Jeff Yearing completed his 44th and final year of coaching high school soccer at the conclusion of the 2017 fall season.
As a student at Ridgewood High School and a 1966 graduate, Jeff went on to excel in soccer with league, county and state recognition as a varsity goalkeeper. He was selected as a Co Capt of the team for the fall of 1965.Coached by Richard Flechtner at RHS; Jeff was selected for the teams "Outstanding Soccer Player Award" his senior campaign.
Jeff also was a Co Capt. of the baseball team at RHS spring of his senior year (1966) and was recognized with All League and All Suburban team selections.
Graduating from Springfield College in 1970 with a BS in Health and Physical Education "Cum Laude" and Ohio State University in 1972 with an MA in Physical Education and Athletic Administration, Jeff took a teaching position in the Millburn N.J. Public Schools.
After two years in Millburn (1972-74) where he also served as a volunteer freshman boy's soccer coach, freshman basketball coach and JV baseball coach, Jeff was hired by the Ridgewood Public Schools to teach physical education at the George Washington Jr. High School beginning in the fall of 1974. At GW Jeff started the first freshman baseball program in Ridgewood and in 1975 became the Asst. boys varsity soccer coach at Ridgewood High School. Working with Bergen County Head Coach of the century, Dick Bennett, for ten seasons, Jeff was in charge of training the team's goalkeepers and working with the defense and backs. In ten seasons with the boy's varsity, the team enjoyed a 124-34-15 record with four league titles, two Bergen County Tournament Championships and one New Jersey State sectional championship.
Jeff was reassigned to Benjamin Franklin Jr. High School in Ridgewood in 1981 and then on to Ridgewood High School in 1986 until the end of his teaching career in 2011.
In 1985,Jeff accepted the position of Asst. Varsity girls soccer coach at RHS and remained the varsity asst. for two seasons (1985-86). In those two years, the team won its first two NNJIL league titles, had a record of 29-10-2 and made appearances in both the Bergen County and state tournaments for the first time in consecutive seasons.
Coach Yearing was hired as the varsity girls soccer team head coach in 1987 and remained the head women's coach from that season to 2017. He finishes the 2017 season as head coach of the program with anoverall varsity team record of 485 wins, 154 losses and 38 ties. The team has won 15 league titles, two Bergen County Championships and has appeared in five Bergen County Tournament finals, the latest being in 2016.The program has four New Jersey State Sectional championships while appearing in eight state sectional finals. Ridgewood has appeared in every Bergen county Tournament since 1987 and rarely receives anything but a top 10 seeding. The team has also qualified every season for the New Jersey State Tournament.
From Oct 27th 1987 to Sept 27th, 1995 the team held a 111 game league (NNJIL) consecutive undefeated streak. It is a record which still stands today for accumulated league play in Bergen County.
The team has received many National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) national rankings and has received the NSCAA National Team Academic Award nineteen times under Coach Yearing.
The program has produced 138 first team all league selections since 1987, 37 All Bergen County first team recognitions,104 New Jersey Girls Soccer Coaches Assoc. (NJGSCA) All State North 1 player selections, 19 National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) All East Regional All American Player Selections ,7 NSCAA National All American player recognitions,1 NSCAA Scholar All American and 3 Parade Magazine All American recognitions and 1 NSCAA New Jersey State player of the year.
In 1999, 8 RHS women soccer players were recognized as members of the Bergen "Record's" All Century Team and 6 RHS Women's Soccer players have been recognized and inducted into" The Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame".
At the completion of the 2017 season, Coach Yearing has been on the men's and women's varsity soccer field at Ridgewood High School for a total of 43 seasons (31 years as head girls varsity coach at RHS).In total he has coached in 891 varsity soccer matches as an asst. varsity and head varsity soccer coach at RHS with an overall record of 638 wins, 198 losses and 55 ties. He has been a part of 21 league championships, 4 Bergen county Championships, 8 Bergen County Tournament finals , 5 New Jersey State Sectional Championships and 9 New Jersey State Sectional Finals.
In other coaching positions, Coach Yearing has served Ridgewood High School as a freshman and JV wrestling coach (7 years). He has coached high school baseball for 37 seasons. RHS & GW freshman (9 years), RHS JV (3 years) and RHS asst. varsity baseball coach (11 Years) for 23 total years in Ridgewood. He also served 13 seasons as the head baseball coach (5 years), asst. varsity baseball coach (7 years) and JV baseball coach (1 year) at Midland Park High School in Midland Park, N.J.Jeff also was the JV baseball coach at Millburn High School for 1 year
Class of 1975
Inducted 2008
Sports Writter & Sports Editor
Ridgewood NEwspapers. 1960-2000
(Sports Editor Emerittus)
Class of 1985
Inducted 2008
1973.1975-77.1979-84.1986-2006
SoftBall Coach
1974-1978.1980-2006
Inducted 2010
(Jamir Roberts), Special Contributor
Sports Writer . Sports Editor
Patterson Newspapers
Patterson Evening News
1954-1984
Inducted 2008
BOY'S SOCCER 1969-97,
GIRL'S BASKETBALL 1976-89,
BOYS GOLF 1972-76, BOY'S AND GIRL'S BOWLING 1997- PRESENT
When Richard Bennett applied for the boys soccer coach position, he was asked by the Athletic Director Dick Flectner if he thought he could win. He replied simply, yes. With 1021 wins later at Ridgewood High School, that simple response has certainly proven to be prophetic. During his 47 year coaching tenure, Richard has coached 4 varsity teams including boys' soccer (28 years), boys' golf (5 years), girls' basketball (13 years), and boys and girls bowling (17 and counting). The Ridgewood boys' soccer team garnered 387 wins, 7 counts titles and 3 state sectional titles. The girls' basketball team had 212 wins and 1 county title during that tenure. The bowling team has 325 wins and two county titles. The boys golf team had 97 wins and two county titles.
In 1997, he was voted into the New Jersey Scholastic Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Bergen County Soccer Century Club in 2000 as one of the five original inductees. Most recently in 2016, he was inducted into the New Jersey Soccer Hall of Fame as well as the State's Golf Hall of Fame.
Richard wasn't known only for coaching. In 1992, he was recognized as the top teacher in the state with the Outstanding Physical Education Teaching Award. He attended the National Conference in Washington DC of that year. The following year, he was nominated for the Disney Teachers Award as one of the top 3 Physical Education teachers in the United States. In 1988, he spent 21 days in Colorado participating in the Outward Bound program in Colorado. Using the principles he learned there, including trust, inner strength, and endurance beyond one's comfort zone, he was on the ground floor for bringing the project adventure program to Ridgewood High School for both students and adults. Richard was an innovator with his coaching as well. He was one of the first coaches to video his games and then watch them to discover his teams weaknesses. Many a Friday night was spent at his house as his soccer team would sit all around his living room eating homemade chocolate chip cookies and watching the games being played. Using the videos of the game, he would change his formations to match the talents of his team. He would go watch other teams play to find their strengths and would make adjustments to match them. While this is commonplace now, back in the 70's it wasn't.
Richard's coaching skills, combined with his persistence and solid work ethic, are legendary. He took over the girls basketball team in 1976 in the middle of the season; the team went on to lose every single game. In his first game he was losing 50-2 to Paramus at halftime. Never one to back down from a challenge, he drew from his philosophy from soccer- always be sound defensively. He practiced without a basketball and taught his team how to play defense. The next time he played Paramus that season, they lost by only 15. The following season, the team won their first game in 2 years and proceeded to make the states. They made the states every year that he coached.
When the bowling position opened in 1997, he jumped at the opportunity to coach the sport. He went to camps to learn how to be a bowling coach. He studied the correct way to throw a ball. Yet, he still kept his core values about how to be successful. Practice, hard work, and mental focus. Within 3 years, both the boys program and girls program had bowled to their highest averages in the history of the program. In 2004, the girls won the county tournament.
Success has followed him where ever he has gone. Although he has adapted to the changing times, discipline has always been there. While the athletes may have changed, the understanding of what brings about success has not. Richard Bennett has been fortunate to have coached many great athletes and people, and they have been equally fortunate to have had him coach them.
GIRL'S CROSS COUNTRY 1974-2014,
GIRL'S TRACK & FIELD 1972-2015
In 1971 Jacob Brown graduated from Penn State University with a Masters Degree in Exercise Physiology. The self-described "farm kid" from a little town 22 miles from Pittsburgh traveled to a job fair in Detroit looking for his first full-time job. And thanks to Dave Marsh, he found one in Ridgewood, New Jersey. He never left.
"I knew nothing about Ridgewood and didn't even know where it was,'' Brown remembered nearly 45 years later. "I was going to teach and coach in high school for a few years and then go coach in college, where the "real" adventure was. What did I know?"
Did anyone realize what a career was about to start? Hardly. How can you predict that when Brown retired in the spring of 2015 he would be generally considered one of the greatest coaches of any sport in Bergen County and New Jersey history with records unlikely to ever be approached, no less broken.
Let's get those numbers out of the way right here.
In cross-country, a dual meet record over 43 years of 243-15 including a 22-year (that's YEAR) unbeaten streak; 35 league titles, 29 Bergen County group titles, 28 Bergen Meet of Champions titles (in just 37 years), a state record 22 sectional titles, the 1992 and 1999 State Meet of Champions titles and 16 appearances in the State Meet of Champions.
In outdoor track, 76 Bergen Meet of Champions winner and 15 state group champions, 16 Bergen group team titles, 15 league titles and 10 sectional crowns. And his 1988 Group 4 state champions placed in an astounding 11 of 14 events at the state championship and is considered one of the three best teams in New Jersey history.
But Jacob Brown's story is much more than the numbers.
Marsh, who had hired him as a teacher, knew he wanted to coach and after Brown coached freshman boys cross-country the first fall, with fellow Hall of Fame inductee and lifelong friend Larry Coyle, Marsh asked him to help out with Ridgewood's brand new girls track team, coached by a long-forgotten female teacher who didn't want the assignment.
"I introduce myself to her and she hands me the clipboard (with the names of the 17 girls on the team) and walks away,'' said Brown with a laugh in a 1975 interview on the New Jersey Milesplit website. "It was now my team.''
So Brown was left to teach all the events to an inexperienced but eager group of girls and try and figure out a schedule. So he called around and found programs at the Wayne high schools, Englewood, Paramus Catholic and Saddle Brook and put together a schedule.
The early years of girls track weren't always greeted sympathetically by entrenched boys coaches as Brown discovered one day at Montclair.
"We were having a meet and the coach was running practice on the track while it was going on,'' Brown remembers. "We nearly came to blows but cooler heads prevailed. Of course later we became friends and he ended up coaching girls and telling me how much easier it was to coach them!"
Along with Coyle, Brown was a pioneer in establishing and running meets, such as the Ridgewood Invitational, the first cross-country invitational open to girls in New Jersey which lasted from 1973 to 2011 and the Ridgewood Relays (now called the Pawlowski Relays) still a staple of the spring schedule.
His first decade at Ridgewood saw Brown coaching all three seasons. But sensing a loss of enthusiasm with the year-round grind, he gave up winter track in 1982, which helped fan his enthusiasm for the other two seasons for the rest of his career.
In 1983 his girls four mile team set a national high school record that lasted for 17 years. His 1975 4-x-880 team also held a national mark. He was named the Honorary High School Girls Referee at the Penn Relays in 2005 and was named the Mike Byrnes National Coach of the Year by the National Scholastic Sports Foundation in 2010.
But perhaps his most outstanding qualification was his almost uncanny ability to keep cross-country runners on the team even with no chance of running varsity races in a sport whose slogan often is "Our Sport is Your Sport's Punishment."
"Bonding is sometimes a hokey overused word but we worked on that,'' said Brown. "The kids became part of the gang and wanted to stay part of the gang."
For more than 40 years Jacob Brown was the leader of the gang and what a gang it was.
BOY'S CROSS COUNTRY 1969-1997,
INDOOR - OUTDOOR TRACK AND FIELD 1969-79
He might have achieved coaching and teaching greatness at Brandeis High School in New York City, or at the American school in Alexandria Egypt or in Taiwan.
But a potential teachers strike and a coaching opening led Larry Coyle to Ridgewood in 1968 and when he left coaching 29 years later, both parties were very happy that their paths had crossed.
Coyle, who passed away in August, 2015, retired after the 1997 cross-country season, and even two decades later, his influence and success have been hard to approach.
In his 29 years as the Maroons' cross-country coach, Ridgewood won 15 league and divisional titles in the Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League, 12 Bergen Group 4 titles, 10 sectional Group 4 titles, and seven Bergen Meet of Champions titles. Ridgewood won the 1991 and 1992 State Group 4 championships, the only time a Bergen County team has gone back-to-back in the 70-year history of the group. Ridgewood also finished in the top five of the State Meet of Champions five times.
The soft-spoken (most of the time) Coyle ran track at Mount St. Michael's High School in the Bronx and at Iona before coming to Ridgewood to teach English. The next year, the Ridgewood principal remembered that Coyle had talked about track in his initial interview and Larry quickly was hired as the school's cross-country, indoor and outdoor track coach. He coached all three seasons for 11 years, starting the indoor program. While the Maroons didn't win any major team titles in indoor and outdoor track, Coyle coached 1972 Group 4 indoor two mile champ Bruce Mason and 1975 Group 4 outdoor 330 yard intermediate hurdles champ Parke Muth. Dropping from the head coaching ranks in indoor and outdoor track and field, Larry stayed on as the boy's cross-country coach with extraordinary success.
"In some ways, cross-country is the most enjoyable season, which is why I kept doing it after I gave up track. In some ways it's the simplest and the easiest because everyone's running the same event but it's also the purest high school sport,'' Coyle said in a 1997 interview upon his retirement from coaching.
Consistency was the hallmark of Coyle teams. They qualified for 24 of the 25 Bergen Meet of Champions races and finished in the top four the last 19 times they qualified, winning in 1978, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1995 and 1996. The Maroons also qualified for 24 out of the last 25 state group 4 championships during Coyle's reign, with 10 runners-up finishes and three third place finishes in addition to the 10 titles.
And his contributions went beyond simply coaching track and cross-country. Along with fellow Ridgewood Hall of Fame inductee Jacob Brown and Mike Glynn, he started and co-directed the Ridgewood Winter Games, a pioneering indoor track meet at Rockland Community College, which began in the 1970s and the season opening Ridgewood Relays, now known as the Pawlowski Relays, in the spring. These two events, still going strong today, are important stops on the area's Indoor and Outdoor Track schedule.
Coyle is one of the great championship coaches in Ridgewood and Bergen County history, and even better than that, he was one of the finest gentlemen and teachers you'd ever hope to meet.
SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR (Runner, Survivor, and Inspiration to All)
Toshiko Kishimoto d'Elia grew up amid the chaos and ravages of post-war Japan and went on to become a pioneer in women's running; setting numerous American and World records at every age division and distance. In that journey she touched everyone she met.
Toshi was born in 1930 in Kyoto, into one of Japan's most powerful families, who started the steel industry in Japan. Coming from wealth in no way deterred her fierce desire to succeed on her own. "After the war, we all starved" she said. "Toshiko would stand on food lines all day and bring home a cucumber to feed a family of six. She said" I dreamed of being a bird so I could fly away."
Away she flew! Against her father's wishes, who claimed he would rather spend money on a new horse than educating a woman, she came to the United Sates in 1951 accepting a Fulbright Scholarship to study audiology. She went on to teach deaf children at New York School for the Deaf in White Plains, NY for 37 years. In 1960 She married Manfred d'Elia, and with her daughter, Erica, started a long and fulfilling life in the village of Ridgewood, NJ.
The d'Elia family were avid outdoors people and accomplished climbers and hikers. On one climb up Mt Rainier, Toshiko was told by the guide that she wasn't allowed to summit because of her lack of conditioning, and was ordered to descend. The news, while devastating at the time, was yet another door Toshi flew through to discover a new passion...running. When she returned home from Mt Ranier so dejected, her daughter, Erica, suggested she try jogging to give her a base of fitness. Before long, 1 mile turned into 3, which then turned into 5 and more a day. Erica tricked her mom into her 1st race pleading with her to enter so that her good friend wouldn't finish last. "Just follow us...you'll be fine!" Erica won the race, her friend finished 2nd and everyone was shocked to see that Toshi did indeed follow them and finished 3rd, beating hundreds of high school and college female runners. Now she was hooked.
