SOMERSET, NJ – Former Rowan University athletic director and football coach Ted Kershner was honored with the 2009 Garden State Award at the Collegiate Athletic Administrators of New Jersey (CAANJ) Awards Luncheon on Thursday, October 8. The award ceremony was held at the Somerset Holiday Inn.
The Garden State Award is presented annually to an athletic administrator that has displayed substantial and enduring contributions to the development of intercollegiate athletics in the State of New Jersey. Kershner is Rowan/Glassboro State’s third recipient of the ward. Dr. Mary Rice received the honor in 1984 and current athletic director Joy Solomen was the 2002 honoree.
Kershner joined the Department of Health and Exercise Science at Glassboro State College, now Rowan University, in 1968. He was an assistant baseball coach for 10 years and the football team’s offensive coordinator for 13. Kershner took over as the head football coach in 1981. He coached for seven seasons and had a won-loss record of 35-34. The Profs shared the New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) title in 1983 with a 5-1 conference mark.
Kershner served eight years as the University’s men’s athletic director and later as the associate athletic director of men’s and women’s athletics. As men’s athletic director, he was responsible for the scheduling and direction of 10 men’s athletic teams that included football, soccer, cross country, swimming, wrestling, basketball, track, baseball, tennis and golf.
One of his most noted contributions was the banning of all tobacco-related products by member schools of the NJAC. He was also instrumental in the tobacco ban now in effect at all NCAA institutions.
Kershner initiated a special orthopedic consultant service for the athletes. He served as the executive director of the Brown and Gold Gridiron Club and is still an active member. His teaching expertise was in kinesiology, prevention and treatment of athletic injuries and golf instruction.
Prior to Glassboro State, Kershner was a health and physical education teacher at Pottsgrove High School in Pottstown, PA for eight years. He was an assistant football coach, head tennis coach and assistant baseball coach.
He graduated from Ursinus College in 1960 with a bachelor’s degree in health and physical education and later earned his master’s from Temple University in 1966. Kershner was a quarterback and defensive back for four years at Ursinus and he also played baseball and basketball.
