New Easton AD Baltz is excited for future of alma mater’s program
Growing up in the Easton Area School District, Matt Baltz said he was encouraged by a sixth-grade teacher to go to his first Thanksgiving morning game against Phillipsburg. He enjoyed the experience so much that it has been a part of his life ever since.
Baltz, now 39, said he still gets goosebumps from the roar of the crowd in the moments just before the start of one of the biggest annual events in Lehigh Valley athletics.
“People ask me what’s my favorite holiday,” Baltz said. “It’s Thanksgiving and it’s not even close. People from outside Easton and Phillipsburg might look at you and say, really? But it’s been that way since I was 11 years old and in sixth grade. Every year provides its own great experience with that game and we’re looking forward to next Thanksgiving.”
Baltz is looking forward to a lot of Easton athletic events after being approved as the high school’s new athletic director at a board meeting on Tuesday night.
He will succeed Jim Pokrivsak, who is retiring in January after spending nearly 20 years on the job.
Baltz, a 2001 graduate who played on the offensive line for several of Steve Shiffert’s football teams, is already ingrained in the Easton community.
He has been a health and physical education department coordinator for grades 7-12 since 2011 and a teacher since 2005. He has been an athletic department site manager since the winter of 2019-20 and the department’s Hudl coordinator since 2003. He has been instrumental in Easton’s live streaming of events at both Cottingham Stadium and Easton Area Middle School and the webmaster for the football program’s website since 2003.
He has been a football coach at the middle and varsity levels since 2005 and was also an assistant track coach and involved in numerous other endeavors including being a summer camps director, a faculty adviser for the Christian athletes and the Class of 2011, and has been an event technology coordinator. He has worked the NIKE Coach of the Year clinic featuring some of the biggest names in college football and oversaw fundraising for class events and class gifts and assisted with the planning of the annual Easton bonfire, the sleepout, prom, senior picnic, and graduation.
In short, he is well-prepared for the AD job as someone who has an appreciation of the tradition involved with the past while also having the vision to stay with evolving technology that will also be a big part of the future at Easton and all high school athletic programs.
“One of the unique opportunities and challenges of Easton is the balance of our commitment and passion for the traditions we have but also the need to make sure we are open-minded toward the ways we can move forward,” Baltz said. “That includes the increased use of technology. Jim and I have been working on making sure our live streams are available for all of our programs and we need to get those cameras in the gym and at the football stadium. We also did it with soccer and field hockey games. That’s just one area where we’ve tried to stay at the cutting edge.”
He said there are other progams that will allow Easton “to incorporate the element of branding and marketing that’s so much of what goes into everything anymore. You want to be able to tell your own story and make people want to be a part of your program. We’ll continue to grow and while it’s hard to project where other opportunities are coming in the future I will happily call myself a nerd who will explore all the new technology and the things that are out there.”
Baltz is not only excited about the annual Thanksgiving game but is also happy Easton is hosting the District 11 6A championship game Friday night at Cottingham Stadium, which underwent a major renovation a few years ago.
“Jim and I and the rest of the athletic department staff have been trying to plan out what this will look like Friday night at Cottingham,” he said. “We’re excited to be able to showcase our facility for the District 11 championship and it has been great to hear from coaches around the league who have reached out as well and said they are excited to have this game here. We’re really looking forward to it and give a lot of people a glimpse into the great facility that we have.”
Baltz, who graduated from Penn State in 2005 with a degree in kinesiology and earned additional degrees in management, athletic administration, and leadership from East Stroudsburg University and Drexel, said it has been a humbling experience over the last several days as word leaked that he would be getting the job.
“So many people who I’ve worked with over the years have reached out,” he said. “It has definitely been exciting.”
Baltz took time to acknowledge the work of the retiring Pokrivsak.
“He took over after I was through, but he was the AD when both of my brothers were playing high school baseball and football at Easton,” Baltz said. “I’ve seen a lot of growth in the department over the years under Jim. It has been great to learn from him and see the inner workings of the department while working with him. He led us through some significant changes whether it was turf fields being installed, high school expansion, the renovation of Cottingham. We’ve had monumental, once-in-acentury things happening and Jim has done a great job. He’s leaving us in a good spot and I just hope to build on the foundation he set.”