Toshi went on to train seriously and exploded onto the running scene. She qualified for the prestigious Boston Marathon "by accident" accompanying a friend as a training run and deciding halfway to go ahead and finish. She ran her first Boston marathon in 3:15 and followed up that Fall being the 3rd overall woman finisher in New York City Marathon in 3:08. When race director Fred Lebow announced her age of 47 years old, the crowd roared and a masters star was born. In 1980 d'Elia went on to become the first woman over 50 years to break 3 hours in the marathon in Glasgow Scotland with a time of 2:57:25. She was named Runner of the Year by Runner;s World Magazine and honored with the Paavo Nurmi Award. The NY Road Runners Club honored Toshi as the coveted Runner of the Year 27 out of 30 years from the 1970-90's. She was also the first woman over 65 to run a sub-7:00 mile indoors, following this achievement into her 70's running 6:47 for 1500 meters, and world records from the 800 meters to the marathon. She was a fixture at The 5th Avenue Mile, was featured in Sports Illustrated, had a book and movie "Running On", and is the first thing you see when entering the USA Track & Field Hall of Fame.As Mary Wittenburg, President of NYRRC, said "Toshi is our Queen of the Roads..she represents the best of running."
During this time Toshi and Fred wanted to share their newfound love of running to their Ridgewood friends, and founded the North Jersey Master's Running Club. Their infectious spirit to be fit and have fun at the same time drew many people to the club and resulted in the start of the Ridgewood Memorial Day Run. RHS's Dave Marsh was one of those people who caught Toshi's fever, and introduced the Fitness Center to the high school. Also during that time, Toshi discovered she had cervical cancer, but was fierce in her determination to not allow a disease to define or limit her. Four months after cancer surgery, she finished the Boston Marathon in 3:09.
After every race, the first thing Toshi did was to thank her feet. Then she'd have a beer. She viewed running as a cherished friendship. "I view running as a tool to help me get through life, so I do everything I can to nurture it, take care of it, appreciate it. I want to hold onto my friend for as long as I live." Toshi continued to do that until one month before she passed away in 2014. She will forever be remembered as an inspiration to those of us who were lucky enough to know her.
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT TO THE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR 1989-2014
In his article for "The Record" on January 6, 2015 announcing Maureen Grieco's retirement from her position in the athletic department at Ridgewood High School, sports writer Darren Cooper wrote "Maureen Grieco never won a championship for Ridgewood. She didn't coach. She didn't play sports. And the school probably won't put her name in the gym now that she is retired.
But after twenty five and a half years as the schools administrative assistant to the athletic director, her contributions were undeniable." All true statements ,but we now honor Maureen's outstanding accomplishments for RHS athletics by putting her name up along the main gymnasium wall with all the other inductees to the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame making her one of the all time Maroon and White greats.
Working for six athletic directors for close to twenty six years (Dave Vanderbush, Garland Allen, Walt Hampson, Tom Zaccone, Greg McDonald and Nick Scerbo) Maureen was adaptable to the many differences each brought to the job. Each of these men knew they had an indispensable resource with Maureen that allowed for them to function in as sane a manner that a person in that position could possibly expect. She was able to handle each change professionally and skillfully mentored each new AD into a comfort zone after the initial shock of a huge learning curve.
Maureen's responsibilities included scheduling games, officials and transportation. She also confirmed previously made schedules and notified all parties of changes in a timely manner. This included rescheduling of transportation, officials and facilities. She was responsible for disseminating information to and communicating with 25 head coaches, 35 assistant coaches for 27 sports and 75 teams. All the while she kept a smile and treated everyone with dignity and often times grace under fire! Further in her job description it is noted she provided administrative support for each sport including ordering equipment, athletic physicals, parental permission slips, eligibility records, athletic letters, preparation for awards dinners and typing recommendations for student athletes presented to her by her coaches. Her position also required regular communication with other districts AD's and Athletic Administrators, parent booster groups, the press and general public. She needed knowledge of the NJSIAA regulations especially in the area of eligibility and transfers and the completion and filing of regular NJSIAA reports. Most importantly her job required that she make immediate decisions in regard to the daily functioning of the athletic department in the absence of the athletic director. Maureen was professional and knew the impact her decisions would have on everyone concerned with athletics on a daily basis. She would never make unilateral decisions and always trusted her coaches to lend a helping hand.
Each year the job grew. There were new computer programs, with several software systems, night games, freshman and JV tournaments, new field scheduling practices, extended work schedules and working gates at games. Each time the job changed , like a great athlete or coach Maureen was able to adapt her game to the circumstance. Eventually along with Nick Scerbo she also absorbed the duties of the secretary to the Wellness dept. and like every great athlete, Maureen knew when it was time to step away from the game. An all time great we salute Maureen's invaluable contributions to RHS athletics for 25 1/2 years with her induction into the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
1971 Football, Basketball, Track and Field
Competing for a high school known for athletic excellence and in an era of multi-sport athletes, John Marshall's accomplishments on the gridiron, hardwood and field events for Ridgewood High School makes him a worthy inductee into the Ridgewood H.S. Athletic Hall of Fame. A 1971 graduate of RHS, John excelled on the football field for 2012 Hall of Fame inductee Roger Sweeney. During the winter months John toiled for fellow 2014 Hall of Fame inductee Coach Jim Bruni and during the spring John displayed his talents out on the field competing in the shot put and discus for the RHS thin clads where he set school records that stood for decades.
John earned two varsity letters in football as a quarterback and running back. Coach Sweeney remembered John as, "A quarterback with good skills, but he would mean more to the team as a running back. John's speed, toughness and strong arm were assets for an outstanding tailback. He worked hard at his new-given task. His talent, work ethic and personality would lead him to be the best running back in the county." John was outstanding for a 7-2 Maroons squad that lost both games by a combined 5 points. John handled the punting, punt return, and kick return duties in his senior year and his 40+ yards per punt average was one of the best of his era. John was named first team All-Bergen County by the Bergen Record back when only 11 players were selected on each side of the ball. In basketball he was an outstanding "2" guard with a picture perfect and a deadly jump shot, a great man to man defender and one of the best foul shooters in North Jersey. He made second team all-NNJIL his senior year with a 16.1 points per game scoring average and was a leader of a team that was rebuilding following the outstanding 1969-1970 season. During the spring track season, John was "a field guy", and what a field guy he was. Despite having the ability to compete on the track, he chose to concentrate on the shot and discus where he set school records in both events. His 51 foot shot put record stood until 1980 and his 157'11" discus record stood for 39 years until broken in 2010 with a 163'1" toss by Jack Simmons. John also jumped over 21' in the long jump showing his versatility. He helped lead his 1971 Maroons track team to a Co NNJIL Championship and a state group 4 sectional title. The true three sport athletes seem fewer and fewer today. John Marshall was a true three sport athlete. Never weighing more than 185lbs, he excelled on the football field in the legendary NNJIL of the 1970's. He competed on the basketball court for the Maroons in what some call the glory days of basketball in northern New Jersey, and even though he had the speed and quickness to compete on the track for Ridgewood, he chose to concentrate on events usually dominated by athletes much larger than him. His attention to detail and proper form allowed him to excel at three very different sports, and set records that stood for a very long time. Because of the uniqueness of his accomplishments in three sports and the demands for training and organization that that kind of involvement in sport demands, today's athletes and students can look to John's example of a life well lived through dedication to an ideal of excellence in multiple facets of his life. We are happy to bring John Marshall into the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame with the Class of 2014 to serve as an example, to all, of diversified excellence in a world narrowed by specialization.
John is a resident of Ewing ,N.J. today and works professionally as an Actuary in the insurance industry. But, sure to the diversified approach he took in his athletic life, he also is diversified in his later years by bringing hope through prison ministries throughout the state.
One friend describes John as "a quiet guy who needs to be recognized". It is our pleasure to recognize John's accomplishments with his induction into the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
1964 - 1971 Head Boys Basketball Coach
"Many describe Jim Bruni as a man and a coach who was loved by all of his student athletes "Brian Corcoran Class of 1970
Jim Bruni was more than a coach. He was a true leader who was capable of captivating his players as he taught them the fundamental skills of basketball and life. His approach not only improved the success of the individual but ultimately the Ridgewood High School teams as well. Jim's love of basketball had an immediate impact on his players when they walked on the court. But to his credit he instilled a lifelong appreciation of the game to each and everyone. Interestingly, with all his success Mr. Bruni was quite humble, at times even to a fault.
Coming to Ridgewood from Bogota, Jim brought a style of coaching that was ahead of his time. His understanding and ability to teach the fundamental aspects of basketball resulted in Ridgewood's best overall winning percentages of all time. Records starting from 1927 show that Jim's record of 110 wins vs. 54 losses, a winning percentage .671, is the highest in Ridgewood High School history. He is the only coach to have more than one season with a better than .800 winning percentage. In fact he had three, the three best! Inductee Frank Mozeleski 44-45 season was 15-3 .833, and John Smith's 80-81 season was 22-4 .846. However Bruni's 64-65 team 22-3 at .880 is the schools all time high. Jim continued his expertise with the 65-66 team a 20-4 and .833 then the 69-70 at 22-4 coming in at .846. One can only imagine if Jim Bruni remained at RHS how the basketball program wins would have accumulated. I think it is fair to say "There was not a better basketball coach at Ridgewood High before Jim Bruni and there has not been a better basketball coach since Jim's last day as Ridgewood's coach.
Jim had a unique talent to demonstrate a technique in its smallest terms. He would teach, literally, a step by step progression. His practices were detailed and thorough. He would segment the offense and defense into fine tuned periods that eliminated any wasted time. One of his sayings and a goal for his players was "STERLING". If players heard coach Bruni exclaim "sterling" they knew they had performed the offensive play or defensive denial to his satisfaction. However, Jim was more than just a fundamental coach. Jim had a unique ability to analyze opposing offenses and defenses and design a successful game plan often confusing other coaches. Often, coaches throughout the county would consult with Jim about basketball theory and techniques.
Lee Clark, long time Bergen County coach expressed these thoughts of Jim: "Jim Bruni was the best basketball mind I have ever come across. A coach could get more basketball knowledge from Jim than he could from major college clinics. He was a great coach and a better person." Additionally according to Lee, Coach Bruni had an opportunity to be a high school head coach in 1956. He passed on the position because Jim was more concerned about being properly prepared and not short changing his players than he was about being a head coach. Truly admirable!
Hubie Brown coached football, basketball and baseball at Fair Lawn High School. He coached numerous NNJIL contests against Jim and Ridgewood basketball. He then progressed to the collegiate level, first at William & Mary , then Duke and ultimately, to the NBA. A two time NBA Coach of the Year, Hubie is also enshrined in the National Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. While at Fair Lawn he remembers Coach Bruni as a "brilliant" coach. On numerous occasions they would meet at Ridgewood's famous Al's and Harry's dinner and talk basketball. Brown commented "Jim Bruni was the best with X's and O's and was a great mentor to many. Jim Bruni was recognized, not just in Bergen County, but throughout the state as a brilliant basketball coach."
More importantly Coach Bruni was loved. He had a way about him, that caused students to seek him out and become mezzmerized listening to all he had to say. Extremely blunt and factual Jim was loved because everyone knew he sincerely cared. Students and athletes alike knew Coach Bruni leveled with you never being concerned about being politically correct. Whether a student, player, coach or official sought his advice, Jim Bruni laid it all on the line giving always giving his honest assessment. Jim cared about basketball and Jim cared about his player's deeply. As hard as he could be in demanding perfection in each of his charges, it was accepted because all knew Jim cared about bringing out the best in each individual.
Coach Bruni had a talent establishing goals for his players and instilling a personal pride of performance. This was a unique talent in the days before individual lesson plans and IEP's became a common element in the educational landscape. A testament to his effectiveness in coaching the individual was reflected in his players constant communication with him seeking his council. This occurred no matter how much distance lay between themselves and the coach physically, from a time perspective or both. Coach James (Jim) Bruni is certainly a worthy inductee to the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame. He touched and changed hundreds of student's lives with his wisdom and insight in what may be considered a short, but exceptionally bright career at RHS. Coach Jim Bruni is a shining example for all that is good with the teaching and coaching professions and serves as an outstanding model for all who wish to follow in his footsteps as an educator, coach or mentor to others.
2002 Wrestling
Mark Romeo carved out Ridgewood High School's first 100-win career in varsity wrestling at a time when there were fewer matches each season in which to compete compared to today.
The four-year starter,who competed in the lower weights and never missed any appreciable time due to injury, finished with a record of 108-16. His win mark stood as the standard at Ridgewood High School until Brandon Giovanetti surpassed it in 2012 with 110 victories.
This past season, 2014 graduate Joe Oliva became the Maroons' win kingpin, finishing his four-year career with 135 victories against 22 losses. When Romeo competed, there were no wrestle back rounds in the county, district, region or state tournaments.
Mark Romeo was a 2001 Bergen County champion after having placed second his junior year and third his sophomore year. He was the first Ridgewood wrestler to win a county title since 1984.
Mark was a three-time District 5 champion (1999, 2001, 2002), the first Ridgewood wrestler to win three district titles, and a 2002 Region 2 champion, becoming only the third Ridgewood wrestler since 1965 to win a region title.
He was also a four-time Mahwah High School Tournament champion, only the fourth wrestler to accomplish the feat in 36 years, and was twice named Most Outstanding Wrestler of the season-opening competition in December, receiving that recognition in 2001-02.
In 1998, he became the first Ridgewood wrestler to win a Bergen County Freshman Tournament championship.
His senior year, Mark was named first team All-County and All-North Jersey Group 4 and second team All-North Jersey. He was named first team All-Suburban in The Ridgewood News three times, and, in 2000, he was the All-Suburban Sophomore of the Year. He was named first team All-League in 2001 and 2002 and second team All-League his first two seasons. Three times, he made honorable mention All-County.
At the end of his career, Mark held the school records for most wins in a season (34) and a career (108), most pins (70) in a career and best winning percentage for a season (94%) and a career (87%).
Mark served as a team captain his senior year, and, for his last three seasons; he was named the team's Most Valuable Wrestler and recorded the most pins.
Mark wrestled varsity at Trinity College for two seasons, earning two letters and finishing in the top five both years in the New England Wrestling Tournament.
Today Mark has entered the corporate world and wrestles with business decisions from his home base in London England.
Whether home or abroad Mark Romeo will always be a standard that other RHS athletes and students can look to as a beacon of inspiration as a member of the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame's Class of 2014.
1989 Cross-Country, Track and Field
Jean Hughes comes from a running family. Her brother was a star at Ridgewood High School as was her older sister. Jean was successful at an early age, having won the Ridgewood 5th grade Election Day run. However Jean's background and early interest was but a small for shadow to a great career in competitive running that was to unfold. In addition, she has been a great ambassador and role modelfor her team and the running community in general. Jean has had great impact from her first varsity team in high school to her mentoring young female runners today.
Jean earned 12 letters in Cross Country, Indoor Track, and Spring Track while leading Ridgewood Track to "team of the century status" in 1988 and Ridgewood Cross Country to Undefeated dual, country, and sectional championship seasons. Between her high school, collegiate, and post-collegiate athletic career, she is one of the most versatile and accomplished cross-country and track & field athletes in Ridgewood High School and Bergen County History. She competed in every event from 400m relays through 5000m runs. She had speed and endurance,but maybe more importantly had a competitive intensity that was an inspiration to her coaches and teammates.
In addition to all of the team championships she was part of at Ridgewood High School, Jean earned first team All-Bergen County honors 8 times, All-State honors, and had one of the fastest times in the country in the 3200 meters in 1988 (10:43.8). She competed in the National Junior Championships against the best in the nation that year.
Her accomplishments at Ridgewood High School led to her earning a full athletic scholarship at Providence College where she competed in cross country and track for all 4 years. At Providence, Jean earned 12 letters, captained her Cross Country team to top finishes at the NCAA Division-1 National Championship and earned 1stTeam Cross Country All-American honors in 1992 by finishing 16th in the National Championship. She alsoearned All Big East honors in Track.
After college, Jean competed for the Nike Running Club and finished the 1996 New York City Marathon as the 99th overall female and the 57th American. She remained active in the competitive running scene for a number of years, coached cross country and track, and started a youth track and field summer camp. Today, she continues to promote running with all her spirit and energy.
Jean Hughes Buono is an accomplished runner and coach, a Collegiate All American, married to a track coach, a mom to three great kids, anda mentor to young runners. Ridgewood High School is proud to have her joining our Athletic Hall of Fame.
1981 Boys Soccer
The Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame is proud to induct Chris Van Note, class of 1981, for his accomplishments in the sport of soccer.
