Jerry Jerome, hall of fame South Jersey soccer coach, retired project manager, and veteran, has died at 87

Jerry Jerome, 87, of Cherry Hill, hall of fame South Jersey soccer coach, cofounder of the Camden Youth Soccer Club, retired project manager for Lucent Technologies, lifelong athlete, and veteran, died Thursday, Nov. 9, of complications after a fall at Cooper University Hospital in Camden.

A baseball and tennis player in high school, and later a rower for the Penn Athletic Club and Rutgers Alumni Rowing Club, Mr. Jerome fell in love with soccer after his son Jerry joined a youth team as a boy. Even after his son had moved on, Mr. Jerome remained transfixed by what is known around the world as “the beautiful game” and its positive effects on his community.

He played in a local men’s recreation league for a while, but an injury cut his career short. So he went on to coach young players for the Cherry Hill Soccer Club for 23 years. Then, seeing a need and unable to ignore it, he helped establish the Camden Youth Soccer Club in 2003.

“He saw the opportunity to bring a wonderful sport that featured healthy and other positive aspects to a community that needed it,” said longtime colleague Laurie Burton. “He lived his values, and it was always all about the kids.”

The Camden club is a thriving nonprofit that has recently included up to 125 boys and girls from 4 to 14. Mr. Jerome served on its board of directors, as treasurer, and in many other leadership roles.

He mentored new coaches, organized player registration drives, and coordinated uniform distribution. He also refereed games, gave out pizza to players win or lose, and tied shoelaces that somehow continuously came undone during the action.

“You could see him light up when he was involved with the kids,” Burton said.

He was also past president of the South Jersey Soccer League and onetime vice president of New Jersey Youth Soccer. He was recognized as a 1993 U.S. Youth Soccer National Coach of the Year and inducted into the South Jersey Soccer Hall of Fame in 1997 and New Jersey Youth Soccer Hall of Fame in 2011.

“He was inclusive and generous with his experience,” Burton said. Friends called him a “legend,” “larger than life,” and “a true inspiration and a model for all of us to follow” in Facebook tributes.

Mr. Jerome worked first as a pharmaceutical sales representative and later for decades as a corporate project manager for Bell Telephone Co., AT&T, and Lucent Technologies. He retired about 20 years ago.

As a rower, he competed with Penn AC in the 1950s and ‘60s after a four-year stint in the Air Force, and his intermediate eight and intermediate four boats both finished first in the 1958 Middle States Regatta on the Schuylkill. He dropped off the Penn AC team after he moved to South Jersey in the mid-1960s but returned to the shell nearly 50 years later in 2007 with the Rutgers alumni team.

“It gets in your blood,” he told The Inquirer in a 2012 article about active seniors. “It’s not competitive in the sense that I have to win. Yet you want to win. …There is something vitalizing about being on the water, and an inspirational part of my rowing is that I do not think of myself as 76.”

Gerald Brian Jerome was born July 23, 1936, in Torrington, Conn. His family moved to Lansdowne later, and he graduated from Lansdowne-Aldan High School in 1954.

He joined the Air Force out of high school and spent four years serving in North Africa, Midway Atoll, and elsewhere. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University in 1972 and a master’s degree in human resource management from Widener University in 1991.

He met Faith Chamberlain on a blind date in 1959. They married in 1961, had daughter Jennifer and son Jerry, and lived in Ocean City and later Cherry Hill. His wife died in 2014.

Mr. Jerome loved to fish. He had his own little boat and told countless amusing stories of the one (or two) that got away. He won a tennis tournament in the Air Force and followed the Phillies and Manchester United.

People were his passion. “He was about giving back to the community and having perseverance in the face of adversity,” his son said.

His daughter said: “He was a social person. He was caring and compassionate, and always interested in motivating people.”

In addition to his children, Mr. Jerome is survived by a sister, a brother, a companion, and other relatives. A brother died earlier.

Visitation with the family is to be from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., Saturday, Dec. 2, at the Schetter Funeral Home, 304 W. Marlton Pike, Cherry Hill, N.J. 08002. A service is to follow.

Donations in his name may be made to the Camden Youth Soccer Club. The club’s website is www.cysc.us.