For new Daniel Boone coach J.D. Okuniewski, football’s all in the family

Becoming a football coach was more of an instinctive move than a conscious decision for J.D. Okuniewicz.

“(Growing up), it’s the only thing I ever saw,” said the 28-year-old Okuniewski. “I said: ‘That’s what I want to do.’ ”

His maternal grandfather is the legendary Jim Mich, who was so successful as head football coach at St. Pius X they named the stadium in his honor.

Uncle Jim Mich Jr. is the defensive coordinator at Spring-Ford. Uncle Stan Okuniewski coached for 25 years at Exeter. Younger brother Ryan is an assistant coach at Pottsgrove.

His biggest influence and namesake is his father John, who coached J.D. and his brothers in youth football and later coached at Exeter and Daniel Boone, including the last five seasons alongside his son under former head coach Rob Flowers, who resigned after last season.

His dad was Okuniewski’s first hire when he was officially named Blazers head coach earlier this week; John Sr. will serve as the defensive coordinator.

“Coaching together with him (the last few years) has been awesome,” Okuniewski said.

The former Blazers quarterback and linebacker will surround himself on the sidelines with familiar faces: His staff will include former Boone teammates Jon Passifione, Austin Monteiro and Chase Lacey, as well as former Boone assistant and interim head coach Ryan Contento.

Former teammate Kyle Myers is Boone’s strength and conditioning coach and has been him Okuniewski run offseason workouts.

Okuniewski came up at Boone under Dave Bodolus and was part of the 2010 Inter-County League championship team that set a school record with 11 wins.

The Blazers won 30 times his first three seasons at Boone; Okuniewski would like to see those glory days return.

“There was a lot of pride being part of that (program),” Okuniewski said. “Daniel Boone has fallen on hard times in the higher-profile sports recently. (To get back there) we need to develop mental toughness.

“I was so proud to tell everybody that I went to Daniel Boone. I want to give these kids the chance to have the pride of being a Blazer that I had, because it was a lot of fun.”

The Blazers sunk to 2-8 last season after cracking the District 3 playoffs the year before.

“Last year was tough on everybody,” said Okuniewski. “Our problems would just compound: Once one (bad) thing happened, there would just be this domino effect.”

Boone has gone 39-72 in the 11 years since Bodolus left, with three winning seasons. Okuniewicz will try to change that, and he’s encouraged by what’s returning this season, including quarterback Dean Rotter.

Rotter threw for over 1,200 yards and 10 TDs as a junior and will have his top two wideouts, Max Heffner and Anthony High, to throw to and versatile Ethan Kryman in the backfield.

“Dean Rotter’s got this look about him,” said Okuniewski. “You can see it in his eyes every day. He’s doing some great things.”

Okuniewicz plans to stick with a 3-4 defensive look and switch to a multiple offensive, to take better advantage of Rotter’s running and throwing abilities.

“Our blocking scheme has to be based on the Wing-T because we’re not gonna have the kids to come in like a Wilson or Spring-Ford or Exeter and be bigger than you,” he said, “so we have to play to our advantage, and that’s going to be a lot of angle blocking, fold blocking, down blocking so we can take our smaller, quicker guys and put ‘em in an advantageous situation.”

Most of what Okuniewicz teaches his kids about football will come from his mentors, Bodolus, his father, and Flowers, who he said helped put him in position to take over the program.

“He looked out for me,” Okuniewski said of Flowers. “We had talked about (this) over the years, since he came on board, and he’s been taking steps to help me become a head coach.”

Okuniewski is an English/Language Arts teacher in the Daniel Boone school district, where he has worked since 2018. He graduated from West Chester University and has a Master of Education degree from Wilkes University.

He was an assistant coach on the Daniel Boone staff for the last six seasons. He was the wide receivers coach and head JV coach last season.

Okuniewski will be the youngest head coach in Berks football for the 2023 season.

“I’m just lucky I have a lot of people to lean on,” he said. “I come from a family of coaches. When I was a kid I spent pretty much every Saturday at St. Pius watching them. Friday nights I was at Pottstown when my uncle (Stan) was coaching there, or at Daniel Boone or Spring-Ford.

“I went to Exeter to watch my dad’s games growing up. I’ve always been around football. My wife gets mad at us because most of our family conversations revolve around football.”