A three year starter at center mid-filed for Coach Dick Bennett from 1978 to 1980, Chris was a key member of teams that went 56-10-4, won two NNJIL league crowns, two Bergen County championships, and one Section 1, Group 4 State championship.
The consummate technician and playmaker, Chris' strengths were ball control and distribution, infused by a level of tenacity that opponents feared. Van Note's career statistics at RHS were 18 Goals scored and 24 Assists, with 17 assists doled out in his senior year. That total, at the time, set a school record.
Named Captain his senior year, Chris led the team to a 17-2-3 record, the league and county tournament championships, and was named first team all NNJIL, and first team All-County, contributing 9 Goals and 17 assists during the season. In his junior year, Chris was named second team all- league, and helped the Maroons to a 19-6 record, and a Section 1, Group 4 state championship.
In 1978, Chris' sophomore year, he made the starting line-up at midfield, a rarity at that time for Coach Bennett, and was a critical member of a team that finished 20-2-1 and won both the league and county championships. Chris registered the winning goal in the County final versus Ramapo.
Van Note went on to play soccer at the University of Pennsylvania, captaining the squad two seasons, and in his junior year was named to the All Ivy League team. Injury limited his playing time after his junior season, yet he was given the team's Most Courageous Player Award his senior year.
After college, Chris remained involved in the game, playing on competitive club teams, in the US and overseas. He also was a youth soccer coach to his three children, and follows the beautiful game regularly.
After many years in the corporate world Chris currently runs his own international consulting firm and does much of his work in Brazil as a civil engineer, the host of the 2014 World Cup, which he was able to enjoy front and center and in the language of the country. Chris is fluent in French, Spanish and Portuguese!
Home base for Chris now is Golden Colorado, but the world really is his home as it is for the game he loves. The Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame welcomes home Chris Van Note with induction to the class of 2014.
1974 Multiple Sports
In January of 1993 a letter was received by the athletic department at Ridgewood High School nominating Nancy Hogan as a candidate for what was going to be the first class to the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame. That class was never inducted and the hall of fame did not get officially organized until 2004, thirty years after the graduation of Nancy Hogan from Ridgewood High School. Hogan's nominator states "Nancy epitomizes the high standards of conduct and sportsmanship we look for in our Ridgewood students"
When one looks at what Nancy achieved as a student athlete and then what she achieved as a coach of student athletes, it's easy to see why the nominator in 1993 was able to make such a bold statement.
Nancy Hogan is a pioneer in the world of women's athletic endeavor, being one of the first of many generations of women to benefit from the passage of Title lX legislation by the Nixon administration on June 23, 1972. Like her female predecessors in the 1920's that benefited from varsity athletic competition at RHS, Nancy benefited from a forward looking school district that gave her the opportunity to compete before the forthcoming law demanded it.
While at RHS from 1971 through 1974, Nancy participated in five different sports recognized at the varsity level. Her sports were Field Hockey, Volleyball, Basketball, Softball and Track. She earned eleven varsity letters in those sports out of a possible twelve , started every game for each team in each sport she played her junior and senior seasons (RHS was a three year high school at the time) and was named Captain of the Field Hockey and Basketball teams her senior year. In June of her senior year at RHS, Nancy was named the first female recipient of the "Ridgewood High School Award for Excellence in Athletics" along with her male counterpart Bob Groat.This award is the highest recognition the RHS athletic department can give to an individual student and the award had been presented annually to each classes outstanding male athlete since 1914.Sixty years later Nancy finally broke the gender barrier.
Upon graduation from RHS in 1974, Nancy pursued her undergraduate education at Montclair State through 1976 and then transferred to Rutgers University in the fall of 76.She graduated with a BS in Public Health Administration in 1978 and would go on to earn a Ed.M from Boston University in 1981.
While at Montclair Nancy was a member of the colleges Field Hockey, Basketball and Softball teams. Upon transferring to Rutgers she continued her collegiate athletic career concentrating on her number one game basketball, as a member of the Scarlet Knights varsity squad her junior and senior years 1976-78.Nancy played for the first full time female collegiate basketball coach in the country ,Theresa Grentz, an All American herself from Immaculata.While at Rutgers, Nancy garnered the nickname "Century Hogan" having scored the one hundredth point all five times the Rutgers Women's basketball team broke the century mark during her two varsity seasons there.
Upon graduation from Rutgers, Nancy continued her passion for the game taking positions in the women's basketball coaching ranks with stops as an assistant coach at Boston University, Harvard University, UMass Amherst and Tufts University. She served as the head coach at Regis College for four years and was head coach for the Bay State Games North East Region women's collegiate team in 1987,88,92,93,98,99,2000,2001 and 2002.
Nancy states that she felt her high school teams "were always a force to contend with and well coached" and her opportunity to "teach the game of basketball to her collegiate players, to give back as others had given to her and teach the meaning of teamwork first hand", as one of her greatest accomplishments and honors as a former athlete.
Today Nancy resides in Medford, Mass and is Vice President for Government relations for First Realty Management in Boston.
Nancy Hogan is a champion and leader in the development of women's athletics not only at Ridgewood High School, but nationally. Her passion and accomplishment as an athlete and coach certainly speak to her nominator's original statement in 1993.She does epitomize the best that Ridgewood has to offer. Always better late than never, the class of 2014 welcomes Nancy Hogan to the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
1913 Football
In the era of the "leather head" and the invention of the forward pass, there were few football teams in New Jersey that could match the ability of the Ridgewood gridiron standouts of 1913.Their story would become a legend amongst sports fans who followed the Maroons in those days and beyond. The newspapers called them "Ridgewood's Invincibles" and over the last century their story has been lost, but was brought to light again through coincidence, when the RHS gridiron squad of 2013 suffered almost to the day, 100 years later, the same fate as the stalwarts who in 1913 put on their pads and battled courageously for the glory and honor of Ridgewood High!
"The Arrow" fall quarterly for 1913 (published in the end of October) reported on the team."Two hundred and six points! Just think of it! That is the total score which our record breaking football squad has rolled up in nine games already played. And better still they have won every game. Best of all they have not allowed an opponent to gain one single point. Considering we have played no teams which have been lighter in average weight, this is remarkable. Our team averages 144lbs. to a man. This is very light compared with other elevens. Whatever disadvantage we have suffered by lightness in weight has been more than counterbalanced by excellent team work, fast playing and fearless line-bucking".
It was reported in the "Ridgewood Herald "that the secret to the team's success beyond their fast playing and excellent team work had been a volunteer coach, Mr. G.Foster Sanford ,a Yale coach, who assisted the team during the first part of the season. Mr. Elson coached the team during the entire season. The structure of athletics during the period was very student oriented .The administration of the teams were put into the student managers hands and often times there would be a student coach or adult volunteer in charge. The managers would set the schedule for the team, usually a year in advance, and administer to the financial aspects involved with the running of the program. The athletic association at the time had adult season passes for sale for fifty cents and volunteer students would solicit the sales to support the team. Home games were scheduled on Saturdays and unlike today a second midweek game, usually scheduled away in Ridgewood's instance, would be played. The Arrow reported that: "Early in September at the first practice, over forty candidates contested for places on the first team. The number was diminished by careful selection as the time for the opening game approached. Only those who possessed the best physical development and showed endurance to stand the strain and endured to the end, made the team". The football schedule for 1913 included eleven scheduled games beginning with a home opener vs. Bloomfield on October 4. It was reported that "a big crowd gathered on our new athletic grounds (the current East Ridgewood Avenue site) to witness what proved to be a very close contest. "The Bloomfield team was evenly matched with our boys in weight, but was unequal to the fast rushes of the back field". In the last quarter, Feeney (Parnell Feeney, Left Halfback) "after making large gains up the field rushed the ball over the line for a touch-down". The score, Ridgewood 6, Bloomfield 0. That would be the start of a glorious run of ten straight victories including two over college units from Phi Kappa Sigma of Columbia University 6-0 and St. Francis College of Brooklyn 32-0.The team would defeat Belleville 24-0,Ridgefield Park 45-0,Paterson twice 12-0 and 25-0 and Bloomfield a second time 20-0. A game against Stuyvesant (Jersey City) on October 25 was cancelled due to heavy rain. Victory versus St.Benedicts of Newark 35-0 and Hackensack 20-0 took the team to the brink of the Northern New Jersey championship. A championship game scheduled between Ridgewood and Rutherford, two high school juggernauts, would determine who would be the number one team that year.
Like the 2013 football team who lost their North 1 state championship bid to Montclair early in December 2013 by the score of 33-0, so did the amazing team of 1913 one hundred years earlier, succumbing by the same score of 33-0! Disappointment was evident and many felt that if team captain Earle Hopper were able to play (he suffered a leg injury falling down stairs a few days before the game) and if they could have had their regular line up available (evidently some of the other regulars were also missing) RHS would have easily beaten the Rutherford eleven at Rutherford's grounds November 22.
Ridgewood would play its final game of the season against the RHS alumni November 27. Playing to a 0-0 tie, the team finished their amazing campaign 10-1-1, scoring 226 points while only giving up 33 with 11 shutouts.
The names of the stars of the time were Earle Hopper (Capt) Fullback, Peter Pagano Left End, William Runk Quaterback and the afore mentioned Parnell Feeney at Left Halfback. The rest of the starting lineup included Peter Westerhoff at Left Tackle, James Hubbard at Left Guard, Stanley Todd Centre,Edgar Knowlton Right Guard, June Paul Right Tackle, Benjamin Sloat Right End and Lovett Keyser Right Halfback. Substitutes were Williams, Edgar Knowlton, Benjamin Sloat, John McKensie , Lorne Waddell, Harold Wandless and William McCready. Harold Cheel and Stan Wardell were the team managers.
As quoted in the Ridgewood Herald "A better record than this has never been attained by a high school team of Ridgewood" For setting the standard of play as Ridgewood's finest athletic team of the time and for reflecting the willingness of spirit and character to achieve, which we now refer to as Ridgewood's "Tradition of Excellence", we proudly induct the 1913 Ridgewood High School Football Team into the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
1961 Basketball
Ridgewood High School has long been known for its student athletes and the "Tradition of Excellence" they have created both academically and athletically. Donald Taylor is one of the special student athletes that walked the halls of RHS. He competed on the hardwood for the Maroons and went on to great athletic and academic success in college. Don then went on to a very successful business career. Being one of the best basketball players in RHS history has propelled him into the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame, Class of 2014. A 1961 graduate of Ridgewood High, Taylor was one of the most accomplished basketball players in Maroon's history. A three year starter for the Maroon's in an era where freshman did not play varsity,the 6'6" center led Ridgewood to the NNJIL Championship under Hall of Fame football coach Frank Mozeleski This was Mozeleski's only basketball title at RHS. The Maroons finished 2nd in the Bergen County Jamboree in both Taylor's junior and senior years including a tough 60-54 loss in OT to Bergenfield in the 1961 final. Taylor was not best known for scoring, but for his rebounding, defense and ability to block shots. He was incredibly adept at using his size to create openings for other players as Ridgewood finished the regular season at 16-1 his senior year. At the conclusion of his senior year where he captained the Maroons, Taylor was named First Team all NNJIL, First Team all Bergen County and Honorable Mention All-State. Taylor was recruited by Duke, West Point, and Navy before he chose to accept a full Navy ROTC scholarship to Yale. He played three varsity years for the Bulldogs where he was named captain of the team his senior year and finished with a 39-30 career record playing against some of the best teams in the country. Highlights of his Yale career include a Co-Ivy league championship with the Bill Bradley led Princeton Tigers in 1964. Don also faced great competition while playing at Yale seeing the likes of a Cazzie Russell led Michigan squad, Rick Barry's University of Miami squad and UNC with Billy Cunningham with first year coach Dean Smith. Don also matched up against a strong UCLA team that included Walt Hazard, Gail Goodrich, and Keith Erickson, the year legendary coach John Wooden won his first NCAA title. After graduating from Yale, Don was commissioned into the U.S. Marine Corps as a regular officer in the summer of 1965. During his time as a Marine he competed on the Quantico Marine basketball team, which was used as a recruiting tool for the Marine Corps. After being honorably discharged in 1969 as a Captain, Taylor attended Harvard Business School and gained his MBA in 1971. He accepted a job with commercial real estate development company Trammel Crow and spent his entire career there. Over the years, Ridgewood High School has produced many great student athletes and many people who are very successful in their chosen profession. Don Taylor excelled in the classroom and on the hardwood for Ridgewood High School and Yale University. He honored his country with four years of servicein the United States Marine Corps and he earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. It is alumni like Don Taylor who have made an everlasting mark on the academics and athletics at RHS. In conclusion, it is Don's kind of dedication to success in and out of the athletic arena that make us so proud of our well balanced "Tradition of Excellence" and make Donald Taylor very worthy of induction into the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
1993 Women's Soccer
In 1992 Ridgewood High School head girls soccer coach Jeff Yearing stated for a newspaper article that "Rachel Grygiel is every coach's dream and every opponent's nightmare"! Truer words have never been spoken about an athlete that has been inducted into the RHS Athletic Hall of Fame or any hall of fame for that matter. Beyond her productivity on the pitch, Rachel Grygiel reflected the complete embodiment of the term student athlete. While her exploits on the field were being looked at in amazement, her desire to achieve academically and to serve her community reflected the same passion and desire she brought to the field each day.
Strong in stature and character, no one was going to beat Rachel physically nor would they be able to out think or finesse her. Rachel worked very hard to maximize her technique and skill on the ball and became a master strategist in applying her skill to the tactical situations she faced during competition. Rachel usually won her individual battles, but most importantly she used her individual capabilities to raise the level of her team's ability to win by raising the level of her teammates. She would do this by exerting a "never give in" attitude that presented itself through her gritty determination to find a way to succeed. To describe Rachel as being a coach's dream is meant to reflect her unselfish attitude about putting team above self. Rachel would play anywhere at any time if she felt it contributed to the teams capability to win. Spending most of her playing time as a central midfielder and part time forward, Rachel in her senior season (after an injury to a key team member half way through the season) volunteered to move to central defense to help shore up the RHS back line. She emphatically embraced the teams' philosophy "that if your opponents can't score they can't win" With Rachel leading the charge, the 1992 team amassed 20 wins against 3 losses with 1 tie. They were league and state sectional champions, losing a trip to the county finals on a last second goal vs. Northern Highlands with 32 seconds remaining. The same kind of fate awaited the team in the state semi final loss to Westfield on a goal scored with six seconds remaining in overtime. That team which Rachel led as a co Capt. finished ranked #8 in the state and held the #17 ranking nationally during the season. .
Over the course of Rachel's four varsity seasons at RHS the team became a prominent force in the Bergen County and New Jersey High School soccer scene. Rachel Grygiel helped four RHS varsity teams to four League (NNJIL) titles with an undefeated league record of 57-0-2 while amassing an overall record of 66-10-2 .She contributed to Ridgewood's first state sectional championship in 1989 (a thrilling 1-0 victory vs. Kearny) and a second state sectional championship in 1992 with a significant 4-0 victory vs. Immaculate Heart Academy. The 1991 team reeled off 20 consecutive wins (still a record at RHS) before losing a heart breaking "first" county final 2-1 to Northern Highlands. In 78 matches played while Rachel was a member of the Maroons ladies soccer squad, the team outscored its opposition by over 400 goals with 444 scored for RHS and 40 scored against. The team compiled 54 shutouts in the 78 matches due in part to the team's defensive tenacity that Rachel helped engrain as a matter of pride. Never letting her personal ambitions over shadow the team, Rachel always showed complete humility when it came to her individual accolades. Over all Rachel is ranked #5 on the all time scoring list for Ridgewood with 71 goals scored to go along with 44 assists. She was named first team All NNJIL (when it was a twelve team league) three times, First team All Bergen County Twice in 1991 and 1992 as a midfielder, Named to the New Jersey Girls Soccer Coaches Association First team all state in 1991 and First team all North Jersey in 1992.She was named to the National Soccer Coaches Association of America Regional All American team in 1991 and selected in December of 1999 to the Bergen Records All 20th Century team as a midfielder.
