The contract has been signed and the move has been made.
Next fall, longtime Patterson coach Roger Wrenn will be standing on the Poly sideline where coaches he admired - Augie Waibel and Bob Lumsden - once stood.
Wrenn, 59, replaces Anthony Knox, who resigned after three years as Poly's coach after the 2005 season. Baltimore's winningest football coach with a career record of 237-96-2, Wrenn is ending a 37-year association with Patterson as a teacher and football coach - a tenure that includes 29 seasons as coach of the Clippers' baseball team.
"At the end of last football season, I told my team that this may be the last game I coach at Patterson," Wrenn said. "My original target date was to retire this June."
But after Knox' s resignation, Wrenn said he was encouraged to apply for the position by a number of Poly alumni. Wrenn was offered the position on March 24 by Poly principal Barney Wilson during a meeting that also involved alumni president Adrian Palazzi.
Wrenn said he couldn't pass up the opportunity to coach at a school with one of the city's most storied football traditions.
"I want to try to put the Big `P' back in Poly football," he said.
"This was entirely a coaching decision. It has nothing to do with my relationship with Patterson's principal, Laura D'Anna, whom I love and respect," Wrenn said. "I'm taking the job because I'm respectful of the tradition established by Augie Waibel and Bob Lumsden. I'm going to retire from teaching at the end of next June, but I'll continue to coach as long as I'm healthy enough to do it."
Wrenn said he was going to retire from teaching and just coach, but he might ask to stay on as athletic director at Patterson because it is one of the schools targeted for takeover by the state.
Although Wrenn said D'Anna has not yet begun to review candidates to replace him, he believes his former assistants, Chris Stalker, Josh Mason, Micah Kurtz and Marcus Wolowicz, are committed to remaining at Patterson, which shared last year's city A Conference title with Dunbar and City.
Seniors lead Poly
Poly's girls lacrosse team started 5-0, thanks in large part to the leadership of senior attackers Elise Victoria and Caitlin Mathers.
Victoria, who will play next year at Long Island University, has 16 goals and one assist. Mathers, who is considering LIU or Fairleigh Dickinson, has 17 goals and two assists.
