Churchill’s (Md.) Football Coach is taking advantage of the second run at Head Coach

Churchill’s (Md.) Football Coach is taking advantage of the second run at Head Coach

Monrovia, Md – Imagine getting a second opportunity to live out a childhood dream. That’s what Joe Rydzewski got when he took the Churchill High School head football coach position last February. He left his first head coaching job 10 years ago to reevaluate his priorities and to then start a family. After a first season where he went 1-1 in a COVID shortened season Joe gets a chance to lead the Bulldogs to a rebuild and continue his journey that has been going on for over 20 years.

Joe has played football all of his life and has wanted to be a coach since his childhood. He played college football at McDaniel College in Maryland where he holds the record for blocked kicks in a game with 3, via McDaniel football records along with being a two-time all-conference defensive tackle. Joe credits that time with giving him a base to start his coaching career and taught him some valuable lessons.

“I think it helps with overcoming adversity because of the situations you are put in as a college athlete,” said Joe Rydzewski. “As a college athlete, things do not always go your way and it may or may not have anything to do with how you attacked a situation. You learn to realize you got to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep moving forward.”

While playing in college Joe was able to play with his brother John Rydzewski, who was a three time all-conference left tackle at McDaniel College in Maryland.

“It was a special thing to play together in college,” says John Rydzewski. “It’s not a normal thing, we never had the chance to play together before college.”

After college Joe went to become a defensive line at Chowan University in North Carolina. After a couple seasons Joe decided to come back to Montgomery county Maryland to become a head coach at Watkins Mill. He stayed there for four seasons. While there he took the team to their first .500 record in 10 years and grew participation for the program. His brother, John, was his offensive coordinator there and said that it was another special time for the both of them.

 Joe realized that the job alongside teaching was starting to take overpower his life and decided to take a step back from coaching football. He coached varsity baseball at Einstein High School, which kept him in coaching but allowed him to start a family. He was the offensive coordinator at Urbana High School for a season in 2016.  His wife Nicole Rydzewski, a kindergarten in Montgomery County, appreciated the sacrifice Joe was making but always knew that he would end up back in football as a head coach.

“I think for a long time he was making the sacrifice of not coaching football because he knew it wasn’t a good time for us with the kids being so young,” says It does require many hours a day and he knew he need to be at home.”

Joe took over the Churchill Job on February 21, 2020, as well as becoming a PE teacher there. After 10 years of being out of a football head coach Joe was now a dad and couldn’t spend all of his time being a football coach. His first season wasn’t going to be easy with high school athletics dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the state of Maryland all fall sports were pushed to the spring or canceled and in Montgomery county football season was shortened to two games. He had to tell seniors that he didn’t know that their final season was going to be shorter than normal and to the juniors that they would be missing out on the most important opportunity to earn college offers. In that Joe was also not able to develop relationships on and off the field at his new job.

“COVID presented a huge challenge,” says Joe. “It made it impossible for me to build those relationships that are a must if we want to be successful on the field and in the classroom.”

Even with Covid, Joe has been able to create a difference in the Bulldog program but still views his rebuild there as a work in progress in the right For the future Joe doesn’t see much pass coaching at Churchill but knows that family comes first now.