Upon graduation from RHS Rachel made her way to American University and then transferred to Georgetown University. She received her BA as a history major from their college of Arts and while at Georgetown she was a member of the women's Div 1 soccer team .She co captained that team during the 1996 season and was awarded the Big East's "Defensive Player of the Week Award" during that season. She continued her education at St. Peters College receiving her Masters Degree in Public School Administration. Rachel went on to work three seasons 2002-2005 as an asst. women's soccer coach at Stevens Institute of Technology, helping it gain its first NSCAA post season appearance. Like so many of our RHS Hall of Fame Inductees, Rachel has also been on the cutting edge of outstanding work experiences. From June 1998 until February 2001, she was the production coordinator for ABC News Nightline with Ted Kopel.Starting in September 2001 Rachel began a professional career as a Social Studies teacher and Digital Media Coordinator at Hoboken High School in Hoboken New Jersey. In 2011 she was one of four teachers honored nationally by Princeton University for excellence in teaching. In conclusion, Rachel Grygiel is a winner and champion by every definition of those words and is, by example, a beacon for others to follow. She is a great example of Ridgewood's proud "Tradition of Excellence" and an outstanding addition to the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
1976 Boys Gymnastics
What does an 8 year old boy do when he is fascinated by the movie "Trapeze" that starred Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis, he becomes a state champion gymnast! That is exactly what happened to John Cerf and why he began his path to becoming one of the most accomplished gymnasts of his day and eventually a member of a national champion college team. John tells the story of how after watching the movie "Trapeze "he immediately went out on his front lawn and taught himself a front flip. John willingly tells of his early childhood days, running with a group of boys whom he describes as mostly "ending up in jail" after which,he moved to Ridgewood with his Dad at age 12.
Not knowing if his son was going to get back on track or not, their worries were curtailed when John met Ridgewood Hall of Fame Gymnastics Coach Tony Napier. John recalls seeing Tony doing a handstand on top of some playground equipment was impressed by him,and recognized him when he showed up to run an after school gymnastics program at Ben Franklin Jr. High School.
Along with Coach Napier, John was influenced by his neighbor and son .The father was Dominic Nizza and his son, John, was very interested in gymnastics, especially the Pommel Horse.
They had made a make shift horse from cinder blocks covered with plywood and carpet using old gas pipe fittings for the handles. Dominic would dump grass clipping around the bottom to use as a mat.
There weren't too many gymnastics facilities at the time, but John Nizza made a pair of rings to hang from a tree in his back yard and a former Springfield College Gymnast gave the boys a 1932 pommel horse that John said would "tear his hands apart like a cheese grater!" Later the boys would sneak into a gymnastics school to practice on Sundays and also received coaching from RHS graduates Don Bauer and John Thorton at the Ridgewood YMCA.The Pierce family and Randy Pendergast (now owner of Paragon Gymnastics School)are also given credit by John for contributing to his gymnastic development.
Tony Napier was hired to be the coach of the newly formed gymnastics team at Ridgewood High School and practice on the make shift equipment as well as after school programs must have moved John to develop a degree of capability. In 1972, Coach Napier invited John to join the Ridgewood High School Boys gymnastics team as he was entering the ninth grade.
This was a golden age for high school gymnastics in New Jersey.RHS supported two full teams for the boys and the girls, both coached by Tony Napier and both formidable powerhouses in the sport on a state level.
In 1974 John Cerf was the state champion on the Pommel Horse and was named The Record's Athlete for the Week for that accomplishment. In 1973 and again in 1974, John was the All Around Boys Gymnastics Champion in Bergen County.
In 1974 John took a third in the All Around at the New Jersey State Gymnastics Championships and led his team to the Bergen County Championship.
Although competing with an injured knee for most of his senior season, John put on a great performance at the New Jersey State Championships at Trenton State that November taking a second in the state All Around competition, missing a first by a slim 1.05 points.
Unfortunately just two years after John completed his great run as a gymnastics athlete at RHS, the program was dropped and shortly after, the sport was dropped by the state of New Jersey (NJSIAA) as a sport recognized for state championship recognition for boys. Today the girls gymnastics program still exists at RHS, but only a handful of schools continue to support the sport at the interscholastic level.
John went on to Springfield College and competed on the gymnastics team his freshman year and was a member of the 1977 Div II National Championship team at Springfield specializing on the pommel horse.Unfortunately an injury knocked John out of his sophomore season at Springfield and at the end of that year he decided to take a break from the rigors of college life to become a New Jersey State Trooper!
John decided to move on from the world of law enforcement and returned to school at the New York Chiropractic College 1982 through 1985, becoming a Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine. In 1999 Dr. Cerf completed his Bachelors of Science degree from Regents College in the SUNY system located in Albany,NY.
Today John practices chiropractic medicine in Jersey City and also works as a consultant and lecturer for the insurance industry.
He also coaches gymnastics at various schools and was able to coach his three children in the sport. His son was a state champion and made it all the way to level ten, before retiring because of his size. Today he is attending college on a baseball scholarship. One of his daughters coached college gymnastics.
With an incredible story of perseverance and determination, Dr.John Cerf sets an example of self determination through hard work in and out of the athletic arena. We are proud to welcome him to join his RHS coach Tony Napier, as a member of the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
1987 Football
Ridgewood High School has competed in the sport of football for over 100 years, having fielded its first team in 1908. In all of those years through all of those games, through wins and losses and the occasional tie, no one in RHS history has thrown the football for more yards or more touchdowns than Paul Tornatore. Competing for the Maroons in the mid 1980's, before the invention of spread offenses, the option read and rule changes that have turned the sport into something "old-timers" might not recognize, Tornatore put together the two greatest passing seasons in Ridgewood Football history. The fact that his records still stand today, over 25 years since they were set, is what makes Paul Tornatore such a worthy inductee into the Ridgewood H.S. Athletic Hall of Fame.
Tornatore took over the controls of the Ridgewood offense in the fall of 1985, his junior year, and completed 94 of 166 attempts for 1,483 yards and 18 touchdowns establishing a new single season passing standard for Maroon QB's . He followed up his record setting year with an even better senior season completing 113 of 196 attempts (57.7%) for 1,748 yards and 19 touchdowns as the Maroons finished the season 9-1. For his career, Tornatore threw for a total of 3,231 yards and 37 touchdowns which both still stand as school records as does his 362 passing attempts and his 207 career completions. His 58% career completion percentage puts him second on the All-Time List to Dan Burns and who guided the Maroons to a State Championship in 1991.
Tornatore's individual accomplishments helped lead Ridgewood to great heights as a team. An 8-2 record as a junior including big wins over Bergen Catholic, Paramus Catholic and Don Bosco garnered Ridgewood a playoff berth. His senior season was as spectacular for the Maroons as it was for him. The team finished the regular season 8-0 including what should seem to be impossible today; a second straight year of wins against the parochial high schools including a 17-14 win over St. Joseph's, and consecutive wins over Paramus Catholic, Bergen Catholic and Don Bosco by Scores of 37-7, 28-6, and 42-7 respectively. For his efforts and accomplishments the 6'1" 190lb Tornatore was voted First-Team All-NNJIL, First Team All-Bergen County, unanimous First Team All-Area, and First Team All-State Group IV by the Star Ledger. He was also honored by the Bergen Record as the "Athlete of the Week" for his games against Bergen Catholic and Don Bosco. A solid four year career at UMASS followed his career at Ridgewood High School and Tornatore has continued to be involved in the sport as a coach in the Ridgewood Junior Football Association.
Many young men have played the role of signal caller for the Maroons over the years. Legendary names like Stroker, Van Yperen, and Hartung, as well as 1,000 yard passers like Strait, Biasi, and Bourke .Of course we also must recognize the recent young guns like Duran, Kaliades and Locke that have all stood behind center for Ridgewood, but none of the aforementioned came close to putting up the passing numbers of Paul Tornatore. It is those numbers and the success the Maroons enjoyed as a team during his time at quarterback for RHS football that makes Paul Tornatore a Ridgewood High School Hall of Fame Inductee class of 2014.
1984 Girls Tennis
The Ridgewood High School girl's tennis program has a long and storied history of both individuals and teams leaving their marks in the RHS record books. Michele Marangi is an individual whose career set both individual and team records that have stood the test of time. A 1984 graduate of RHS, Michele was the leader of a program that won numerous championships as she compiled an individual 80-13 record over her four years competing for the Maroons.
During her freshman season in 1980-1981, she played First Team Doubles with Liz Luongo and in recognition of their efforts in helping Ridgewood win the NNJIL Championship they were voted FirstTeam All-Bergen County at First Doubles.
Her sophomore year Michele jumped up to the very competitive First Singles slot and after competing against the very best singles players in the County and leading Ridgewood to an undefeated season in league play, she was voted Second Team All-Bergen County.
As a junior, Marangi led Ridgewood to the Group IV Section I State Championship from her First Singles position, won the William Paterson Tri-County Singles Tournament and was selected as the First Team All-Bergen County First Singles player.
She came back her senior year to captain the Maroons as they went undefeated in NNJIL play, and won the Group IV Section I Championship again, before losing in the New Jersey Group IV Finals. In recognition of her stellar season, she was once again selected for the First Team All-Bergen County tennis team at First Singles making her one of the few athletes in Bergen County history to be selected for the All-County Team four consecutive years.
After her graduation from Ridgewood High School and a year at Mary Washington, Michele transferred to Muhlenberg College where she competed for three years for the Mules. Her Muhlenberg career ended up being as impressive if not more impressive than her Ridgewood HS career as she compiled a 63-9 combined singles and doubles record including going 22-1 in 1986. She led Muhlenberg to three consecutive MAC Northeast Titles and MAC Northern Division Championships in 1986 and 1987.Marangi was the first player in program history to win an individual conference title including the MAC doubles crown in 1987 and the MAC singles title in 1988.
In recognition and in honor of her achievements, Michele was inducted into the Muhlenberg College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1996. Continuing a theme seen in many of the members of the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame; Michele continues to be active in the sport of tennis as an instructor. Her many accomplishments on the tennis courts for RHS and Muhlenberg College, and her continued passion for her chosen sport of tennis make her a very worthy inductee into the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall Of Fame in the Class of 2014.
1990 Boys Lacrosse
Seven Hundred and sixty five days. That's how long the Ridgewood High School Boys Lacrosse team went without a loss between 1990 and 1992. And in that span, a group of student-athletes, coaches and administrators made history and helped to change the athletic landscape in Ridgewood.
If people in Ridgewood were asked about the sport of lacrosse during the late 1980's, besides a host of blank stares, the best response might have been "Oh, is it that thing where kids run around throwing with butterfly nets?" But that was about to change.
In only its fifth year as a program, Ridgewood High School's lacrosse team showed signs of improvement. In 1989 the team was undefeated in the regular season and made the state playoffs for the first time. However, that was just the beginning of a rise to state and national recognition that would carry the reputation of Ridgewood High School lacrosse forward to the present day.
The 1990 team had high expectations for their season and going in to an early season match up with perennial state powerhouse Mountain Lakes, they would be tested. That afternoon Ridgewood was given a lacrosse lesson they would use as a means of inspiration, through humiliation, losing to Mountain Lakes 14-4. It was the last time Ridgewood would taste defeat for more than two years.
Over the next 25 months, the team would dominate the entire state, winning two league championships, two state championships and setting the record for most consecutive wins in the history of New Jersey lacrosse with a run of 44 victories in a row thereby creating what will ever be referred to in Ridgewood High School lacrosse history as the "The Streak of 44".
Head Coach Steve Jacobson and Assistant Coaches Bob Turco, Craig Chiesa and Bob Blakely built a powerhouse that won games over the course of the streak by an average score nearing 11 to 3.During "The Streak", the team scored 470 goals while only allowing 120. The team only trailed at half time once while never giving up double digit goals in any game. During "The Streak", Ridgewood produced 21 all-league players, 20 all-state players, 7 All-Americans and 2 New Jersey State players-of-the-year.
On May 3, 1992, when the streak finally came to an end, it wasn't just town or state news...it was national news with the USA Today reporting that the Ridgewood Boy's Lacrosse team had finally lost a game. But by that point, everyone in Ridgewood knew what lacrosse was and the rest of the state and the country knew what they would face whenever a Ridgewood lacrosse team stood across from them on a field in competition, a fierce desire to succeed and a burning desire for victory.
The 1990, 91 and 92 Teams would like to thank former Athletic Director Dave Vanderbush, past Ridgewood Junior Lacrosse Presidents Dave Fuhs, Mark Jackson, James Sullivan and former District Director of Health, Physical Education and Athletics Dave Marsh for their hard work and constant support.
The 1990-19992 RHS lacrosse teams embody what we recognize today as the Ridgewood High School "Tradition of Excellence" and rightly deserve their place as one of the great beacons of inspiration in the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
1989 Track and Field
In the annals of the rich track and field tradition at Ridgewood High School, Craig Halyard remains a notch above the rest. A graduate of the class of 1989, Craig is the finest long jumper and triple jumper in RHS history and one of the best jumpers ever in the state of New Jersey. More than two decades after graduation, he remains the best triple jumper in Bergen County history. In fact, several records he set in state and regional competitions still stand. He earned first team all-Bergen County honors a jaw-dropping eleven times for both the long and triple jumps in both indoor and outdoor track. His list of accomplishments is topped off by his still standing Indoor New Jersey State record (set over 22 years ago) in the triple jump of 49'61/4". He was named the New Jersey State indoor triple jumper of the 20th Century by the Newark Star Ledger.
While his first love may have been basketball, he was drawn to track and field to emulate the career of fellow New Jersey jumper and Olympian Carl Lewis. A trip to the Penn Relays when he was a freshman and where he ran on the 4x100 meter relay team further convinced him that this was his sport. Still, it wasn't until Coach Dick Van Yperen (Mr. Van) persuaded him to try the triple jump that he found the perfect event. In his very first competitive triple jump as a sophomore, he was the instant county leader. By the end of the indoor season, he was fourth in the Eastern States Championships, setting a New Jersey sophomore class record. That same year he was named first-team all-county in the indoor triple jump, a feat he repeated for the next two years. He made the first-team all-county team in the outdoor triple jump his junior and senior years. He was the Outdoor Eastern States champion in 1988 and the Eastern States Champion in 1989 with a record-setting triple jump that still endures.
In fact 1989 was a remarkable year for Craig. His accomplishments competing against the top high school athletes in the country in the triple jump that year include a third place in the Penn Relays Invitational; second place, Arcadia (CA) Invitational track meet; fifth place, Golden West Invitational, and fifth place, Keebler Invitational.
While he was best known as a triple jumper, he was equally proficient in the high school long jump. He was named first-team all-county in the long jump for both indoor and outdoor seasons in both 1988 and 1989. He was the NNJIL Group 4 champion for the outdoor long jump in 1989. Competing during the indoor season, he won the Dartmouth Invitational long jump in 1989, the same year he finished in fourth place in the same event in the National Scholastic Indoor Track and Field Championships. In 1988, he finished second at the Eastern States Indoor Track and Field Championships. He also won Brown Invitational, setting still another meet record.
A three-time varsity letter winner in both indoor and outdoor track, he also found time to earn two varsity letters in soccer before giving up the sport to focus on jumping. Two of his all-county honors were for his roles on both indoor and outdoor 4x400 meter relays, the outdoor race setting a then Bergen County record in 1988. But it was success at still another track event that he remembers most. Shortly before the 1989 Dartmouth Invitational, Mr. Van suggested he try the hurdles. While he won both the long jump and triple jumps at the Dartmouth event, setting meet records in both, he is more proud of finishing third in the hurdles, competing against some of the nation's top hurdlers.
When it came time to choose a college, Craig joined two of his RHS track teammates, including fellow nationally ranked triple jumper and RHS Hall of Fame inductee Jen McDermott, in going to Georgetown where he continued his winning ways focusing solely on the triple jump. A four-year varsity letter winner in both indoor and outdoor track and field and co-captain of the squads his senior year, he was Big East champion in the indoor triple jump (1990), Big East outdoor triple jump champ (1991 and 1993), and IC4A Champion in the outdoor triple jump (1992). He placed ninth at the NCAA National Championship in the outdoor triple jump in 1992. Competing on the USATF circuit, he was fourth at the USA Junior National Championships in the outdoor triple jump and was named an alternate on the US Junior Track and Field team.
Much of the credit for his success he owes to Mr. Van whom he says was the best coach he ever had at any level. Besides describing him as a great motivator, Craig says he was greatly influenced by the life lessons the coach instilled in his athletes.
RHS, was also a great place according to Craig. He remembers fondly the travel opportunities and the support he received and says he could not have had a better high school experience.
After Georgetown, Craig went on to receive an MBA from Columbia University and has spent his career in fixed income sales and trading on Wall Street. He is currently with Scotia Bank. He and his wife Kelli, a publicist for CBS News, are the parents of two young sons, Scottie and Alex, and live in Scarsdale, NY.
