New to St. Rose High School but well known and respected in the world of Jersey Shore Athletics, Louis “Del” Dal Pra has joined our team as our Supervisor of Athletics.
Del Dal Pra has spent most of his life on the Jersey Shore. He grew up in Rumson and was an All-Shore football and baseball player at RFH in 1984 and was inducted into the Bulldog Athletic Hall of Fame in 2005. He then continued playing Baseball and Football at Glassboro State College and graduated in 1991 with a teaching degree in Health and Physical Education. After graduation he returned to RFH were he taught H/PE and was an assistant football coach from 1992-1999. He also coached baseball at RFH from 1991 to 1994. As a baseball coach, Dal Pra first standout season came in 1996 when he guided Henry Hudson to the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group 1 sectional championship game and was named Asbury Park Press Baseball coach of the year. In 1998 he was the head coach at OCC and in 2000 was named the head baseball coach at Ocean. Dal Pra led the Spartans to four Shore Conference division titles, two Monmouth County Tournament titles, one Shore Conference Tournament championship and two NJSIAA Central Jersey Group 3 sectional titles.
Dal Pra was also an assistant football coach when Ocean won the Central Jersey Group 3 crown in 2000 and 2005 and was named baseball coach of the year in 2006 by the Asbury Park Press. While teaching and coaching at Ocean Coach Del earned his Masters degree from Kean University with a degree in School Administration. In 2008, Dal Pra was then hired as Red Bank's athletic director and tasked with resuscitating a struggling athletic department. That fall season, the football team was 0-10 and the boys and girls soccer, girls tennis and field hockey teams combined for just nine wins. "Those times were horrible for me," he said. "We had teams playing on fields and courts that had no upgrades in almost 40 years. Outdated uniforms and equipment had to be replaced with one of the smallest budgets in the Shore Conference. I knew I had to think outside the box because it was not safe for our student-athletes and they deserved better."
With the help of some very dedicated parents, Dal Pra founded the Buc Backer Booster Club in 2009. He fostered the buy-in from the entire coaching staff and they helped him build a winning culture in Little Silver that was missing for a long time. From 2010-2020 he was also able to start and finish such projects as lights for the stadium field, new home and away stands, a new wood gym floor, new gym lights, new gym bleachers and new scoreboards in the fieldhouse. His most proud moment was the opening of a new state of the art weight room. Coach Del was named Athletic Director of the year in 2016 and 2020 and retired from RBR in July 2020. Before retiring all of the RBR teams were running successful programs and playing on top notch facilities.
In 2021 the NJSIAA enshrined Coach Del in the New Jersey State Coaches Hall of Fame in Robbinsville. Last school year 2021-2022 Dal Pra worked at Matawan High School in the Security Department. Currently he works for the Philadelphia Phillies as an assistant groundskeeper for the Jersey Shore BlueClaws. “I love working for the BlueClaws and enjoy every minute I am at the ballpark,” Dal Pra said. “However, I am even more excited to get back to working as a high school Athletic Director, especially at St. Rose. I’ve had a lot of great offers this past summer but when the opportunity to work at a school that appreciates its coaches and athletes like St. Rose does came along- I jumped at the chance."
"St. Rose's win of the Shop-Rite Cup in 2021-2022 for Private Group 1 schools demonstrates its commitment to athletics with programs and coaches on the top of their game. I am excited to work with the coaches and athletes to take the program to the next level."
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