| Lacrosse 3/9/09 |
LACROSSE COACH DICK RIZK TO RETIRE AT SEASON’S END |
 Richard Stockton lacrosse coach Dick Rizk will retire at the end of the 2009 season, capping a career that has spanned over 40 years on the high school and college levels. In his 18th season at Stockton, Rizk currently boasts a career record of 137-114 (.546 winning percentage) as the head coach of the Ospreys. He has built a successful program at Stockton that has made 11 ECAC Tournament appearances in the last 15 years and won the ECAC Metro Championship in 2002.
Stockton will celebrate Rizk and his coaching history by holding “Dick Rizk Appreciation Night” at the Ospreys’ final regular season home game on April 22. Stockton will play Mount St. Vincent at 7:30 pm, with a post-game reception for Rizk to be held after the game. Admission to the game and reception are free. Rizk, one of the state's lacrosse pioneers, is a 1997 inductee into the New Jersey Lacrosse Hall of Fame and a past president of the New Jersey Lacrosse Foundation. He played two years of college lacrosse at Rutgers University and graduated in 1955. Rizk later founded the lacrosse team at Boonton High School and coached the Bombers for 24 years, building Boonton into one of the best public-school programs in New Jersey. Following stints as head coach at San Diego State and associate head coach at Whittier College (CA), Rizk became the head coach at Stockton in 1992, taking over a fledgling program that was only five years old and had yet to finish a season above .500. Eleven of Rizk’s previous 17 teams finished with a winning record, with his 2009 Stockton squad currently at 6-3 and poised to add to that level of success. |