Golf 1991
Tom Flatt joins a long line of Ridgewood High School Hall of Fame Inductees who have stayed connected to their sport well after their days at RHS and throughout their life. Tom graduated from RHS in 1991 as one of the greatest golfers to ever walk the fairways for the Maroons. He earned numerous honors while at Ridgewood and earned a full athletic scholarship for golf at St. John's University where he played four years for the storied "Johnnies" golf program. After graduating from St. John's, Tom began a career in the golf business as a PGA golf professional. He has worked as a Professional at some of the finest golf and country clubs in northern New Jersey including; the Ridgewood Country Club, Arcola Country Club and is currently the Head PGA Golf Professional at Apple Ridge Country Club in Mahwah. He joins his fellow Ridgewood High School Class of 1991 classmates Linda Zabielski and Jodi Hartwig in the RHS Hall of Fame.
While at Ridgewood High School Tom was a rare four year starter and four year Varsity letter winner for the Maroon "Duffers", captaining the team in both the 1990 and 1991 seasons. He earned 2nd Team All-NNJIL honors in 1988, 1st Team All-NNJIL honors in 1989, 1990, and 1991 and 1st Team All-Bergen County accolades in 1989, 1990, and 1991 as well. In 1990 he won the Dan Luciano County Golf Championship and the Group IV Individual State Championship. In 1991 he won the NNJIL Individual Championship as well as the Bergen County Golf League Individual Championship. In his Ridgewood High School career, Flatt only lost a total of 5 head to head matches and was selected a National High School All-American.
Flatt moved on to St. John's University where he was a 4 year letter winner and Captain of the 1994 and 1995 teams. He made the Academic All-Big East Team 3 times and was 1st Team All-Big East his Senior year when he also won the Met Intercollegiate Qualifier. He remains in the game of golf as not only the Head Professional at Apple Ridge Country Club but as one of the most respected and sought out teachers of the game of golf in the North Jersey area. He has built a great reputation as someone who can work with and teach players of all levels of ability in a very understated and professional manner. As many other Ridgewood High School Hall of Fame members have done before him he continues to be involved in the sport he played at Ridgewood and gives back to that sport, especially in mentoring and working with some of the best young golfers in the State of New Jersey. Tom enters the RHS Hall of Fame as the first golfer to be so honored, but he joins a long list of inductees who have made "their sport" something central to their adult lives. His achievement on the golf course both at the high school and college levels and his continued efforts and involvement with the sport he loves makes him another great addition to the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
1995 Soccer
Tricia Pappalardo is regarded by her Ridgewood High School Coach Jeff Yearing as one of the best all around soccer players ever to come through the Maroons program. In his 26 year tenure as head coach of the program he noted it was rare to see a high school player with the technical ability and tactical knowledge to play with such expertise at any position needed during competition. He also noted her desire to succeed as a player and as a team was contagious. She truly was a leader by example!
Succeed she did along with her RHS teammates for four varsity seasons contributing to varsity teams 1991 through 1994 that accumulated a total record of 80 wins 8 losses and 1 tie. Her career included 4 NNJIL league championships while remaining undefeated in league play for all 4 of her varsity seasons.
While playing for the Maroon and White, Tricia was a part of 2 Bergen County tournament titles. In 1993 RHS defeated arch rival Ramapo High School 3-2 on the same field and on the same day that the Ridgewood boys won their county championship match, giving the two soccer programs their only county double title in school history. Tricia's 1994 squad tied Ramapo 0-0 in the county final giving Ridgewood its second consecutive Bergen County title which was shared with Ramapo's Green Raiders as co champions and allowed Ridgewood to claim its only triple crown (league, county and state titles) in program history. Tricia's 1991 squad also made it to the Bergen County finals losing a heart breaking 2-1 decision in the final 20 seconds of regulation to Northern Highlands.
Tricia's 1992 and 1994 squads won NJSIAA North 1 Group 4 state sectional championships while the 1993 team made it to the Sec 1 Group 4 final losing a heart breaking match to Vernon in a major upset that gave the Maroons their only loss for the season and a finishing mark of 20-1. In the 1994 state sectional final which was decided on penalty kicks, Pappalardo took the winning strike as the 5th and final shooter before sudden death.
From 1991 to 1994 The Ridgewood Teams that Tricia was a part of never finished out of the top 10 rankings for the state of New Jersey and made it up to the NSCAA national ranking of #7 in 1993 while also achieving NSCAA national rankings of #17 in 92 and #13 in 94.In 1993 the team finished as the #1 team in Bergen county.
Coach Yearing commented "that depending on the competition for the day he would decide to use Tricia as a striker, central or outside midfielder or defensively as a central back or an outside marking back. At times she may have played 2 or 3 different positions in a match if it was required. On many occasions we would discuss the situation and decide together what was required of her play that day. In the 1994 county semi final against a stubborn Midland Park squad, Tricia and her team mates asked to move her forward releasing her from her defensive duties of holding a great Midland Park striker in check.Yearing recounts "At halftime I asked the team if that is what they wanted .They agreed, and Tricia responded by scoring two goals .The team backed her up by holding the Panthers scoreless in the second half and Ridgewood was on its way to another title. I believe she also would have gone in the goal if she thought it was needed to win a match that day!"
Having been an important part of the Maroons varsity basketball program lettering her last three seasons as part of Coach Rebecca Knucks-Gattoni's championship hoop squads, there is no doubt that Tricia would have carried out that assignment with all star ability.
In her four varsity seasons at RHS Tricia scored 35 goals and added 15 assists for a total of 85 points that places her 19th on Ridgewood's all time list for points. Her 35 goals is 17th all time, an amazing mark for a player that spent half of her career in defensive roles.
In 1992, her sophomore season, Tricia was selected 2nd team all NNJIL which was significant since selection was made from a 12 team field at that time in the leagues alignment.
In 1993 Tricia achieved recognition as a 1st team All NNJIL Back,2nd team All Bergen County Back,2nd team All Suburban Back and All State for the North 1 region by the New Jersey Girls Soccer Coaches Association (NJGSCA).
In 1994 Tricia played out of the shadow of some of her former and now "RHS Hall of Fame" team mates Wendy Hartwig and Aimee McGuire, and really amazed the New Jersey soccer world with her ambition and desire to play, lead and achieve. She was named a team Co Capt. with Univ. of Delaware bound Erika Bauer.
That season it all came together for Tricia scoring 10 goals and adding 3 assists, she was named: 1st team All NNJIL Back,1st team All Bergen County Back,1st team All suburban Back,1st Team All Area Back by the Paterson Herald News,1st team All State All Regions by the New Jersey Girls Soccer Coaches Association(NJGSCA) making her one of the top 20 players in the state,1st team All Groups as a back by the Newark Star Ledger, All East and a member of the NSCAA (National Soccer Coaches Association of America) All American team as a back. Further she was recognized by the NJGSCA and the NSCAA as the New Jersey Player of the Year. She was selected for and participated in the NJGSCA senior showcase match that year for the North 1 team.
Tricia was recruited by the University of Alabama and played for the Crimson Tide for four varsity seasons primarily as a marking back. She notes that she played in all 20 of Alabama's matches as a freshman while lettering in all four of her varsity campaigns. While playing in the SEC for four seasons Tricia had the responsibility of marking (defending) some of the best women's soccer talent to walk on the collegiate pitch during that era of the American women's game. In her final season at Alabama the Tide made it to the NCAA tournament representing the University as the first Alabama soccer team to do so.
In 2000 the Bergen Record named Tricia to its All Century Team for the 1900's.
1961 Football, Basketball, Track and Field
Mike Henderson graduated from Ridgewood High School in the spring of 1961 honored not only as the outstanding Athlete of his class with the 1961 "Excellence in Athletics Award" but also as one of the pre-eminent "Three Sport Athletes" in Ridgewood High School history. His accomplishments which were news worthy and outstanding in their own right in 1961and beyond are even more significant and extraordinary when compared to today's era of one sport "specialists." Perhaps the most impressive aspect of his athletic achievements is the fact that he was so successful in all three of his chosen sports; football, basketball, and track and field. Many athletes have a dominant or primary sport followed by other sports that they may have also played but Mike Henderson excelled in all three of his chosen sports. He was also the epitome of a true "student athlete" who achieved in the class room as well as on the fields, courts and cinders for the Maroons. Upon graduation from Ridgewood High School Henderson went on to the Ivy League at Brown University and from there to New York Medical College for a degree in medicine and then on to a long career as a Radiologist before retiring recently.
A two time varsity letter winner on the gridiron for the Maroons, Henderson was a First Team All-Suburban and Second Team All-State tight end for the 1960 State Champion squad. In basketball he earned two more varsity letters averaging 12 points a game for the NNJIL Champion RHS hoopers his senior year, shooting 81% from the free throw line and was chosen for the All-Bergen County team. When the spring rolled around and the weather got warm Henderson really showed what he could do as a competitor. A three time varsity letter winner and two time Captain of the Ridgewood High School Track and Field team, Henderson won NNJIL Championships in the 440 yd. dash his Junior year and NNJIL Championships in the 100 and 220 yd. dashes his Senior year including running a blistering 9.8 seconds in the 100 yd. dash at Glen Rock High School. He finished 5th in the New Jersey State Championships in the 100 yd. dash and second in the State in the 220 yd. dash. He also finished 5th in the 220 yd. dash in the Mid-Atlantic Championships. Cementing his legacy as one of the best all-around athletes in Ridgewood High School history Henderson won the first ever Bergen County Decathlon Championship in the spring of 1961.
He went on to compete in track at Brown University where he captained the undefeated 1964-1965 indoor and outdoor track and field teams while setting the Brown school record in the 440 yd. dash (48.1) Henderson finished 2nd in the New England Championships and 3rd in the prestigious Heptagonal Championships in the 440 yd. dash. Mike Henderson enters the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame having competed in an era where competition was fierce and deep. His records, accomplishments and his legacy have stood the test of time. A truly special three sport student athlete, Henderson rightfully takes his place in the Hall of Fame as another contributor to Ridgewood High School's Tradition of Excellence.
1975 Track and Field
Kandie was a kid before her time, what we call a pioneer, but she helped establish traditions that continue today. She came out to the 2nd RHS track team in 1973 and the 1st RHS cross country team in 1974 when there were few girls' high school Teams in North Jersey; Title 9 existed only as a law just written, and girls track wasn't on people's minds as a sport to be taken seriously. When Kandie graduated in 1975 there was a dawning of girl's high school sports in North Jersey, Kandie had helped The Ridgewood Girls establish a national record and had a state championship medal in her pocket and Ridgewood had a recognized track and field program.
Kandie's running career had many examples of those early frustrations. For a woman to even come out for a sport in 1973 was a challenge over peer group influence. When she started track Kandie quickly established herself as the fastest kid on the team. But what to do with it. There was no league champs, or country champs to develop your embryonic skills. Seasons were quickly over and you waited 6 or 8 months for the next year's seasons to evolve.
Then to a larger example of frustration for the athletes of the era, Kandie's college career was cut short by lack of support and lack of interest. Kandie went to Villanova to study nursing and ran for them for her Frosh year. She participated in the AIAW national championship. The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women was the organization that over saw college women's athletics prior to Title 9 implementation and prior to the NCAA taking an interest in college women's sports. But college sports at the time were not sympathetic to a woman who wanted to excel. Kandie's class schedule made practice difficult and the Villanova men's coach would not let the women on the track during the men's practice time. He was afraid the girls would be distracting to his boys! So after one year of college running Kandie quit and focused on her nursing studies. A New Jersey champion finding no support at a school with a famous men's program: But that was the athletic landscape for women in 1975.
A closer look at Kandie's Ridgewood career will give a better idea of her tremendous contribution. RHS was a 3 year high school at that time so Kandie's first experience was her sophomore year and as a "fast kid" she ran a lot of sprint races for the team, but in those days the schedule consisted of a few local dual meets and a couple of Saturday relay meets. Not exactly a program that was going to develop a state level talent. But her work ethic and attitude helped create a track and field athletic team. Kandie was on a relay team at the Long Branch Relays (a long established meet that had added a few girls events) that won Ridgewood's first medals of any kind. The entire team exploded with excitement at the accomplishment of one of their relays.
Kandie's junior year her coaches recognized that she had some talent in the middle distances and convinced her to run the 880 yard run in a 2 mile relay event at The Red Bank Catholic Relays. At the time Penn Relays had no high school women's events and the Red Bank Relays were offered as alternative to Penn. Ridgewood had a trio of great 880 girls (Jane Green, Cindy Hansen, and Nancy Reed) and needed a 4th for the relay. The coaches convinced Kandie to "move up" to the 2 lap event for just this one race. Kandie joined this group for several weeks of focused training under distance coach Bob Stickles and in her first 880 yard race Kandie lead off the team with a time that would have scored in the State Championship later in the season. She handed off a lead and the rest of the team ran equally well and Ridgewood established a new National High School Record. In those days there were no real governing bodies but a publication called Women's Track and Field World kept track of High School marks and Ridgewood High School Girl's Track and Field received its first national recognition. Kandie went back to her signature event and placed 6th in the New Jersey State Championship in the 440 yard dash. Kandie's junior year accomplishment was a remarkable National relay record and 6th in New Jersey in her event.
In the fall of 1974 Ridgewood started a girls' cross country team and Kandie again put on her pioneer shoes and took her speed to the distance event. She and her friend, Jean Leach, quickly established themselves as the best distance runners at Ridgewood. An unfortunate ankle sprain at Garret Mountain kept Kandie from running in the State Meet. But Ridgewood had established itself with a cross country program that soon gained area wide recognition. Kandie and Jean lead with an attitude of excellence that still permeates Ridgewood's distance program.
She and Jean then went out for Winter Track at Ridgewood High School their senior year. They were the first and only girls on a team that had been all boys up to this point. Kandie raced on the old 168th Armory board track (the place where anyone who fell had a load of splinters to remove!). Training with the boys was challenging but gave Kandie a background of endurance that enabled a great spring season to unfold. With new found endurance this "fast kid" was able to move up to the 880 yard run and make it her event. Losing only once her entire senior spring she toed the line at Rutgers Stadium cinder track in the 2nd State Championship meet for high school girls. She won the gold with a new meet record and left a legacy of excellence that Ridgewood runners still feel today.
Kandie has had a very successful career in the health care industry. She has two daughters who have excelled in sport and her husband Mike is a successful lacrosse coach. She lives in Glen Rock, ironically only a few blocks from her high school coaches. Her life from athlete to mother of athletes and wife of a coach has spanned a history of girls' sports that has been quite remarkable.
2003 Lacrosse, Soccer
All one has to do is to start reading all of the amazing statistics connected to Leigh Jester's profile to understand what a high caliber athlete she was both during her Ridgewood High School playing career and during her career at Duke University. But Leigh's resume goes far deeper than just athletic accomplishments.
As the saying goes champions are made and not born. Leigh jester knows what work ethic is all about and she took advantage of every opportunity to take the talent she had and magnify it 100 times through hard work, determination and maximum use of talent.
A four year varsity player in the soccer program at Ridgewood, Leigh had an outstanding career and could have gone to many schools at any divisional level and had an outstanding soccer career. But, her higher level talents were developed in the game of lacrosse. So much so that she ended her career at Ridgewood as an All American and a member of the U19 United States Women's lacrosse World Cup Championship Team. Only 16 players were selected in the country to participate on that squad and Ridgewood's Leigh Jester was one of them!
As an RHS soccer player Leigh was a part of two NNJIL championship teams in 2000 and 2002 .In 2001 her team made it to the state sectional final. Leigh was a Co. Capt. of the team her senior year and was a true leader by example. During her soccer career at RHS she appeared in 90 varsity matches for the Maroons accumulating a total of 36 goals ( Ranked 14th at RHS all time today) and 38 assists( Ranked 6th All Time at RHS today).She played a variety of positions mainly from the midfield and front runner slots and her accumulated point total of 110 ranks her at #12 today on the RHS all time scoring list .She earned 1st team All NNJIL honors and New Jersey Girls Soccer Coaches Association (NJGSCA)All State recognition both her junior and senior seasons.
RHS Head Women's Soccer Coach Jeff Yearing describes Leigh's play as" technically proficient (she was great on the ball) and tactically advanced. Her ability to read the match and to apply herself on both sides of the ball made her a tremendous all around soccer player .She is the kind of soccer player coaches would love to have at every position, because she understood what had to be done at every position on the field while she was engaged in the competition. She could see the game and could think ahead in regard to the ball movement .This allowed Leigh to put herself in the most advantageous positions offensively or defensively making her one of the most efficient and dangerous players of the field match after match! ! Her vision made our team better by making all the other players around her better!
