This was an article from the Asbury Park Press written by Nancy Shields:
ASBURY PARK — Assistant Asbury Park football coach John Key was an inspirational teacher during the past decade at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School and then this fall at the city middle school, said John Napolitani, the president of Asbury Park’s Education Association Monday.
Key, 37, died about 2 a.m. Sunday when he was hit by a car on the Garden State Parkway in Wall after getting out of his car to check to see if the occupants of another car he had collided with were unhurt.
“He was just an outstanding employee and had a wonderful rapport with the students,” said Napolitani, 40, who went to Ocean Township High School, where Key was as a star running back and linebacker from 1988 to 1991. “He always had a smile on his face and never had a bad thing to say about anyone.”
Napolitani said Key had just obtained a principal certificate and was looking to move to the next level in his career.
“If he had been given that opportunity, he would truly have been an outstanding adminstrator,” the union president said.
Key, a resident of Long Branch and the father of two children, had been a teacher in the Asbury Park schools since September 2000. He came on the high school coaching staff in June after previously coaching for four seasons at Monmouth Regional High School and before that at Ocean Township High School.
Asbury school administrators and staff met with students on Monday to talk about Key, and football coach Matt Ardizzone met with team members who watched last Saturday’s game against Keyport. Key had given players an inspirational speech before the game. Ardizzone said he was not allowing players to talk to the press at that time.
School board president Gregory Hopson said that Key “admitted he had officially become a Blue Bishop on Saturday.”
Ardizzone 35, in his second year as head football coach, said he and Key were at the University of Delaware together.
“He found a positive in anyone and anything around him and will be dearly missed,” Ardizzone said.
He said he saw Key after last Saturday’s game and had talked about the coaches’ usual football meeting at 7 a.m. Sunday. But when Key didn’t show up, Ardizzone and others didn’t really think anything of it, he said.
“Then came the dreaded phone call,’’ the coach said.
“We had a meeting with the kids (football team) this morning, and they came down here to the stadium and actually picked me up,’’ he said.”They’re very resilient. There were a lot of tears including myself. We started reminiscing about him. A lot of kids had him as a teacher.”
High School Principal Mark Gerbino said Key “had this tenacity about him — a quiet intensity.”
“He believed in himself and believed in his kids,” Gerbino said. “He was like that with everyone.”
Juanita Barnes, a teacher who worked closely with Key in the fourth and fifth grades the last five years, said her colleague had a “sweet spirit.”
“This is a huge loss for our school district,” Barnes said in an email. “This fine example of a male, African-American teacher was desperately needed in our school system and will not be easily replaced.”
Napolitani said Key was not married at the time of his death. He said Key’s parents, who live in Delaware, had come into town over the weekend for the funeral of a close friend.