Pascack Valley hires veteran girls hoops coach to replace Jeff Jasper
Jeff Jasper coached the first 53 seasons of Pascack Valley girls basketball, and his successor was named on May 18.
Jen Rilli, who led Cresskill to a sectional title in 2008, was approved as the new head girls basketball coach at Pascack Valley by the district’s Board of Education on May 18. Rilli will become the second coach in the history of the program, taking over for Jeff Jasper, who retired earlier this year after 53 seasons . Rilli called it a "unique situation" taking over for the iconic coach, and said she used to model a lot of what her Cresskill teams did in the offseason on lessons she learned from Jasper.
“I have nothing but the utmost respect for Jeff Jasper," Rilli said. "I played against him when I was at Old Tappan, I coached against him when I was at Cresskill, he was one of the first phone calls I made when I got that job. I would have loved to play for him, so if nothing else, I said let me learn how to coach from him.
” After graduating from Old Tappan in 1996, she played at Caldwell University until a knee injury derailed her career. The 48-year-old has been a math teacher in the Northern Valley school district for the last 24 years. “I always wanted to do something with basketball after college and when my knee was not in good shape, I went into coaching,” Rilli said.
She started as an assistant at Old Tappan working alongside Brian Dunn, then took over for Danny Brown at Cresskill in 2006. She spent three years there, leading the Cougars to a North 1, Group 1 sectional title in 2008. Rilli left Cresskill to take care of her family, and now has two sons in high school whom she coached for years at the recreational and travel level.