If that wasn't enough there was lacrosse!! A four year starter for the lacrosse team starting in the spring of 2000 Leigh's career seemed to parallel the growth of the women's lacrosse team at the school.As a freshman Leigh contributed 17 goals and 3 assists to a team that had an overall record of 7 wins and 6 losses. Time was an ally to Leigh who seemed to hit a lacrosse growth spurt between her freshman and sophomore seasons. A first team all league selection Leigh took over as Ridgewood's leading scorer with 43 goals and 25 assists helping to take the team to a 14 and 4 record. By her junior season Leigh was voted Captain of the team was again 1st team all league scored 57 goals and had 40 assists while leading the Maroons to their first state sectional final in women's lacrosse. She was the team's MVP for the season while also gaining a 2nd team all state slot and honorable mention All American honors. Also an Academic All American that season Leigh was selected for the first time to the US Lacrosse Associations U19 24 player training camp.
As Leigh approached her senior season her game grew proportionally with her experience. Her senior season included scoring 67 goals while dishing out 50 assists. The team ended with a 17-4 record while achieving a league championship and the first state sectional championship with a thrilling 11-10 victory vs. West Morris Mendham.
Again Leigh achieved 1st team all league status and also was named 1st team all state. She was voted THE RECORD Newspaper player of the year in 2003.She also made the US women's U19 national team that year and competed in and won the U19 world championship.
Leigh finished her Ridgewood High School lacrosse career with 184 goals, 118 assists for 302 total points. In 2010 THE RECORD newspaper named her the North Jersey player of the decade.
Leigh went on to have a fabulous lacrosse career at Duke University .In 2004 she scored 23 goals and had 4 assists for the blue Devils .A member of the ACC All tournament team she was named to the Division 1 All American Rookie team and was named Duke's co rookie of the year. Beyond Duke Leigh was part of the US Women's Lacrosse developmental team for 2004 - 2005.
In 2005 she was again named to the ACC All tournament team and also the NCAA All Tournament team.She was also selected to the US lacrosse developmental team again for 2005-06 while gaining recognition on the ACC All academic honor roll. She finished the season with 38 goals and 13 assists while starting all but one match for the 17-4 Blue Devils
Her junior season showed more scoring with Leigh netting 40 goals and giving 16 assists starting all 21 games for a n18-3 Duke squad. She was voted to the All ACC team, the US lacrosse All American team and was Dukes Most Valuable Attack Player. She also made the move to the US Women's Lacrosse Elite team
Her senior season Leigh was voted a pre season 1st team All American. She lived up to the billing by scoring 40 goals and giving 30 assists helping Duke to a 16 and 4 record. She started all 20 games at Attack earning a spot on the All ACC women's lacrosse team and a place on the US Lacrosse All American team. Again she was selected to play on the US women's lacrosse Elite team.
Academically Leigh was excelling at a pace equal to what she was showing on the lacrosse field.She was a Deans list student many times while also being named several; times to the All ACC Academic ream. In 2007 she received the prestigious Waver-James-Corrigan post graduate scholarship award from the ACC for post graduate study.
Her Blue Devil statistics place her among the elite that have played the game at that level with 141 goals for Duke while giving 63 assists .She accumulated 204 points while starting in 80 of 81 career matches for Duke. She currently holds the record for most games started and is tied for 3rd in most games played. She is currently ranked 8th all time in goals scored for Duke and 8th all time in assists. Her point total currently puts her 7th all time in the Duke record books.
When asked who her first choice would be for a women's lacrosse player to be inducted in to the Ridgewood Athletic Hall would be, current Ridgewood High School coach Karla Mixon immediately answered "Leigh Jester". There is little doubt that Leigh Jester set the standard that so many Maroon Lacrosse players strive to achieve today.
Upon graduation from Duke, Leigh enrolled at Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) to obtain a Masters Degree in Architecture. Leigh graduated "With Distinction" from SCI-Arc and was one of five students to receive the prestigious "Best Thesis" award. Leigh is currently living in New York, playing Lacrosse for the New York Athletic Club and working for the architecture firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM).
1962 Football
An exceptional blocker and feared tackler Tom Dusel, at 195 pounds, was a coach's dream as a two-way player which was the norm for outstanding players of that era. Tom played Offensive Guard and on Defense either defensive end or linebacker. He played football for coach Roger Sweeney 1959-1962, and was named Ridgewood High School's outstanding athlete for the Class of 1962 in his senior year.
Recognition among his peers came quickly to Tom. In 1959 he was named to the Ridgewood News All suburban 1st team and in 1960 he was named a 1st team guard on the All NNJIL and All Bergen County teams as well as 1st team All Suburban .He was also named to the New York Daly News Bergen/Passaic All Star team as the only junior on the squad representing the top 60 high school football players in the Metropolitan area for the 1960 season. Tom would repeat the feat again as a senior for the 1961 season. Also in 1961 Tom was again awarded 1st team All NNJIL ,1st team All Suburban and 1st team All Bergen County laurels as a senior. He was also named All State (all groups) second team that same year.
In Tom's junior year, he helped the Maroons to be named a Group 4 Co-State Champion.
In his senior year Tom served as Co Capt of the 6-2 Maroon football team and had the then rarity of earning 3 varsity letters in the sport at a time when most sophomores in a 3 year high school did not see varsity competition until their junior season.
As a well rounded athlete and fierce competitor, the gridiron wasn't the only playing field where Tom excelled. He played baseball for three years earning three varsity letters and was team co-captain in his junior and senior years. He also earned two varsity letters in three years of varsity basketball. In the spring of 1962 Tom and team mate Bob Frame were named co recipients of Ridgewood High School's highest athletic recognition "The RHS Award For Excellence in Athletics" now called the "Dave Vanderbush Award".
Tom continued his football career at the US Military Academy at West Point playing guard and linebacker for three years before moving to center in his final campaign. He played every down on offense, including long snaps. His favorite collegiate memory was beating arch rival Navy and Roger Staubach. In West Point's system of rotating captains Tom led the team in a victory over Rutgers and was awarded the game ball.
Upon graduation from West Point Tom was commissioned and trained as an artillery officer. He took his Airborne and Rangers training at Ft.Benning Ga.He was assigned initially to Ft Carson Co. as a generals aide and while there shared a house with some Army dentists leading to an interest in th.e field.
In November 1968 Tom was assigned to the 1st division in Vietnam as an artillery liaison officer to an infantry battalion. He was responsible for all artillery support (105mm,155mm Howitzers) for the combat infantry companies within the battalion. The four companies in Tom's battalion were spread out over a large area of operations and were seeing significant enemy contact.
Tom's second half of his one year tour was to be spent as a battery commander, but he didn't get a chance to fulfill that part of his duty assignment. In March of 1969 while under heavy enemy fire (Tom describes it as "All hell broke loose") an enemy mortar round landed very close to him.
Seriously wounded he was helicoptered out to a field medical unit, then on to hospitals in Vietnam and Japan for the next month. From there it was back to Fort Dix in New Jersey for recuperation.Tom and his wife Addie then lived with his parents in Ridgewood until he was healthy enough to resume active duty.
At Christmas time in 1967 Tom had met an old Ridgewood High School acquaintance, Addie Hamel, while on leave skiing in Colorado. As Tom describes it 'Things fell into place" and they were Married in June of 1968 before Tom went to Southeast Asia.
After recuperating, Tom was reassigned to the recruiting Command at Presido,San Francisco where he remained until the end of his military career in 1970.
Taking advantage of his time in San Francisco to also pursue his ambitions to go to dental school ,Tom was able to complete pre requisite courses for dental school at night and in September of 1970 started dental school at The University of the Pacific in San Francisco.
Graduating in 1974 Tom bought a practice in San Jose and their family made Saratoga California home for 25 years. Daughter Kimberly was born in 1973 and son Clayton was born in 1975.Tom eventually moved his practice twice and finished his career practicing in Sunnyvale California.
After retirement , Tom and Addie moved to Monterey California, but with grandchildren being born and the children living in Colorado, Tom and Addie decided to split time between homes in Castle Pines Colorado and Scottsdale Arizona to be closer to their family also noting "as avid skiers, hikers and golfers these locations work well for us".
A great example of American exceptionalism as an athlete, patriot and family man, we take great pleasure in inducting Tom Dusel into the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2012.
Head Football Coach 1959-1975
Growing up in the town of Ewing, New Jersey, Roger Sweeney attended and graduated from Trenton Central High School with the class of 1948. An outstanding athlete, Roger played both varsity football and baseball for the Red and Black. A two way player in high school football, Roger was a down lineman playing a guard position on the offensive side of the ball and an inside linebacker on defense. A steady infielder playing third base and shortstop on the baseball team, Roger hit for an average over .300 in each of his high school seasons.
Before moving on to college Roger did a year of post graduate work at Pennington Preparatory School in Pennington, New Jersey in 1948-49 where he was also a member of their varsity football and baseball teams. He was a center linebacker on the football team and starting shortstop on the baseball team, again having a .300 plus batting average at the end of his prep playing experience.
Roger enrolled at Trenton State College (Now The College of New Jersey) in the fall of 1949.After his sophomore year in 1951 Roger was called to active duty for two years as a member of the United States Air Force National Guard.
In 1949 through 1951 Roger started on both the varsity football and baseball teams at Trenten State.In football he was playing at the onset of the new thinking towards platooning players.On some occasions he would play on both sides of the ball as a down offensive lineman and interior linebacker, but when platooning was in effect he stayed on the defensive side specializing as a defensive interior linebacker.
In baseball Roger was the starting right fielder on his college team and stayed in that position for the duration of his collegiate career.
Upon returning from the service Roger also returned to Trenton State to continue his education and varsity athletic career playing both football and baseball again.
Roger was a lifetime .300 hitter at the collegiate level hitting .320 his junior year and .345 his senior season.He recalls one outstanding 6 for 6 day at East Stoudsburg University adding "days like that can do wonders for your batting average".
Roger was the winner of the prestigious "Emonds Award" from Trenton State in 1954 designating him as the outstanding athlete for his class.
Upon graduation from Trenton State in the spring of that same year, Roger took a position for the fall as an elementary school physical education teacher in Wanaque,New Jersey. It was a job he would hold until his arrival at Ridgewood High school in the fall of 1957.Upon arriving at RHS, Roger began his teaching career in the health and physical education department as well as becoming an asst. varsity football coach under the tutelage of legendary Head Football Coach Frank Mozeleski (RHS HOF inductee class of 2006).Roger remained in his assistants position until the fall of 1959 when he was appointed the new Head Football Coach at Ridgewood High School
"So many memories," Roger Sweeney said mentally recapping his 17- year career (1959 to 1975) as a winning football coach, the hand-picked successor to the late legendary Frank Mozeleski. Among his fondest are of his first sophomore team (6-0) led by Eddy Collins and Butch Heatherington, and in 1966, snapping highly regarded Fair Lawn's 19-game winning streak sparked by the passing of Cliff Hendry to George Lewis on a memorable Thanksgiving Day. It was one of four instances when Sweeney's Maroons stunned highly favored opponents, ending long winning streaks.
Quarterback Jeff Lockhart succinctly summed up Sweeney's philosophy while accepting the Jack Stroker Award from the Junior Football Association a couple of decades ago. "It's been great playing football here because Mr. Sweeney makes playing football fun," Lockhart said. It should still be fun at the high school level.
Roger, who taught at Ridgewood High School for 34 years, truly cared for his kids. Caring was his inspiration to his football players. But he refused to take credit for motivating them. "The players psyched themselves," he would say. "It boils down to being able to execute what you have to do." He told them "they had to do on the practice field what they were going to do on Saturday."
Lockhart, who became a doctor, shared quarterback duties on the 1972 squad that lost only to Hackensack in eight outings, 14-13, and captured the school's first NNJIL title. The 1960 team featured All-County guard, Tom Dusel, and end Mike Henderson and earned Ridgewood's first Group 4 state crown. In 1969 in its first foray into rugged Hudson County football, Ridgewood snipped North Bergen's 21-game skein.
A cerebral coach, Roger at first walked in Mozeleski's shadow. Then he carved his own niche in the annals of Bergen County football compiling a 91-56-4 record, including a 39-14 stretch 1970-75.He eschewed going for the nine wins he needed for membership in Bergen County's prestigious Century Club. His son Peter was coming up and Roger didn't think the boy needed his father for a coach. Roger taught him to placekick and Peter entered the school's record book in that specialty under Dave Vanderbush.
1991 Basketball
The 1990's saw some of the best girls' basketball in Bergen County history and Ridgewood High School was one of the premier programs of that era. Linda Zabielski was the player that set the bar and led the team that began what was a magical run for the Lady Maroons. In her senior year she led Ridgewood to a team record of 30-4, the Bergen County Championship the New Jersey Group IV Sectional Championship, The NJ Group IV State Championship and a berth in the final of the New Jersey Tournament of Champions. Zabielski was a serious and focused competitor who was always ready to take the big shot or make the big play especially in the biggest games. She set a great example for the younger girls on the team with her work ethic and tenacity.
By the end of her career she had been recognized with almost too many accolades to list. Zabielski spent her freshman and sophomore years at Paramus Catholic before her family moved to Ridgewood and she enrolled at Ridgewood Highs School for her junior and senior years. As a combined four year varsity starter at the two schools she scored a total of 1628 points and was a four time 1st Team All-NNJIL selection, a 3 time 1st Team All-Bergen County selection and set the Bergen County Girls single game scoring record for a sophomore while playing for PC with 32 points. She also earned three Varsity letters in softball and a varsity letter in tennis while at RHS.
Her senior year is one that RHS basketball fans will remember for a long, long time. After leading the team to the aforementioned 30-4 record and championships,Zabielski was acknowledged as the Bergen Record "Athlete of the Week," a berth in both the Bergen-Passaic and New Jersey North-South All-Star games as well as the MVP of the Group IV State Championship Tournament. She was 1st Team All-NNJIL, 1st Team All-Suburban, 1st Team All-Area, 1st Team All-Bergen County, 1st Team All-State and was named to the Bergen Record's 1990's All-Decade Team. She accepted a full athletic scholarship to the University of New Hampshire to play basketball. Another in the long line of "student athletes" at Ridgewood High School Linda was also an Honor Student at Ridgewood High and that came more into focus once she got to UNH where she realized she wanted to focus on academics. She transferred to NYU on an academic scholarship where she became a member of the prestigious University Scholar Program, a Rhodes Scholar Finalist and #2 in her graduation class. After graduating from NYU she received a PH.D in Clinical Psychology from Long Island University and is now a clinical psychologist in private practice in Ridgewood.
Zabielski will be remembered by those who saw her play and compete on the hardwood for Ridgewood High School as an intense, focused and intelligent player. She was someone who did not mind pressure, in fact, she thrived on the pressure. The bigger the game the more apt she was to make a big play. There may be no bigger single play in the history of Ridgewood High School girls basketball than the what transpired in the Group IV Finals at Monmouth University her senior year. Ridgewood was down 55-54 against a powerful Piscataway team ranked #7 in the State of New Jersey with only: 02 to play. Ridgewood gained possession on the baseline 94 feet from their basket on a jump ball change of possession caused by Zabielski. The Lady Maroons Jodi Hartwig (RHS Class of 1991, Hall of Fame Class of 2004) took the ball out of bounds with a pass to Zabielski near half court. Zabielski took two quick dribbles and fired a 50 foot pass to a streaking Suzanne Patterson for the winning lay-up as the buzzer sounded and the girls stormed the floor to celebrate the only Girls Basketball Group IV State Championship in school history. A big play, in a big game, at a big moment and Linda Zabielski executed it flawlessly and without hesitation. A great player with great accomplishments both in the classroom and on the court she rightfully takes her place amongst the best student athletes in the history of Ridgewood High School in the Ridgewood High School Hall of Fame Class of 2012.
1980 Gymnastics
Gymnast Gabby Douglas may be capturing the attention of America for her stellar all around performance in the 2012 London Olympic Games, but back in the late 1970's a certain Ridgewood gymnast was performing at a similar level, and her induction into the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame proves that out.
Patty Capasso , graduating Class of 1980, demonstrated in a four year career at RHS a proficiency in gymnastics that rivals today's elite performers. While leading the team to four consecutive Bergen County Team Championships 1976-79 (Patty was injured and did not compete in 1979) and New Jersey State Sectional Championships in 1976 and 1977, individual accomplishments underscore her worthiness for Hall of Fame admission. Her all around skill is the most telling aspect to her athleticism, as evidenced by her yearly results.
