The Ewing High football players will be expected to learn their ABCs in the classroom, but after school they will be learning their LSGs.
“That’s the motto we live by on and off the field, LSG – Loyalty, Sacrifice, Guts,” new head coach Ross Maddalon said. “It takes those three things to produce a solid football program, year in and year out. On the field, we expect to have a team that is disciplined, selfless and plays relentlessly every second of every snap.
“In the classroom, we have similar expectations. Education is going to be a top priority for our kids.”
Maddalon is taking over for Matt Dalessio, who took the Robbinsville athletic director’s job last February. As a Nottingham High grad and former Northstar assistant, Ross possesses a strong area background and wealth of coaching experience.
“Coach Maddalon was impressive during the interview process and brings a strong football résumé to Ewing,” Athletic Director Kyle Kaminskas, also a Nottingham grad, said on the school’s website. “He appears to be a coach who truly cares about his players and is a man of integrity, and we are excited to have him lead the program.”
Praise for the hiring came from Jon “Big Dawg” Adams, who served as Maddalon’s head coach at Nottingham.
“I believe Ewing is in great hands,” Adams said. “The system he will install will be a great fit for the Ewing program. I know he will do an awesome job there. I am very proud of him.”
Maddalon played for Nottingham from 1997-2000 and was a two-year varsity performer at offensive tackle. During his time in the trenches, the Northstars had a stellar running game, went 15-5 in two years and earned the school’s first-ever playoff win against Franklin in 2000.
At 5-foot-7, playing in college was pretty much off the table so Maddalon opted to major in Business Education at Rider. He had already decided on wanting to coach and was looking to get into that as well.
“My options were pretty limited in terms of playing college football at a competitive level,” he said. “I turned my attention towards coaching high school football. Rider was the only school in the state that offered my specific major, and it allowed me to make the transition of going from classes to practice pretty easy since Rider and Nottingham are only 15 minutes away from each other.
“I have wanted to coach since I was a senior in high school. I decided on education as my career path, so coaching was very intriguing to me. My aspirations of becoming a head coach really came into effect during my final years in college and first few years as an educator. When you’re surrounded by great leaders, it’s not uncommon to aspire to become one. I’ve had the benefit of coaching with and for some outstanding individuals.”
After graduating from Rider, Ross began teaching at Old Bridge High School in 2005 and remained there until 2014. He helped the Knights produce one of Central Jersey’s most prolific offenses. From there he went to Northern Burlington for two years, and returned to Nottingham from 2016-19.
Upon his return to the Northstars, Maddalon was the offensive coordinator and worked closely with Keith Zimmerman, who is now in the same position with Nottingham.
“I was with him when we ran the wishbone stuff,” Zimmerman said. “Ross is a bookworm. He’s in the books. He knows everything, he sees everything. Anything that’s going on in football, he knows it. He’s the real deal, absolutely the real deal.”
Maddalon left his alma mater and went to Cinnaminson for two years, and has returned to Mercer County as a member of Ewing High’s Business Department. And, of course, its football coach.
He inherits a program that went 6-4, reached the state playoffs and won the West Jersey Football League’s Valley Division title. The Blue Devils graduated a ton of talent from that team but, despite what looks like a rebuilding year, Maddalon still feels the heat is on to win.
“The pressure is never off because the expectations are always high here, as they should be,” said Maddalon, who will assume the offensive coordinator role in addition to his other duties. “Even though we lost a good senior group, we still have an abundance of athleticism and high-character kids. We began workouts (in mid-July) and their attitudes and effort were terrific. The coaching staff likes this group a lot and we believe this team will surprise a lot of the doubters.”
Zimmerman feels that Maddalon has more than enough experience to take on the challenge of running his own program.
“He’s absolutely ready, he’s been ready,” the Northstars assistant said. “He’s a great motivator. He’s not a yeller or screamer. He just goes out and gets the job done. He’s a teacher, and execution-wise he’s phenomenal.”
Like all head coaches, Maddalon has picked and chosen certain attributes from everyone he has worked with on the way up. It starts with his high school coach, Jon “Big Dawg” Adams.
“He gave me my first coaching opportunity,” Ross said. “And he’s been a mentor and colleague throughout my entire career.”
Adams, now Nottingham’s athletic director, still has strong recollections of Maddalon as a player and an assistant coach.
“He was very dedicated and hard working as a player,” Adams said. “He started on our 2000 O-line at tackle, which was one of the better lines we have had. He then volunteered on the freshmen level with us a few years later.
“When he became a coach and teacher at Old Bridge, he was an O-line coach there and always did a phenomenal job for them. He came back to us and I made him O-line coach and eventually O-coordinator. He is a film junkie. He will watch hours of tape and does a great job creating schemes for fronts. He has all the tools to be a great head coach.”
Adams was just one of many who Maddalon feels made an impact on his journey. Other influencers included Old Bridge head coaches Bob DeMarco and Anthony Lanzafama, Northern Burlington’s Jon Reising and Cinnaminson’s Mario Patrizi.
“Additionally, there are many assistant coaches I’d love to list, but there are just too many,” he said. “I’d just like to say I’ve learned a ton from everyone I’ve been around.
“This has been a dream of mine for over the past 20 years. To finally get an opportunity to lead a program, especially one extremely rich in tradition, means so much to me. I’d like to thank our superintendent (Mr. Michael Nitti), principal (Mr. Ed Chmiel) and athletic director for this precious opportunity.”
Ross Maddalon, Ewing High School's new football coach.,
