Jeffrey Dean, director of athletics and recreational services, and former baseball coach at Rutgers-Camden, has died at 58

Jeffrey Dean, 58, of Haddon Heights, director of athletics and recreational services, and former baseball coach at Rutgers University-Camden, died Tuesday, Jan. 23, of cardiac arrest at his home.

Mr. Dean left Salisbury State University in Maryland to become head baseball coach at Rutgers-Camden in 1993 and three seasons later directed the Scarlet Raptors to the school’s best record in eight years. He went on to serve as assistant director of recreational services in 1999, director of athletics and recreational services in 2003, and he reinstated the varsity men’s and women’s tennis teams and added men’s and women’s indoor track teams.

He went 59-101-3 in five seasons as Rutgers-Camden baseball coach and managed dozens of intramural and recreational programs and nearly 20 varsity sports teams over two decades as athletic director. Colleagues noted his “athletic excellence and immeasurable impact” on the school in a Facebook post, and called him “a great person who cared about the students.” One of his former players said: “I am so glad I had the privilege to know him.”

Mr. Dean helped establish the school’s athletic hall of fame in 2005 and supervised the opening of the new Camden Athletic Complex in 2022. He was also the baseball chair and on the membership committee of the New Jersey Athletic Conference. Officials at Rutgers-Camden and the NJAC said they “lost a cherished friend and tireless colleague.”

He was an assistant baseball coach earlier at Salisbury State, now Salisbury University, and Bridgewater College in Virginia. He was athletic director at Rutgers-Camden when the women’s softball team won a national championship in 2006 and the men’s soccer team made it to a national championship game in 2013.

He was easy to work with and play for, his wife, Kate, said because he was disciplined and fair. “He was a rules guy, so you knew what was expected,” she said.

He was quoted often in the sports pages of The Inquirer and other publications, and said in the spring 2023 edition of the Rutgers University-Camden magazine: “Athletics can be the bond that ties an entire campus community together. The logo and colors we wear are a symbol of something bigger than just ourselves. They’re a representation of all of us here at Rutgers-Camden.”

Jeffrey Layne Dean was born Sept. 28, 1965, in Charlottesville, Va. He was an all-star baseball pitcher at Bridgewater and earned a bachelor’s degree in health and physical education in 1987.

“Jeff was a fierce competitor on the mound and a leader in the dugout,” a former college teammate said in an online tribute. In 1991, he earned a master’s degree in educational administration at Salisbury State.

He worked for two years as a coach at Bridgewater and four years at Salisbury State before joining Rutgers-Camden in 1993. He met fellow Rutgers-Camden coach Kate Lovett at a sports banquet, and they married in 1996, and had sons Jack, Andrew, and Jeffrey Jr.

Mr. Dean was low-key, quiet, and had a dry sense of humor. “He didn’t talk just to talk,” his wife said. “He was a careful thinker.”

He baked bread, made tasty beef jerky, and grew chili peppers in his garden. “The hotter the better,” his wife said.

He was an avid car racing fan and cheered some of his favorite NASCAR drivers at Pocono Raceway. He liked to fish, could fix anything around the house, and built an impressive backyard shed during the COVID-19 quarantine.

He was an intimidating college pitcher at 6-foot-5, went 15-5 in four seasons at Bridgewater, and holds the school record for winning percentage as a pitcher. But injuries to his right elbow and shoulder sidetracked his playing career. He rooted for the Phillies once he got to South Jersey and was a lifelong fan of the baseball and basketball teams at the University of Virginia.

Mr. Dean took his sons to Virginia to learn about his roots and experience the culture, and they all returned, his wife said, with that same southern charm that attracted her when they first met. “He made them proud,” she said.

In 2023, when asked by a writer what he liked best about his work, Mr. Dean said: “It’s always having that new group of kids that you get to watch grow and develop into adults right before your eyes over the next four years. That’s always exciting, and it happens every year.”

In addition to his wife and sons, Mr. Dean is survived by his mother, Betty Jean, a brother, and other relatives.

Services were Feb. 3.

Donations in his name may be made to the Camden Athletics Gift Fund of the Rutgers University Foundation, 335 George St., Suite 4000., New Brunswick, N.J. 08901.