Patty's freshman year, she placed first in the County tournament in the Vault. In the Uneven Bars, she placed first in the Counties, first in the State Sectionals, and 6th in the NJ State Championship.
In 1977, her sophomore year, Patty won gold in the Counties in Uneven Bars and All-Around. She also won gold in Balance Beam, Uneven Bars, and All-Around in the State Sectionals, and again placed 6th in the State Championship in the Uneven Bars.
During 1978 in her third year of interscholastic competition, and in testimony to her versatility as a gymnast, Patty earned her first Bergen County gold medal in the Balance Beam, as well as in the All-Around, while also earning silver in the Uneven Bars. In this same event (Uneven Bars) she went on to win another silver in the State Sectionals, and again placed 6th place overall in the State Championships.
In 1979, Patty's senior year, a stellar performance individually and for the team during the regular season was marred by injury by the time tournament season arrived, limiting her competition in the tournament events, and bringing her high school career to a close. Her senior year season was nonetheless lauded, earning her a fourth consecutive recognition on the Bergen Record All County team for girls gymnastics. She was additionally selected to the US Gymnastics Association National Junior Team in 1979 and following her Ridgewood High School career, earned a full scholarship to Arizona State University.
Unfortunately injury plagued her collegiate career at ASU and forced her retire from the sport in 1981 .Patty decided to leave Arizona at that juncture of time and went on to pursue careers outside of the gymnastic world.
Patty Capasso's versatility in all of gymnastics disciplines, and her particular excellence in the Uneven Bars, plus her contributions to the team's overall success for her four high school years, validate her nomination and selection in the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame for the class of 2012.
1992 Lacrosse, Football
Dennis Sullivan is one of the rare student athletes who has excelled not only on the field of play but also has excelled as a leader, a teacher and a coach. Sullivan graduated from Ridgewood High School in the spring of 1992 as one of the few true three sport athletes of his era. A fierce and intelligent competitor it would not be fair or accurate to put the "pound for pound best athlete" label on him as his size was irrelevant to his success and ability to compete. He was a great student athlete and a great leader for the Maroons, period. Starring on the gridiron for Chuck Johnson, the hardwood for Jim Stroker and the lacrosse field for Steve Jacobsen, Sullivan competed and succeeded against athletes of all sizes. Maybe the biggest testament to how special a person Sullivan is was the fact that he Captained the football, basketball and lacrosse teams his senior year before heading off to Brown University to play lacrosse for the Bears.
Sullivan played lacrosse in the "Glory Days" of the Ridgewood Lax Program. Lettering in three Varsity seasons he starred as the only player to start in all 44 games of the legendary 44 consecutive game win streak the Maroons put together between 1990 and 1992. Those 44 wins included State Championships in 1990 and 1991 before a runner-up plaque in 1992 ended the streak. He was voted Honorable Mention All-State in 1990, 2nd Team All-League and 2nd Team All-State in 1991, and 1st Team All-League, 1st Team All-State, and All-American in 1992. He was selected as a defenseman for the 1992 New Jersey North South All-Star Game where he was voted the team Captain of the North Squad by his teammates.
His success was just as significant on the gridiron for Ridgewood High School. A two year Varsity letter winner at halfback and defensive back Sullivan was described by Coach Johnson as; "an amazing leader, an amazing presence, and an amazing person. I really wish I had a better word than 'amazing' as he was more than amazing for us." Johnson went on to add; "he played the three biggest sports at RHS at 5' 7" and 145 lbs. Anytime someone tells me that they are too small to play football I tell them about Dennis Sullivan. In all my years of coaching I have never had a young man with more of a dynamic presence than Dennis Sullivan."
That dynamic presence and outstanding athletic talent combined to create great things on the football field for RHS. In the fall of 1991 Dennis Sullivan and Co-Captain Dan Burns led the Maroons to the Group IV Sectional State Championship with a win over North Bergen. In recognition of his outstanding senior season Sullivan was named 1st Team All-NNJIL and 1st Team All-Bergen County as a defensive back while earning his second Varsity letter in football. He was selected as a starter for the North Squad in the annual North South All-Star Game played in Giants Stadium. Between the football and lacrosse seasons Sullivan excelled on the basketball court winning two Varsity letters while using his speed, quickness and guile as a prototypical "pass first" point guard who was a fearless defender on the other end of the floor.
Dennis was recognized in the spring of 1992 by the coaching staff of Ridgewood High School as the most outstanding athlete in the class of 1992 by being awarded the prestigious "Ridgewood High School Award For Excellence In Athletics". It is the highest honor an athlete can receive at the school and represents all four years of athletic endeavor for that individual at RHS. Once called the Rutgers Cup,today the award is named the "Dave Vanderbush Award For Athletic Excellence" in honor of one of Ridgewood's long time athletic directors.
After graduating from Ridgewood Sullivan moved on to Brown University where he played lacrosse four years for the Bears alongside his former Ridgewood teammates Eric Benedict and Brett Sowers. During his time at Brown the Bears won the Ivy League Championship in both 1994 and 1995 and advanced to the NCAA Semi-Finals in '94 and the NCAA Quarter-Finals in'95. Sullivan completed his collegiate lacrosse career in 1996 as the Captain of the Bears and was named 1st Team All-Ivy League and Honorable Mention All-American. He was awarded the Cliff Stevenson Award as the Most Valuable Player and chosen to play in the USILA North South All-Star Game and the New England East West All-Star Game where he was chosen to Captain each of his respective squads. After graduating from Brown he played one season professionally for the NJ Pride in the MLL.
As have some other members of the Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame, Sullivan chose teaching and coaching as a career path. He returned to his alma mater and assisted both the football and boys lacrosse programs. He coached the 2001 Freshman Football Team to the first ever undefeated season in program history which was an indication of things to come as that group went on to win back to back Group IV State Sectional Championships in Giants Stadium during their varsity years. Sullivan also became the head coach of the Boys Lacrosse Team for the 2002 season and led them to the State Championship game where they fell to Delbarton. He left Ridgewood and took his teaching and coaching skills to Oregon where he is a teacher and coach at the Oregon Episcopal School. During his tenure coaching the Aardvarks he has led the team to numerous Lacrosse State Championships and has been instrumental in promoting the sport of lacrosse in the northwest.
A lifelong competitor, teacher and leader, Sullivan has not only the credentials as an athlete and a coach to enter the Hall of Fame, he also possesses the intangibles that separate the good from the great. A great player, a great leader, a great teacher, and a great coach, Dennis Sullivan rightfully takes his place alongside the other members of the Ridgewood High School Hall of Fame as one of the best all-around athletes to ever compete for the Maroons.
Track and Field 1955-1956
A trio of runners powered Ridgewood High School's 14-meet track winning streak over two seasons and back- to-back Bergen Passaic League championships in 1955 and 1956. That amazing period in Maroon track annals became known as the Bain-Daley-Oliver era in the late Coach Leo Palmisano' 18-year coaching career at RHS. All three were named co captains of Pamisano's 1956 squad
Although it lasted only a little more than two seasons, their individual accomplishments and their total contributions to those two championship seasons are a famed milestone in Ridgewood High School track lore.
David Bain
David Bain, nicknamed the Ghost by his football teammates for his blazing speed and uncanny knack of running away from the opposition (he wore #77 like Red Grange "The Galloping Ghost' from Univ. of Illinois), was the sprinter. He compiled an enviable and unprecedented record of 18 straight victories in each of the leagues 100 and 220 events. He set a standard by posting a 9.8 100 in his senior season. It was a first for any Maroon sprinter to that point in RHS track and Field history. He was named to All-County first teams in those events in 1955 and 1956. Bain also was a premier quarter-miler. It is a ranking he earned with outstanding anchor legs for the Maroon mile relay team and by trouncing the best 440 opposition in Bergen and Passaic counties.
Dave also won renown on the gridiron as a Maroon running back lettering two seasons for Hall Of Fame Coach Frank Mozeleski's 11.
In the spring of 1956 Dave was named the senior class outstanding athlete, receiving the schools highest athletic honor "The Excellence in Athletics Award' which is now called the "Vanderbush Award For Excellence In Athletics".
Dave went on to an outstanding four year track career at Yale University from 1957 to 1961. He earned a varsity letter for each of his four years competing there. In 1960 and 61 he was a member of two of the fastest sprint relay teams on Yale record. In 1959 he ran the second fastest time ever posted for the Bulldogs to that date in the 220 recording a 20.8.It is a record that still stands today and still has him 2nd on the all time Yale record chart for that event. In 1960 Dave also posted a time of 48.3 seconds in the 440 which would place him him 5th on Yale's record sheet for that event in 1960.It is a time that would rank him tied for 15th all time today.
Larry Oliver
Larry Oliver, the lithe, effortless strider, was the first Maroon to shade two minutes for the half-mile. He made running an art form and lost only twice in the 880 in league competition during his reign and also was a confident anchor of the mile relay team. The 1955 competition was tough and Larry settled for first on the 1955 honorable mention list for All County, but in the 1956 season was named to the All county second team and the State Group 4 All State 2nd team. In 1955 He and his team mates set a sprint medley record of 3:46.4 in the Twin Boro Relays and in 55 and 56 Larry won the BPIL league meet in the 880 (Β½ mile) setting the meet record time of 2.002.6 in 1956.In 56 Larry and his team mates also set a mile relay record time for the BPIL meet, recording a time of 3:35.2.Larry also took a 2nd in the league meet high jump in 56 and with his mates that spring took a 1st in the Mile Relay at the Penn Relays.
Larry (Effortless) Oliver was also a great competitor and outstanding back for Coach Frank Mozeleski's football Maroons of 1954-56 and accomplished the outstanding feat of lettering all three of his years on the varsity squad.
Fred Daley
Fred Daley's style and flawless technique clearing the hurdles was peerless. He glided over the low and high fences with ballet precision and earned his share of victories, including two in the 120 low hurdles in the 1955 and 56 BPIL championship meets with times of 14.7 in 55 and 13.9 in 56. He also gave the Maroons a solid one-two punch in the 220 sprint while also competing in the Mile Relay, High Jump, Running Broad Jump(Long Jump), 440 and 100.
Like the two other members of the trio (Bain and Oliver), Fred's ability to pick up crucial points in events other than his specialty allowed the Maroons to score in all of their events thus giving additional help to accomplish their amazing run of victories. Fred was named to the BPIL All League 1st team for Hurdles in 1955 and 56 and to the Bergen County 1st team for Hurdles in 1956.
Fred went on to Roanoke College in Virginia and was competing in track and field there when an unfortunate injury abruptly ended his competitive career. While competing in Decathlon at Roanoke, Fred's pole broke during pole vaulting practice resulting in a serious back injury which brought a halt to his collegiate career.
Conclusion
In 1955 the RHS track team set a league meet record scoring 65 points to take the BPIL championship then broke their own record in 1956 recording a new standard of 68 points while taking their second league crown for the Maroon and White.
Although it only lasted two seasons 1955-56, the effort of these three athletes and their team mates gave impetus to a 14 meet unbeaten streak and two Bergen-Passaic league crowns for the late Leo Palmisano's thinly clads.It would be 20 years (1975) before an RHS track team would win another league title (now NNJIL ).That squad compiled an unbeaten season (10-0) by defeating previously unbeaten Hackensack at the Hermance Place track where in 1955 and 1956 the outstanding performance of David Bain, Larry Oliver and Fred Daley had made Maroon athletic history.
Special Contributors
In recognition of a four decade (and counting) commitment to the physical health and well being of the youth of the Village of Ridgewood, the Ridgewood High School Sports Hall of Fame is proud to announce the induction of Nick and Dottie Capasso.
Nick and Dottie, long time residents of Ridgewood, are the pioneers and driving force behind the Ridgewood Biddy Basketball program which they founded in the early 1980's. They sought to establish a basketball program that develops the skillsets of young hoopsters in a friendly, instructional, and competitive setting. Today's version of the Biddy Basketball program consists of more than 1000 players, girls and boys, playing on over 100 teams, for the grade levels 3 - 12. Practically every RHS basketball player, of both genders, participated in the program, where they learned the game and honed their skills on the hardwood in preparation for competitive high school careers.
Nick and Dottie work tirelessly on behalf of the Biddy program. In addition to serving in trustee and officer capacities ( Nick has served over the 40 years as President and Vice President and Dottie serves as Secretary/Treasurer since inception )they together ensure each team is sufficiently equipped with uniforms, basketballs, score clocks, score books, first aid kits and gym time. They administer the checkbook, and collect and disburse the cash paying referees, timekeepers and scorekeepers. They would open and close gymnasiums, often late in the evening, just so the kids could play.
Most proudly, Nick and Dottie Capasso also raise funds to provide financial scholarships to worthy Biddy alumni upon their graduation from RHS. Today, annually, the Nick and Dottie Capasso Biddy Basketball Scholarships grant $ 5000 per year to deserving Ridgewood High School student athletes.
Nick Capasso has also been heavily involved over the years with the Ridgewood Baseball Association as a Trustee, and as a Coach. In the 1970's Nick led the only Ridgewood Little League team that ever advanced to the Little League World Series finals in Williamsport, PA.
The Village of Ridgewood is proud that Nick and Dottie Capasso call this town their home. Their generosity of time and attention to the youth of the Village is to be envied. The Ridgewood Biddy Basketball program is alive, robust and popular today as an outcome of Nick and Dottie's vision and efforts and with their continued oversight and management of all of the program needs. The RHS Sports Hall of Fame is honored to name them to the incoming Class of 2012.
AD 1945-1966, Baseball 1938-42 - 1946-56
In 1936, Irwin B. Somerville, superintendent of the Ridgewood school system, hired Primo "Duke" DeRochi to coach boys basketball at the high school. The basketball team needed a lot of help, having won only one game in the previous two seasons.
In his first year as coach, DeRochi moved the team from last to second place in the division. In 1943, the Maroons finished first in what was then called the Northern New Jersey Group Three League.
When Howard Richardson, then athletic director and baseball coach, left Ridgewood in 1938, DeRochi took over as athletic director and began a 15-year tenure as baseball coach.
DeRochi died on Oct. 9, 2003 at his home in Venice, Fla., one week short of his 98th birthday.
During his tenure as head baseball coach, DeRochi worked with a number of gifted players, including Harry Grundy, who, as his ace pitcher, helped him win back-to-back championships in 1940 and 1941, and Don Haldane, a star in football, basketball and baseball, who died in World War II.
DeRochi dedicated himself to athletic fitness at all levels, In addition to his coaching responsibilities, he also served as fitness trainer for the football team. In 1942, he introduced a strenuous calisthenics program, including rope climbing, track workouts, pull-ups and coordination drills in all boys gym classes. DeRochi knew many of them would be called on to serve in World War II, and he wanted to make sure they were in top physical shape.
A year later in 1943 at the age of 37, despite having a young wife and two growing boys at home, DeRochi answered his country's call and joined the Navy as a lieutenant. Stationed in the Pacific, he participated in the amphibious landings that put the Marines ashore at Iwo Jima and Okinawa before returning in 1946 to Ridgewood, where he reassumed his responsibilities as director of athletics and baseball coach. He continued coaching baseball until 1956.
DeRochi also served as director of the water safety program at Graydon Pool for 18 years and teamed up with a friend in the operation of a small grocery and delicatessen on East Glen Avenue in Ridgewood.
A native of Waterbury, Vt., DeRochi graduated from the University of Illinois in 1928, but when his best teaching job offer turned out to be a $1,400 post in Southern Illinois, he decided to go for his master's degree, which, in 1929, earned him a teaching job in the Glen Rock school system for a salary of $2,000 a year.
"That was fantastic pay in those days," DeRochi recalled in an article published in The Record on June 2, 1966. "Most of the teachers were starting at $1,200 right out of school. I got a $100 raise each year, and in two years was making $2,200. But then bad times set in, and I had to give back 20 percent, so that after three years in the system, I was making less than when I started. The main thing was that I was working, and I didn't care what they paid me as long as they continued to let me work. You'll recall that in the early 1930's, there were a lot of people who couldn't get work for any kind of money."
DeRochi remained in the Glen Rock school system until 1936, when he moved on to Ridgewood.
His leadership abilities did not go unnoticed. In 1953, he accepted an appointment to the New Jersey Scholastic Athletic Association and became president of the group a year later. In 1956, he served as president of the Bergen County Coaches Association.
