overall holistic student-athlete experience where they feel they can get their classes done, succeed in the classroom,  participate in athletics and be comfortable and have a holistic experience. I want our student-athletes to not just have a winning or losing experience, but to know they are still developing as a player and that they are still growing. I want student-athletes to have a social life and I feel supported by everyone from A to Z: not only coaches but also administration, athletic directors, associate athletic directors, and trainers. I want our student-athletes to know that everyone in the athletic department has a vested interest in who they are,  how they are doing, and get them to graduation. And let’s not forget getting a job and being successful.

What are some challenges  keeping student athletes eligible?

I'm very, very surprised and shocked at how well our student-athletes perform in the classroom. We have really good GPAs, all of our teams are over 3.0 GPA, which is amazing. Our cumulative athletic department GPA is 3.18, which is awesome. But I'm very happy and very excited about the current state of our student-athletes. They're doing really well.

What are some specific challenges you’ve faced as the AD at a D3 school?

Resources can be a huge challenge, whether those resources are financial or they're brick and mortar. When you talk about facilities I think those challenges exist at any D3 institution. If you look at our athletic department, not every program has the same amount of assistant coaches and it’s not for a lack of opportunity. It’s just hard to get people to come and coach at a Division 3 school when you’re not making a lot of money. 

In addition, the schedule is wonky. Coaches are only needed generally from 3-5 p.m., so they need a real job in addition to coaching. It’s hard to do both. We don’t have full-time assistant coaches, as is the case at most D3 and even D2 schools. So, I think resources are definitely an issue, no matter what D3 school you're at. 

When I was a student athlete at Centenary, we didn’t have the gym that we have today. It was a very small, circular, barn- shaped gym, and we didn’t have any turf fields. Yet in my opinion, our teams were extremely successful. We had less resources and now we have more. I think that also is attributed to the culture of the campus. 

What do I mean by that? Well, when I was a student here you only had one or two online classes, which takes away from the engagement. You’re not seeing people as much. That’s awkward to me. There should be more face-to-face engagement and increased activities on campus, as well as opportunities for things on the weekends, which will increase the resources that we have. 

So in my opinion, these are some challenges we face. Some are universal and to all D3 universities. Some are unique to Centenary, some are post-covid. And some are just the generation we are in. 

When I was a student, there would be no way we would be doing this interview on Teams . It would be in-person. So I think some of those things are challenges that we face in athletics because we face them on our campus. 

Do you see any similarities between being the program director of United AAU Basketball and athletic director of Centenary University?

Going into my junior year at Centenary, we got a new basketball coach. His advice to us was to go out and get summer jobs coaching basketball to better learn the game. He said to go to work camps and clinics, or coach AAU; anything you do to learn the game from the other side is going to be valuable. It’s going to help you during the season. That was probably the best advice I ever got. 

I went online and found a camp in East Stroudsburg, PA, run by the Philadelphia 76ers. That turned into a 16-year career with the 76ers, which started while I was a student athlete here at Centenary and went every summer for the next sixteen years. 

I went from being just a regular coach, to a clinician, to assistant director for the AAU basketball program. It was an amazing experience. I got to meet players and coaches from all over the world, because we brought in players from Europe, South America, Asia, Africa; a total of over  45 different countries. We had kids coming from the tri-state area but also all over the world when I served as assistant director of overnight camps for the 76ers.

Both experiences–AAU and athletic director–deal with operations, scheduling, finances, budget, managing people, and managing players.

Our readers might be surprised to learn that you were also a journalist as an undergrad as you wrote for The Quill, the student newspaper that preceded The Cyclone Chronicle. What was that like?

Well, that is an interesting story. I found myself at The Quill because I failed the Mass Media class, a class in my opinion that I should not have failed. The Mass Media professor at the time was also the advisor for The Quill and gave me the chance to recover that failing grade if I wrote for the school newspaper. It was also an opportunity to earn one credit each semester as that’s how The Quill worked back then. I wrote for The Quill for a total of about four semesters and earned back those failed credits.

Initially, I thought, wow, this is an opportunity for me to write about sports. That's what I wanted to write about, my teammates and my friends. So, I used The Quill as an opportunity to write about sports. And then, the editors started asking me to write op-ed pieces on movies, albums, CD album reviews; all different sorts of things. 

At the end of the day, this experience at The Quill helped me become a better writer for my other courses on campus. I was very appreciative of this opportunity. They say that everything happens for a reason. So I thought, okay, I guess I failed that class for a reason. Because if I never failed that class, I would never have started writing for the school newspaper. 

It was an experience for sure. It was definitely fun. I had free reign to write about whatever I wanted to write about when it came to sports. So, it was definitely, definitely a great opportunity.

What did students like to read about in The Quill back then?

Movie reviews, album reviews, restaurant reviews. And of course, food. How did Wendy’s measure up to the other fast-food chains? What was new on the menu at Mama's Cafe Baci’s? 

Opinion pieces were big because we didn’t look at TikTok, Snapchat, or Instagram; they didn’t exist. Yes, the internet was around, but social media wasn’t what it is today. So people talked about things.

Students loved to talk about the movies they saw because we didn’t have Netflix back then, either. If you wanted to see a movie, you went to the movie theater. In my sophomore year, 8 Mile–a semi-autobiographical movie about Eminem– came out. And that was big. Everybody on campus wanted to go see 8 Mile. I think I saw it four times. I saw it by myself, but I think the college also sponsored a trip to go see it, too. It was very popular. 

Along with movies, music reviews were big. Of course there were one or two stories every semester about cafeteria food and what college students were talking about. There was a gossip column. But it was definitely the movie, music, and TV show reviews that were really big at the time.

And the most popular issue of The Quill for the entire year was the April Fool’s issue. Back then, the entire issue was devoted to April Fool’s stories. I understand that The Cyclone Chronicle has continued that tradition and does feature a few April Fools’ stories each spring semester!

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The Cyclone Chronicle’s current student-athlete-journalists– Dominick Chiego, Jeremy Moore and Danny Haws– thank former student-athlete-journalist and new athletic director, Pete Vincent, for doing this interview and giving us insight about the future of Centenary athletics. Go Cyclones!

Good luck to Pete Vincent and the athletics department!