WALL — An Asbury Park Middle School teacher and veteran football coach involved in a two-car crash was struck and killed by a third car as he was crossing the Garden State Parkway early Sunday, officials said.
John Key, 37, who was in his first season as an assistant football coach at Asbury Park High School, was pronounced dead on the scene after being hit by a northbound Mercedes-Benz, Sgt. Brian Polite said. He was returning from checking on occupants of a car that he had collided with, Polite said.
Key, of Long Branch, was driving a black Chevrolet that collided with a white Honda at 2:08 a.m., sending the two cars to oppposite sides of the northern lanes, Polite said. After going to check on the safety of the occupants in the Honda, Key again crossed the four lanes on foot near the 98.4 mile marker and was hit, Polite said.
“At the point that he ran over to see if they were OK, he was not injured,” Polite said. “When he attempted to cross the roadway again, it was at that point that he was struck by a blue Mercedes-Benz.”
No other injuries were reported, and police did not release the identities of the Honda’s occupants.
A father of two young children, Key was a standout running back/linebacker at Ocean Township High School from 1988-91, said George Conti Jr., Key’s high school football head coach.
Key played varsity football his sophomore through senior years and was the Spartans’ team captain his senior year, Conti said
“He was a person everybody looked up to,’’ Conti said. “He played the game of football like he played the game of life. He played it with integrity and he played it caring about others. He was somebody the younger kids looked up to. He was the type of kid who made Big Red Football (the Ocean program) the great program it became.’’
Conti said Key received a scholarship and played at the University of Delaware, one of the powers in NCAA Division I AA football.
“He made the sacrifices necessary to become a full scholarship player,’’ said Conti, who was Ocean’s highly successful head coach from 1983-93 “He was special player in every way. You could always rely on him. He was a great practice player. I don’t think he ever missed a practice and he played with a lot of injuries, some of them quite severe that some others wouldn’t play with. ’’
During Key’s high school career, Ocean advanced to the NJSIAA Central Group III championship game three straight years from 1989-91. His best season statistically came in 1990, his junior season, when he rushed or 1,210 yards and 11 touchdowns.
Before he joined the Asbury Park coaching staff of head coach Matt Ardizzone this season, Key was an assistant coach the last four seasons at Monmouth Regional High School under head coach and current Neptune assistant coach Sal Spampanato.
Key was also an assistant coach for seven seasons at Ocean, the last four when Spampanato was the Spartans’ head coach from 2003-2006.
“They really don’t come any better than Johnny Key,’’ Spampanato said. “He was a great friend, a great father who made an impact on so many people. He was always positive and inspirational.’’
John Grasso, an assistant coach at Asbury Park, said Key, who was the Blue Bishops’ special teams coordinator, gave the Asbury Park players an inspirational speech before the Keyport game on Saturday. The Blue Bishops won that game, 40-7, to improve to 6-0 and clinch the Shore Conference Class B Central divisional championship outright.
“Being new on the staff, he started out shy (early in the season), but he really came out of his shell before the Keyport game,’’ Grasso said. “He was going over last-minute tips with the special teams players. He got his the kids fired up and the kids responded great to him.’’
“I never thought he aspired to be a head coach, but he became an assistant coach that everybody seemed to want on their staff because he was someone who could be relied on at all times,’’ said Conti, who was a head coach at Asbury Park in the early 1980s.
The news of his death sent a shock through the athletic and education community of Asbury Park – although it’s unlikely anybody was surprised by the circumstances of his death, said Scott Baldwin, who taught with Key at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School in Asbury Park and coached with him at Ocean Township.
“John is a very unselfish person. I’m sure if he stopped his car and he saw something, and if he saw he could help out, he’d help out,” Baldwin, 40, said. “That was the epitome of John.”
Spampanato said he received phone calls and text messages throughout the day from former players, all expressing shock over Key’s sudden death.
“Everybody loved him,” he said. “Everybody’s just shaken up right now.”
Board of Education President Gregory Hopson said both the middle school and high schools will have crisis teams available throughout the day, and he will personally be walking through the halls checking on the well-being of teachers and students.
“He was a light in this community,” said Hopson, who did not know Key too well, but added, “I knew him well enough to know that he touched a lot of lives, and I knew him well enough to know that it’s going to be a tough time around here, not only today, but tomorrow and for time to come.”
Grasso said Key’s family was the most important aspect of his life.
“His kids were everything to him,’’ Grasso said. “He was a doting father, great friend and great coach who went the extra mile.’’
Baldwin said Key made the jump from Thurgood Marshall, on Monroe Avenue, to teach fifth-grade at the middle school, on Bangs Avenue, this year.
“He’s going to be dearly missed,” fellow fifth-grade teacher Shelly Neville said. “He was outgoing, very intelligent. The kids looked up to him because he was loving and stern at the same time.”
Neville said the two participated in the district’s leadership program, and that Key was an aspiring principal who had worked in the district before she arrived seven years ago.
“His life could’ve gone one of two directions: he could’ve been a head coach, or he could’ve been a principal,” Baldwin said. “And he would’ve been great at either.”