New Jersey City University Athletics

PHOTO GALLERY: RETIREMENT TRIBUTE (June 7, 2012)
RETIREMENT PROGRAM
CAREER BIO

JERSEY CITY, NJ (NJCUGothicKnights.com) | After a nearly 50-year career in college athletics, primarily as a football coach, but most recently as New Jersey City University's first-ever Coordinator of Athletic Academic Advisement and Retention and CHAMPS/Life Skills Coordinator, Arnold F. Jeter will officially hang up the whistle. Jeter, 73, a 17-year veteran of the Gothic Knight athletic department, recently announced his retirement, effective July 1.
 
Jeter, who served as NJCU's ninth and final head football coach from 2001-02 and in the athletic academic advisement/retention role since August 2003, will conclude a career in college athletics that spans six decades.
 
When asked what he will miss the most, Jeter didn't hesitate: “The students, no doubt about it.”
 
“After we dropped football (March, 2003), I felt then that perhaps it was time at that point to retire, but I didn't and I'm glad I didn't,” Jeter acknowledged. “I got to be involved in a different area other than coaching. In working with the students in retention and going out to fellowship conferences with them in Pittsburgh and Disney and also counseling students; it was a good [experience].”
 
Jeter's career in college athletics officially spanned 48 years including 39 as a football coach from coast to coast at the Division I and III levels, with stops at the University of Iowa (1966-67), Delaware State University (1967-74), Marshall University (1975-77), University of Wisconsin (1977-86), University of Arizona (1987-90) and Rutgers University (1990-93), before joining the staff at NJCU in 1995 as associate head coach and defensive coordinator, until his promotion to head coach in January, 2001.
 
Just 28 years old in 1967 when he was hired to his first full-time coaching position as head coach at Delaware State, he guided the Hornets to the top-ranked total defense in the nation during his eight-year tenure. He had joined the DSU staff after serving two seasons as a graduate assistant at Iowa.
 
At Marshall he was the assistant football coach and outside linebackers coach for three seasons before heading to Madison, Wisconsin for a 10-year stay with the Badgers as the Big Ten powerhouse's defensive line coach. He held the same position for four years at Arizona, before moving to Rutgers University for four seasons as the associate head coach and defensive line coach.
 
The highlights of Jeter's career are wide-ranging, from recruiting players that became No. 1 draft picks in the National Football League, to appearances in bowl games. But paramount has been the relationships he has forged over the years.
 
“The highlight I'd say has been the relationships with the players and the coaches,” Jeter noted. “I've lived all my life in college towns. These were great places, a wonderful life and something my children got a chance to see, always living in college communities. It was a really good experience being around those types of people. And going to the bowl games. You had no fear [as coach], never thought about getting fired. You just always thought about 'can we win the Rose Bowl, can we get to the Sugar Bowl, or could we beat Michigan or Ohio State.' It was just great competition.”
 
“I was really, really blessed when I went to Wisconsin. We had some great players there and I had some No. 1 draft choices I recruited and coached, including Darryl Sims [No. 1 pick, Pittsburgh Steelers, 1985; current athletic director at Wisconsin-Oshkosh] and [former Cincinnati Bengal] Tim Krumrie, and Nate Odomes, who played in four Super Bowls with the Bills, and Dan Turk and Al Toon who played with the Jets. At Rutgers we had Jay Bellamy and Marco Battaglia and Ray Lucas. The list goes on and on.”
 
Jeter summarized his coaching career with this thought: “I thought about this: I was really blessed and privileged to be around some great athletes and they were also wonderful people who were so competitive and goal-oriented. They truly wanted to be the very best and you could coach them very hard.”
 
Nicknamed “The Minister of Coaching,” because of his service as an associate pastor at Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Piscataway, NJ and Pilgrim Baptist Church in Red Bank, NJ, Jeter has been a mentor to hundreds of NJCU student-athletes since assuming his role as retention coordinator. He has overseen all retention efforts of NJCU student-athletes from the day they arrive on campus through their graduation. He has managed NJCU's study hall program, monitored progress reports, served as the department liaison to NJCU's Center for Student Success (CSS), and administered NJCU's participation in the NCAA/CHAMPS Life Skills Program, which the Gothic Knight athletic department was accepted into in February, 2005. His efforts as complimented the efforts of NJCU's two Athletic Academic Advisors.
 
In 2011, he helped launch NJCU's Athletic Academic Retention Program (AARP), which provides individual study plans to all student-athletes and conducts evaluations and assessments for all student-athletes at the conclusion of each semester until their graduation. Jeter also supervised four retention coaches as part of the AARP.
 
Jeter, a graduate of Kent State University, `62, and Ohio native who resides in Iselin, NJ, will continue to teach and travel when he begins the next stage of his life in retirement. Among his most notable efforts as a minister include visiting New Jersey prisons and providing spiritual guidance and mentoring services to its inmates—something he will continue.
 
“The program is certified through the state and we go into the prisons and teach and preach. I plan on doing some more work in seminary school. My wife [Milagros] and I will get a chance to do a little traveling. In late July/early August we're going to New Orleans on a mission to do some work [in the areas] hit by [Hurricane] Katrina. And prayerfully my health will stay good so I can still move around and get some stuff done.”