Changing the Guard: Matt Wolf and Ryan Black Take the Reins of the Avalon Beach Patrol
Ryan Black (left) and Matt Wolf
Sunrise, sunset.
A new era of Avalon Beach Patrol stewardship begins on the heels of its predecessor.
The sunrise is the new leadership duo – Chief Matt Wolf and Captain Ryan Black, who assumed command early this year and launch their first summer season together in charge on Memorial Day.
The sunset was the era of Matt’s father and Avalon icon Murray Wolf, who retired last year as the dean of South Jersey lifeguard administrators. Murray served as Avalon’s captain (later termed chief) since the mid-1960s and is credited with roughly seven decades of beach-patrol service.
Not only has the baton passed from one Wolf to another, so has the lifestyle.
“In many ways, this is a dream come true,” Matt Wolf says. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else than Avalon. I can be on the phone and looking out at the ocean. The sun comes in over the ocean and wakes me up. Avalon is an absolutely great place, and to spend all this time with my dad and with the patrol has been priceless.”
The beach patrol heavily influenced his life, for decades, from several directions.
Matt Wolf served as a lieutenant under his father and alongside both his brothers: Erich, a lieutenant, and Tyler, a paramedic and lieutenant.
Retaining his beach-patrol presence was the deal-breaker a couple of years ago when he turned down the job of head wrestling coaching at Ursinus College, his alma mater. Taking the position would have forced him to leave the patrol and Avalon.
No can do.
The patrol intersected with athletics. Matt Wolf achieved two individual third-place rowing finishes in the South Jerseys and helped the 2015 team capture Avalon’s first South Jerseys championship since 1992. Wolf also coached Jake Enright, with whom he rowed doubles for five years on the patrol, after Enright had played for him on Middle Township High School football team.
The patrol influenced what Wolf now juggles. He will no longer coach football, but will remain Middle Township’s wrestling coach. He likely won’t compete on the South Jersey lifeguard racing circuit, if it returns this year, but will serve with his teammates in administration.
His brothers and a number of fellow competitors, including Ian Keyser, Craig Whitehead, Shane McGrath and Black, form Wolf’s leadership team.
From this nucleus, which will then influence perhaps 100 guards, Wolf will invoke his own philosophies.
“The single biggest thing my dad taught me regarding the beach patrol is that you put the people’s safety first,” Wolf says before launching his 24th Avalon Beach Patrol campaign. “Every other decision you make goes from there. From top to bottom, that’s what everyone in the organization has known.
“NASA had a mission statement in the 1960s that we were going to the moon. Ours is the same thing: No one drowns.
“Our philosophy for the Avalon Beach Patrol is to honor our past and constantly push the organization forward to being the best.”
The patrol objectives are to protect and serve the public, develop guards as employees and people, and finally, win lifeguard competitions, Wolf says.
“We will hire the right lifeguards and we will have people who understand the ocean, who will buy in to what we teach them,” he adds. “We will train them to be a team. We will find people who want to work with us and grow with us.”
Wolf links the passion for this job to a vivid childhood memory.
Murray Wolf wore No. 1 on his jacket to signify being a captain (later a chief). Matt, as the oldest child, took permanent markers and inscribed the No. 1 on his own windbreaker. Erich and Tyler wore Nos. 2 and 3. The kids took their windbreakers to the beach, numbers inscribed, even in 90-degree summer weather, Matt recalls. Murray and Vicki, Matt’s mom, got a kick out of that.
“When I was a kid, there would be about 20 of us who would go down to the beach and pretend that we were the lifeguards,” Wolf adds, grinning. “We idolized guys like John Glomb, Craig Whitehead and Coleman Joyce. John Glomb’s son is on the patrol now.
“These lifeguards were no different to us than Dan Marino or Chipper Jones would be to another kid. Being a lifeguard is what I wanted to do. Being a lifeguard is who we wanted to be.”
“I am sure I annoyed the heck out of Coleman on the 18th Street beach when I was growing up.”
Fast-forward to 2020, when Matt became the first to learn of his father’s imminent departure from the beach patrol. He was alerted one day before the end of last season.
“All of a sudden he tells me, ‘I think this is going to be my last summer,’” Matt recalls. “He did that with only one day to go. There was no goodbye tour. I think he did it that way because he did not want that focus on him until he was off duty. He did not want anyone to drown.
“He has been irreplaceable from the time that I can remember. From the time I was working, visiting other patrols, and seeing races, to have him not be that of all that is a weird feeling. I’m very happy to have this job, and it’s also changing my life.”
The guards identify with and enjoy the job so much that it would be easy to lose sight of their qualifications outside this realm.
Wolf holds a master’s degree in school leadership from the University of Pennsylvania and has served as a health and physical education teacher at Middle Township for 13 years, along with being the head wrestling and an assistant football coach.
Black has been a member of the Avalon Beach Patrol for 14 years, and a lieutenant for six summers. He has been responsible for the supervision and training of more than 100 lifeguards annually, and recently assisted the patrol with the implementation of new protocols and procedures relating to COVID-19.
Black is a science teacher at Haddonfield Memorial High School and holds a master’s degree in science and education from St. Joseph’s University. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the College of Charleston.
The Haddonfield native, whose family has longtime ties to Avalon, can’t wait to get started here.
“Matt and I have had lengthy discussions about how we envision the future of the beach patrol,” Black says. “It was surprising to me in many regards how similar our overall ideas were for the future. We are going to increase the amount of training we are putting in. One of the changes we are going to make is giving the senior guards more responsibility in getting the younger guards trained.”
While the safety measures will be clear-cut, other issues won’t be determined until closer to the summer. Will there be face-to-face meetings rather than the virtual versions that marked the COVID summer of 2020?
Will there be a lifeguard racing season?
Either way, the new Avalon Beach Patrol intends to be ready.
