'Really difficult to handle': Tarig Holman talks about St. Thomas Aquinas football firing

‘Really difficult to handle’: Tarig Holman talks about St. Thomas Aquinas football firing

Posted by Admin January 11, 2025 Football

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Tarig Holman had no indication anything was wrong. The St. Thomas Aquinas head football coach was going about the off-season business as usual with his staff.

They ordered new uniforms and were changing the helmets. Added an assistant coach. Beefed up their schedule for the fall.

Then, he unexpectedly met with athletic director Jerry Smith on Friday afternoon who came to Woodbridge High School where Holman teaches English.

The result: Holman confirmed he was fired along with his assistants. The news was first reported by Central Jersey Sports Radio.

Holman, in his first public comments, said Saturday he wasn’t given a reason other than “the only thing that I was kind of told was that they didn’t like the culture.”

Smith was reached for comment Saturday afternoon and did not immediately respond. Any comments or statements from St. Thomas Aquinas will be added.

Holman led St. Thomas Aquinas to a 27-6 record as the head coach the last three seasons with final state rankings the past two years. He was named the President of the New Jersey Football Coaches Association in the summer.

“I think the worst thing in the entire process is just not knowing what is going on,” Holman said Saturday. “I wasn’t given a meeting. There was no explanation and therefore you have like what really could be thousands of people that are left to just fill that empty space with whatever notion that they could come up with. And this is not one of those, ‘Hey, just write I’m going to step down so I could spend more time with my family.’ That’s not the case here.”

He continued by noting the “really, really good” relationships he has with the players and how hard that they’ve worked, as well as his staff.

“I’m just really hardened that I wasn’t worthy of an explanation and the parents deserve it,” Holman said. “The kids deserve it. The community deserves it and frankly, I think, definitely my staff and I deserve it as well. There was none of that given and that’s the thing that’s really, really difficult to handle at this point.”

He said he wasn’t provided any specific examples of why he was fired or had any indication during the season that something was amiss.

“That’s what I would love,” Holman said. “I would have loved to have some constructive criticism from the people that are at the top. It needs to be a shared vision. So if there’s something that I was doing I shouldn’t have been doing, please let me know. Obviously, it wasn’t perfect. We didn’t get to all the goals that we wanted to but I really think that we’re on the right track, for sure.”

He also had exit interviews with players and parents in December to talk about goals and how the season went.

“Culture starts at the top and it shows itself through the people at the bottom,” Holman said. “I was really excited and I was really hopeful about the culture that had been created at St. Thomas. If you look at the statistics, and I don’t mean the statistics that mean winning and losing, I mean the statistics of the kids that have been able to use football as the vehicle to take them to the next level.”

He also pointed out the team had 22 players on the honor roll with colleges such as Boston College, Penn State and Syracuse interested in players.

“We operate as a family and we deal with all kinds of adversity,” Holman said. “We had a kid that passed out. We had a coach that was in the hospital for several weeks. Like we encountered a lot of things and the one thing that I know is that when all is said and done, we were able to get through a lot together. And that’s not to say that we didn’t have any issues or problems. Any program that doesn’t is probably not very successful. But everything that transpires will always be handled with care and love and respect and honor and everything was handled that way.”

The Trojans finished No. 4 in the MyCentralJersey Big Central Conference Top 15 in 2024 after going 8-3 and losing to Holy Spirit, 35-31, in the Non-Public B quarterfinals. STA was No. 25 in the final New Jersey Super 25 statewide rankings.

In 2023, St. Thomas Aquinas went 10-1 and was No. 7 in the final USA TODAY NETWORK Statewide Non-Public Top 10.

Holman, 48, played football at then-powerhouse Randolph High School and cornerback at the University of Iowa. Among his claims to fame was he intercepted Tom Brady twice in one game and was chosen for the 1999 Blue-Gray Football Classic all-star game.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers signed him as an undrafted free agent in 2000 before a preseason hamstring injury ended his playing career.

His coaching chapter began as an assistant at Mount Olive and had stints at Highland Park and New Brunswick.

His first head coaching job was in 2009 at South Brunswick. He then spent three years as Montgomery’s defensive coordinator.

Enter a series of head coaching jobs before landing at St. Thomas Aquinas in 2022. Holman helped turn around Trenton High School’s program in 2013 and 2014. The team went 15-6 after winning 14 games in the previous seven seasons. That included going 8-2 with its first playoff berth in 15 years in 2013.

Holman led his alma mater Randolph in 2015 and 2016, Neptune in 2017, 2018 and 2019 and J.F. Kennedy-Iselin in 2020 and 2021.

St. Thomas Aquinas hired him as the head coach in April 2022. He replaced Brian Meeney, who died suddenly at age 46 on March 1 of that year. The beloved Meeney led STA to a 9-1 season in 2021.

Holman inherited many returning players and maneuvered through what could have been an awkward and delicate situation as the team went 9-2 in 2022.

Smith, a veteran athletic director, hired Holman.

“Jerry’s been great to me and that’s why I know that it probably wasn’t Jerry’s decision, to be honest with you,” Holman said. “… He gave us any tool that he could to help us to garnish success and that is something that is great about him. So I can only imagine that it came from the principal and the president.”

To illustrate how sudden the firing was, the school still had Holman listed as its head football coach Saturday afternoon and Holman had not yet fixed a social media account with his title.

He said he’s received several text messages and calls from players, parents and others in support.

“I mean, I think that’s the thing that makes it sting so bad,” Holman said. “Makes it hurt so bad is that it’s impacting so many people. It’s not just me because as a head coach, and even as a teacher, your task is to always put the kids first and you always have to put yourself last.

“It’s going to be a difficult pill to swallow to kind of look at having to start over. I think I’ll be OK. As a matter of fact, I know I’ll be OK because you’re taught a setback is only a set up for a comeback and I truly believe that God always has a plan and I know what my passion, I know what my purpose is.”