Hanover Park's Fulton Selected
As West Essex's Football Coach

NORTH CALDWELL-Tim Walsh may have South Jersey roots but having now been on the faculty at West Essex for a number of years now - including most recently as the school’s athletic director - he is well aware of the rich tradition of football at the North Caldwell regional high school.

With coaches including Steve Tafaro and Fred Keil in the 1970s, Bill Roca, who guided the No. 1 team in the state in 1980, Ron Anello in the 1990s and then five playoff championships from Dave Drozjock in the late ‘90s and 2000s with three more sectional titles with Chris Benacquista at the helm from 2011 to 2024, the legacy of success has carried on for more than a half century.

When Benacquista decided to make the move to be the new head coach at Wayne Valley, in a community where he resides, and his three children go to school, Walsh and company knew that they had to find the right man to continue a tradition that is as strong as any team in Essex County.

Enter Dan Fulton, a Parsippany native who has done such a superb job the past seven seasons guiding Hanover Park, including directing the 10-2 Hornets to the North 2, Group 2 playoff championship last fall. He was formally approved by the West Essex Board of Education on April 7th to become the new head football coach for the Knights.

“We’re thrilled to find someone with all the great qualities that Dan represents as our new head football coach,” said Walsh. “He is a tremendous leader of young men, and we feel strongly that he is the right person to lead the way in carrying on the strong West Essex football tradition.

“We lose 18 seniors off last year’s (8-4 N2G3 runner-up) team, and a great coach; plus, we open next season against (2024 Group 3 state champion) Old Tappan, but we’re very comfortable with Dan stepping in now and leading the way forward while becoming a big part of our West Essex community both on and off the field.”

For Fulton, being named to guide a program he knows a great deal about both as a former player and then as an opposing coach, it seems like a natural progression in his still-burgeoning coaching career.

“It’s hard to say goodbye to my boys at Hanover Park, which is a very special place, and has been a home for me, my wife and our daughters. But, I felt that this was this is an opportunity that doesn’t come along very often and it is best for our family to make this move now.

“I’m extremely excited to be the head football coach at West Essex. Having grown up playing against them (as a student at Parsippany Hills), and then coaching against them I’m very familiar with the program, and I have such great respect for all the outstanding coaches who have preceded me.

“I’m looking forward to meeting the players, assembling our coaching staff and getting everything moving ahead in preparation for next season!”

The newly-appointed West Essex head coach indicated that he would like to try and retain a few of Benacquista’s assistant coaches as he builds his new Knights staff.

“’Benny’ (Benacquista) had a great staff,” Fulton stated. “I have my eyes on keeping Tim Glenn as the DC (defensive coordinator). He is a master at coaching and is very respected around the state.”

The 37-year-old Fulton has an extensive coaching resume for such a relatively young man, a series of positions which date back to him being a volunteer assistant when he was an undergraduate at Lock Haven State in Pennsylvania. Before that, while being sidelined for much of his senior high school season in 2005, he developed an early interest in coaching that fall as he made it a point to stand alongside the Vikings’ highly-regarded head coach Dave Albano for much of the fall campaign.

“Coach Albano is ‘the man,” said Fulton. “I learned so much from him at an early age and he’s been a big influence on me with the way he cares so much about his players while running a first-class program.”

After transferring from Lock Haven State, Fulton then played three seasons as a tight end and outside linebacker for coach Rick Giancola at Montclair State University.

After college he spent a year as an assistant with Albano at his high school alma mater before then working for four seasons with coach Todd Callaghan at Whippany Park prior to joining Gerry Moore’s staff at Hanover Park where he was an assistant for three seasons before being selected to the head job in 2018 when Moore stepped aside.

After two sub-.500 seasons in 2018 (4-5) and 2019 (3-7), the Hornets had winning records the next five seasons, including reaching state sectional playoff finals in both 2021 (losing to Caldwell, 44-14, in the N1G2 championship game) and last fall with a dominating 24-3 win over top-seeded Glen Rock-in the N2G2 sectional final before the Hornets were then edged by eventual Group 2 state finalist, Shabazz, 8-7, in a tightly-contested state semifinal.

Fulton’s Hornets lost to Westwood in the first round of the 2022 N1G2 playoffs and fell to Rutherford in the N1G2 semifinals in 2023.

The Hornets dropped a hard-fought and narrow 22-21 decision to West Essex in a regular season game this past fall in the resumption of an on-again-and-off-again contest between local rivals where the winner receives the Cosmo Cardone Cup in honor of a late Hanover Park guidance counselor whose sons played at West Essex, including Don Cardone who was a starting linebacker on then rookie head coach Keil’s 1974 Knights who were awarded the program’s first sectional state title in the NJSIAA’s initial year of the playoffs.

“There are a lot of connections and similarities between the Hanover Park and West Essex communities and both football teams produce tough and hard-nosed, very competitive players,” said Walsh. “Dan’s familiarity with both programs is definitely a plus as he becomes our new head coach.”

NOTES- Fulton’s grandfather, Paul Fulton, was a former wrestling and football coach at Hackensack, and his dad Dave, who at one time coached youth soccer in Parsippany, will be a member of his son’s football coaching staff at West Essex…Soccer was also a sport the younger Fulton played before switching to football as a sixth grader with the Little Vikings in town…Fulton is presently a special education teacher at Hanover Park...West Essex has won 10 state titles including three under Benacquista (2017 and 2023 in N2G3 and 2011, his first season at the helm, in N1G2….Benacquista is a former standout linemen at Wessex and The College of New Jersey and was also a longtime assistant coach under Dave Drozjock, who guided the Knights to five playoff championships in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007. Droz is slated to join Benacquista’s new staff at Wayne Valley….West Essex was also the N2G4 champion and named the No. 1 in the state while receiving The Star-Ledger Trophy in 1980. The Knights were also awarded the N2G3 crown in 1974 in the first year of an abbreviated playoff format and in Fred Keil’s rookie season at the helm after coming over with Roca from DePaul….Among the noted West Essex graduates are David Chase, formerly of North Caldwell, who was the creator of the HBO hit series, ‘the Sopranos,’ former Saturday Night Live cast member and current radio talk show host Joe Piscopo, also of North Caldwell; former Major League catcher (Yankees, Mariners) Scott Bradley; his older brother Bob Bradley who has been involved on the international, professional soccer scene for many years; both of Essex Fells; and Rob Burnett, who was a writer for former TV late-night, talk show host David Letterman, and former Lafayette College and NFL Giants and Oilers QB Ed Baker, who then had a long career as a dentist based in Caldwell.

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