Toms River East has a new head wrestling coach; Warren Reid to be an assistant coach

One of the legendary head coaching careers in the history of Shore Conference sports appears to have come to an end.

Venerable Warren Reid, the only head wrestling coach Toms River High School East has had in its 44-season history, will not be the Raiders’ head coach this season. Reid will stay with the program as an assistant coach, Toms River Regional Schools District Athletic Director Ted Gillen said.

Steven Giannios, the NJSIAA fourth-place finisher at 220 pounds in 2018, when he was a senior at St. John Vianney, was approved as Toms River East’s head coach Wednesday night by the Toms River Regional Board of Education, Gillen said.

“It’s a movement to bring in somebody younger that can be groomed by Warren (Reid) and assume the major responsibilities and have coach (Reid) step back and reduce the burden on him,’’ Gillen said.

Giannios, who was also a two-time district champion in high school, comes from one of the Shore Conference’s royal wrestling families.

He is the nephew of legendary former Brick Memorial head coach Tony Caravella. Caravella’s Brick Memorial teams and Reid’s Toms River East’s team engaged in one of the Shore’s great and most intense rivalries in the 1980’s and 1990’s. That rivalry helped grow the sport in the Shore Conference.

“He (Giannios) came very highly-recommended. I was very impressed by him,’’ Gillen said. “I feel like Steven, because of his uncle, understands coach Reid. For me, that was very important. He’s not coming in and saying, I’m going to do it my way. He understands and appreciates that coach Reid built that place.’’

Giannios wrestled collegiately at The College of New Jersey.

Reid is third on the Shore’s all-time wins list with 448, behind Howell’s John Gagliano (565) and former Raritan and Pinelands head coach Rob Nucci (474). He is one ahead of former Long Branch and Red Bank head coach and current Bayonne High School athletic director Dan George (447).

An old-school coach with a gruff personality, but an individual who those who are close to him consider to be the salt of the earth, Reid has a reputation as an outstanding teacher of the sport.

John DeMarco, the legendary former Toms River South head coach and long-time close friend of Reid’s, has long said. “Nobody knows more about wrestling than Warren Reid’’.

Reid inherited a Toms River East program that was ready to win when the school’s doors opened in 1980 before its first wrestling season in 1980-81.

The Raiders won consecutive Shore Conference Tournament championships in 1983 and 84 with wins over Brick Memorial before its bid for a three-peat was broken by Brick Memorial and heavyweight Dean Kanabrocki’s “Headlock heard around the World’’ in the final bout in a 27-21 Mustangs’ win in the 1985 final.

Toms River East advanced to six consecutive SCT championship matches from 1983-88. It also lost to Brick Memorial in the 1986-88 finals.

Toms River East won its third SCT title in 2002, when a win by Paul Sternlieb over John Lott at heavyweight in the final bout clinched a 33-28 win over Jackson Memorial, whose head coach was current Rutgers University head coach Scott Goodale.

The Raiders have also won eight Shore Conference divisional championships and eight NJSIAA district champions.

Reid has coached five wrestlers who combined to win six state championships, led by current Christian Brothers Academy assistant coach and former Rutgers wrestler Vinnie DelleFave, who won consecutive titles in 2008 and 2009.

Pat McGrath, Andy Chencharik, Joe Mormile and Vin Salek were the other state champions Reid had coached.

Among the other wrestlers Reid has coached was Frankie Edgar, who was a two-time state medalist, four-time NCAA qualifier at Clarion (Pa.) and went on to win the UFC lightweight championship in 2010.

Before he became Toms River East’s head coach Reid was an assistant coach to DeMarco at Toms River South. Among the wrestlers Reid helped coach at Toms River South was immortal two-time state champion Jeffrey Parker. Legend has it Parker had a hard time taking Reid down during practices.

Reid was a two-time NCAA fourth-place finisher at 177 pounds for Oklahoma in 1972 and 1973 after he had served in the United States Marine Corp. He then was an assistant coach at the University of Alabama before he joined the Toms River South coaching staff.

He wrestled scholastically at Bridgewater-Raritan West (now Bridgewater-Raritan), where he was a district champion and a Region V runner-up.

Toms River East has struggled team-wise, for the most part since that SCT title in 2002.

But, it has had some state medal winners during that time, including 152-pound runner-up A.J. Meyers in 2017, three-time medalist Richie Lewis, who eventually was a two-time NCAA qualifier for Rutgers, and 2024 heavyweight seventh-place finisher James Lynch.

Lynch will be among Toms River East’s returnees this season.

In other wrestling coaching news:

Ethan Wolf was recently hired as Raritan’s head coach to replace Nucci, outgoing Raritan athletic director John DeGenito said.

Wolf, an assistant coach under Nucci the last four season, was a region champion at 220 pounds in 2018 and a district champion at 220 in both 2017 and 2018 for Raritan.

Nucci concluded a 23-year stint as Raritan’s head coach and a 26-year scholastic head coaching career last season. Four hundreds fifty six of his wins came at Raritan. He will be Hazlet Middle School’s head coach this season.

The Rockets also won two NJSIAA Group 2 championships (2012 and 2022), five NJSIAA sectional titles; 14 Shore Conference divisional championships and eight NJSIAA district team championships under Nucci.

Ten of Raritan's 12 state medals came under Nucci, including Dan Seidenberg's consecutive state runner-up finishes in 2007 and 2008.

Jackson Memorial will also have a new head coach as B.J. Young has left the program after one season and will be an assistant coach at Felician University’s brand new program this season. Felician is NCAA Division 2 program.

Jackson Memorial went 10-9 last season and was defeated by eventual Central Group 4 champion Brick Memorial in the sectional semifinal.

Bill Wilbert has resigned as Toms River North’s head wrestling coach after 14 seasons, Gillen said.