NEWTOWN SQUARE, PA – Marple Newtown High School alum, Chris Gicking, will be appointed as the new athletic director and dean of students at his alma mater, pending school board approval on Tuesday, June 23rd.
Gicking has been tabbed to replace Dennis Reardon who held the position since 2007. Reardon will remain in the district as the new Principal at Russell Elementary School pending school board approval as well.
Reardon previously held a similar position prior to 2007 as the athletic director and assistant principal at Paxon Hollow Middle School.
During the 2014-15 school year, Gicking taught first grade at Culbertson Elementary School in the Marple Newtown School District.
Before joining the district, Gicking was an elementary school teacher in the William Penn School District where he taught kindergarten at Colwyn Elementary School for 11 years.
Gicking, entering his second season at the helm of the Marple Newtown Tigers football team in 2015, will remain head coach of the Tigers while also overseeing the athletic department at Marple Newtown High School.
A Broomall native, Gicking took over the Tigers football program with over a decade of high school coaching experience. He spent seven years as an offensive coordinator in the Central Athletic League with the Pioneers of Conestoga High School.
Prior to his arrival at Conestoga, Gicking played one year at the quarterback position for the Augusta Stallions of the Arena II Football League in 2001.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in elementary education from NCAA Division II Shippensburg University in 2000.
While at Shippensburg, Gicking was a three-time Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference All-League player and was named Offensive Conference Player of the Year and an All-American in 1999 under head football coach William “Rocky” Rees.
Gicking received a full athletic scholarship from Villanova University to play for the Division I-AA Wildcats under head coach Andy Talley before transferring to Shippensburg in 1998.
In high school, Gicking was a three-year starter for the Marple Newtown Tigers varsity football team at the quarterback position under the late head coach and athletic director, Jim Smith.
A 1996 graduate of Marple Newtown High School, Gicking was an All-Central League, All-Delco and All-State selection and named the Delaware County Times Player of the Year in 1995. In 2004, Chris was inducted into the Marple Newtown High School Athletics Hall of Fame.
Chris and his wife, Donna (MN Class of 1998), who reside in Broomall, have three children, Olivia, Christopher and Nolan.
(Dave DiPasqua and Jim Allsman of the Tigers Radio Network contributed to this posting.)