On June 8, 1966, DeRochi retired from Ridgewood High School, having served almost 30 years (1945-66) as athletic director. About 150 men who either played on his basketball or baseball teams or were in his physical education classes gathered at the Suburban Restaurant on Route 4 in Paramus to pay tribute to DeRochi's accomplishments. The event was chaired by Warren Byrne and Dr. Mario Ferraro
Ed Van Tassel, who pitched for DeRochi in 1940, spoke of him as a leader and an inspiration, a man they reverently called "Coach".
In 1966, DeRochi took issue with those who felt that participation in athletics interfered with an athlete's scholastic work.
"A boy goes out for a team and develops the habit of working according to schedule," DeRochi said. "He has to watch his marks, or he becomes ineligible. His sports activity takes about two hours a day, and he learns to budget his time. The boy who is active in no extra-curricular program of any kind gets into the habit of wasting his time and, more often than not, has more difficulty with his studies than those who are busy with other activity."
Softball 1974-82-84 2007, Tennis 1974-84-86 2005
Debbie Paul made her mark at Ridgewood High School in softball, delivering on 32 seasons as head coach, and in girls tennis, serving as head coach for 31 seasons.
Paul joined the Ridgewood High School faculty in 1973 as a physical education teacher. She had just graduated the previous spring from one of the best physical education preparatory schools in the world, Springfield College in Massachusetts.
Growing up in Milford, Conn., and graduating from Milford High School in 1969, Paul's life was immersed in athletic endeavors, even though formal high school varsity sports had not yet emerged for women through Title IX legislation from the United State Congress.
As a 16-year-old junior in high school, she played a very high caliber of softball during the spring and summer for the Raybestos Brakettes, based in Stratford, Conn. This semi-pro team was one of the first women's teams to offer organized opportunities for women to compete at an extremely high level. She excelled for five seasons for the Brakettes as a middle infielder while also playing intercollegiate field hockey and basketball at Springfield College.
Upon taking up her teaching position at Ridgewood High School, Paul took the reigns of the fledging girls tennis and softball programs created at RHS, as Title IX legislation took effect, providing equal athletic opportunities for girls. Paul became a pioneer in the Bergen County sports scene and a strong advocate for equal opportunity for women in sports.
Her 1973 tennis team won the first Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League (NNJIL) championship offered, and then in 1974, she took over as the head field hockey coach for one season.
Upon returning to the tennis courts for the next three seasons (1975-77), Paul's teams quickly reflected the excellence of her tutelage, sporting a 54-9 record over those three seasons, winning an NNJIL championship in 1977 as well as two Group 4, Section 1 state titles in 1976 and 1977 and the outright Group 4 state championship in 1977.
From 1978 to 2006, Paul had two interruptions in her tennis coaching career. In 1978, she took a leave of absence from the Ridgewood school district to earn a master's degree in biomechanics from Purdue University. In 1985, she was on a one-year sabbatical, studying national patterns in the development of wellness-based curriculums in high schools across the United States
In each of those seasons (1978 and 1985), the tennis team reflected her development of guidance through interim coach Mary Ann Tierney winning a Group 4, Section 1 state title in 1978, and taking an NNJIL championship as well as another Group 4, Section 1 state crown in 1985. Both years, the team made the Group 4 state finals. In 1980, the Maroons racked up the first of fourBergen County championships and their second outright Group 4 state title.
Overall in 31 seasons (1973, 1975-77, 1979-84, 1986-2006) under Paul, the girls varsity tennis teams at RHS amassed a 567-112 match record, 25 league championships, 23 Group, Section 1 state titles and two outright Group 4 state championships while appearing in the state final four times. Paul was named Bergen County Girls Tennis Coach of the Year three times.
In 1974, Paul organized and coached the first girls softball team at Ridgewood High School. The sport was in its infancy inBergen County, as Paul recalls schools having teams call each other to arrange playing formal games. There was no formal league structure in place. The team held varsity status from the school's athletic department that season and would compete the following year in the newly organized girls division of the NNJIL.
The softball team took a slower climb to success than the tennis program, but under Paul's steady leadership and coaching, the team emerged with a 17-7 record in 1978 while claiming its first Bergen County tournament victory and its first two wins in the state tournament. Paul was named Bergen County Softball Coach of the Year that season and would be named Coach of the Year three more times during her 32-year softball career (1974-78, 1980-2006).
Paul had built the framework of a very solid team when she took a leave of absence for her masters' degree program in the study of biomechanics at Purdue University in 1979. The core of that team was built around 2010 RHS Hall of Fame inductee Amy Lyons and current RHS head softball coach Patti Auger. The team, under interim coach Dave Vanderbush, went 26-2 and won the NNJIL, Group 4, Section 1 and Group 4 state championships.
Upon her return to Ridgewood, Paul's teams went on a great run of success from 1980 to 1986, amassing a record of 152-30 and winning their first Bergen County tournament championship in 1981 while repeating in 1983. Those teams also won three NNJIL titles, four Group 4, Section 1 state championships and the 1983 Group 4 state championship. The 1983 team was named No. 1 in the state and awarded the Star Ledger trophy as such. The Maroons would go on another great run from 2004 through Paul's final season of 2006, producing a record of 70-14, winning three NNJIL titles, the Bergen County tournament championship in 2005 and the Group 4, Section 1 state title in 2006.
Overall, Paul's softball teams amassed a record of 473-270 with six league titles, three Bergen County championships, five state-sectional crowns and two outright Group 4 state championships. Her career win total of 473 currently ranks No. 1 all-time inBergen County history.
In 2006, Paul was honored by the National Federation of State High School Athletic Associations by being named New Jersey Softball Coach of the Year and Northeast Softball Coach of the Year. Paul was further honored in 2006 by the Greater YMCA of Bergen County, receiving its prestigious award for significant contributions to youth.
Paul also excelled as a teacher in the Ridgewood school district, where she helped develop Ridgewood High School's excellent reputation for its physical education and wellness curriculum. She was a leader in the fitness field and was instrumental in the incorporation of the school district's Project Adventure programming. Her efforts helped move Ridgewood High School's wellness programs into being a model that districts all over the state would try to emulate.
Having spent her entire career in the Ridgewood school district, Paul retired from the teaching and coaching profession after the conclusion of the 2006-07 school year.
Paul states she feels "very blessed to have had an opportunity to teach and coach in a district like Ridgewood". She would like to recognize and express her appreciation for the professional mentoring she received during her career from Dave Marsh, former director of wellness for the Ridgewood school district, as well as from her teaching and coaching role models, Dick Bennett and Kitty Batterson.
Batterson, the former girls volleyball coach at RHS, is a 2008 Ridgewood High School Athletic Hall of Fame inductee. Bennett was named Bergen County Boys Soccer Coach of the Century by The Record in 2000.
1939 Football
George Monro, a 1939 graduate, is one of the all-time great three-sport athletes in the history of Ridgewood High School. Monro capped his stellar sports career at RHS by receiving the Ridgewood High School Trophy for excellence in athletics, established in 1914 and awarded annually to the member of the graduating class who compiles the best record in various sports.
Occasionally referred to by the nickname "Scotty", Monro excelled in football, basketball and baseball, earning six varsity letters.
As a fullback on the gridiron for head coach Jack Broomall, he was the Maroons' leading rusher, playing alongside halfbacks Gus Anton, George Bolding, Stew Moore and Eddie Walsh and quarterback Charlie Brown, while running behind a line that featured standout Walt Livingston.
One of Monro's top games came on Nov. 5, 1938, when he scored two touchdowns in Ridgewood's 20-6 victory over Leonia. According to the Nov. 6 edition of The Sunday News, the first came when "the husky Scot crashed through the center" of the defense from the 1-yard line. His second trip over the goal line also came from the 1 as he "went through that same hole at center for the touchdown."
In the 1938 season, the Ridgewood football team also scored wins against Tenafly (a 26-0 triumph in which Monro ran for one touchdown and threw for another), Park Ridge and Hawthorne, in addition to playing a scoreless tie with Pompton Lakes on Thanksgiving Day.
Although the Maroons could not crack the end zone against Pompton Lakes, The Ridgewood Herald noted in its Dec. 1 edition, "Monro was by far the outstanding player on the field, banging out one hard earned gain after another and picking up as much as 5 yards at times, after he had apparently been stopped, with his terrific leg drive."
In basketball, Monro played guard and was one of the team's leading scorers. Come spring, he played second and third base and was one of the best hitters for the Maroons. One of Monro's more memorable games came against Pompton Lakes. According to an article in the May 25 edition of The Ridgewood Herald, "George Monro's circuit drive in the final frame drove in the winning tallies and pulled the game out of the fire for Cal Dinkins, as Ridgewood set Pompton Lakes back for the second time in a tight 3 to 2 contest yesterday afternoon at the Lakeside Oval."
Monro was popular with his coaches and fellow players, being strictly a "team" player, and was rated highly with the fans throughout his brilliant career.
George Monro went on to have a stellar football career at Franklin and Marshall College and was inducted into the F&M sports hall of fame in 2001.
He served with the United States Marine Corps in world war two after his graduation from college in 1943.
1947 Football Bill Dunne, a 1947 graduate, is one of the greatest running backs in the history of Ridgewood High School football. The 5-foot-8, 170-pound gifted three-sport athlete earned nine varsity letters during his career at RHS. In his senior year, Dunne captained the football team for head coach Frank Mozeleski. He alternated between quarterback and left halfback, played middle linebacker and returned and kicked punts. His 25-yard field goal against Lodi was the first in RHS annals. The 1946 team had few returning lettermen, but the Maroons won their final six games to finish the season with a 7-2 record. Dunne was named All-Suburban inThe Ridgewood News, All-County in the Bergen Evening Record and All-State Group 3 at the quarterback position. According to a Ridgewood News article published following the 1946 season, "Dunne was a very capable broken field runner and dashed away for numerous long touchdown runs and gains. His educated kicking toe accounted for many conversions, including the one which beat Pompton Lakes, 14-13, in a thriller of a ball game [witnessed by 4,200 people at the Pompton gridiron]." Another highlight of Dunne's final football season was receiving the Hi-Y Grid Award, given by the Ridgewood YMCA for clean sportsmanship, scholarship and all-around student. In basketball and baseball, Dunne was named All-State Group 3 his senior year. In George Lucas' column in thePaterson Morning Call following the 1946 football season, he wrote of Dunne, "Just say the word to Ridgewood, and it was Dunne — by Billy Dunne, the super-dooper special. A star in baseball and basketball as well as on the gridiron, Billy could pick his sport and be a collegiate success. If he had any spare moments, the blond-special could probably do all right with soccer, ping-pong and checkers." In the summer of 1947, Dunne and fellow RHS Hall of Fame member Gene Links (Class of 2004), played outfield for Uncle Sam's Shoes, the leading semi-pro baseball team in North Jersey. The ball club won the New Jersey State Tournament, and Dunne hit a home run in the championship game. Uncle Sam's Shoes traveled to Wichita, Kan., to compete in the National Semi-Pro Tournament. Dunne attended two colleges. He first went to Potomac State Junior College in West Virginia, where he was a three-sport starter. He transferred to Stetson University in Deland, Fla., where he became the starting quarterback. In the eighth game of the season, he sustained a lower back career-ending injury. Dunne enjoyed a successful 38-year sales career with Lehigh Cement Company with assignments in Baltimore, New York City and Minneapolis/St. Paul. He retired in 1992 as sales manager of the North Central region. Dunne and his wife, Mary, who reside in Edina, Minn., celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary last June. They have five children, 11 grandchildren and four great grandchildren. In retirement, Dunne has donated over 60 pints of blood to the Memorial Blood Bank.
1979 Softball
Amy Lyons, a 1979 graduate, is one of the outstanding softball players in the history of Ridgewood High School, and the shortstop capped her four-year varsity career by playing an instrumental role in the Maroons winning the Group 4 state championship her senior year.
In the June 14, 1979 edition of The Ridgewood News, Lyons was tabbed the Maroons Star Athlete of the Week after her team won the state title, and, in his story, Ron Phillips wrote for a lead paragraph: "A quarter century ago, Ray Bolger was the star of Broadway in the musical, "Where's Charlie?" with his refrain, "Once in love with Amy, always in love with Amy..."
Those are the sentiments, Phillips wrote, of Ridgewood High School sports followers about Amy Lyons, the senior shortstop who excelled at bat and in the field as the Maroon softball team won the state title Saturday.
In the 4-2 win over Woodbridge in the state-championship game, Lyons tripled in the fourth inning and scored Ridgewood's first run, then hit a liner to left in the fifth that enabled Jean Simmons to score the go-ahead tally. Besides her 2-for-3 day at the plate, Lyons made several sparkling fielding plays, including a running catch of a soft line drive in the sixth with two runners on base.
Ridgewood finished with a 26-2 record, also winning the Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League (NNJIL) title and reaching the championship game of the Bergen County tournament before falling to Demarest.
For the season, Lyons batted .480, smacking eight home runs, five triples and six doubles, and drove in 47 runs, tops in Bergen County. She attempted 22 stolen bases and was only thrown out once. Wrote Phillips, "Lyons was hailed as Bergen County's premier scholastic softball player this season."
Her junior year, Lyons hit .481, slugging nine home runs and collecting eight other extra-base hits, and drove in 27 runs. She compiled an incredible 1.216 slugging percentage.
In 1978, Fair Lawn head softball coach Tim Cullen was evaluating to Ridgewood News sportswriter Ron Fox the softball talent he saw that year when his voice suddenly raised, in octave and decibel: "That Amy Lyons is beyond belief!" he exclaimed. Her sophomore year, Lyons was a starting outfielder.
One of Lyons' classmates and teammates was Ridgewood's current head softball coach, Patti Auger, the Maroons' centerfielder, who batted .342 her senior year and .410 her junior season. Both Lyons and Auger were named first team All-County in 1979. Lyons continued her softball career at the University of South Carolina. She returned to RHS, where she was an assistant softball coach for several years.
In 1979, Lyons' head softball coach was Dave Vanderbush, who was filling in that season for Debbie Paul, who was pursuing her master's degree at Purdue University. Paul was Lyons' head coach in 1977 and 1978, and she will join her former star player in this year's Hall of Fame class.
Lyons also excelled in tennis for coach Paul at RHS, playing first doubles her senior year, when the Maroons captured the NNJIL and Bergen County championships. Lyons works for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is based at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. On July 21, 2009, she was named assistant director of the FBI Inspection Division by Director Robert S. Mueller, III.
"In her new role, Amy will be responsible for oversight of internal investigations and the evaluation of FBI programs to ensure their effectiveness and compliance with FBI objectives, governing laws, rules, regulations and policies," said Director Mueller. "Her previous experience in the Inspection Division, coupled with her years of operational work in the field, makes her an excellent fit for this position."
Lyons entered on duty as an FBI special agent in January 1990. Upon completion of training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., she was assigned to the New Haven Division. While there, she investigated international drug money laundering cases and led a Safe Streets Task Force focused on the Almighty Latin Kings Nation. After six years, she was promoted to the International Training and Assistance Program at the FBI Academy. She was later assigned to the Latin American Unit in the Criminal Investigative Division's Organized Crime/Drug Section at FBI Headquarters.
In February 1999, Lyons transferred to the New York Division, where she managed an Italian Organized Crime Squad focused on the Columbo Organized Crime Family. She served in this position until July 2001, when she was appointed to assistant special agent in charge (ASAC) of the Special Operations Branch. Shortly thereafter, she served as the on-scene commander in the New York Division's Joint Operations Center in response to the 9/11 attacks.
She was subsequently assigned to FBI Headquarters to work on the investigation of Zacharias Moussaoui. Upon her return to New York, Lyons spent three years as the ASAC of the International Terrorism Branch, supervising the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force.
In August 2006, Lyons was promoted to an inspector in the Inspection Division at FBI Headquarters. In this role, she led teams responsible for sensitive investigations and the assessment of FBI operations and performance throughout the country. She was designated as the chief inspector in the Inspection Division in January 2008. She was named special agent in charge of the FBI's Baltimore Division in April 2008.
Lyons received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a master's degree in psychology from Ball State University. Prior to her employment with the FBI, she was a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration in Newark.
1995 Swimming
James Sullivan, a 1995 graduate, is one of the top swimmers in the history of Ridgewood High School. Sullivan was ranked 101st in the world in the 1,500-meter freestyle (for all ages) after his junior year, and for three years, he was a captain of the Ridgewood High School swim team.
His senior season, he was named first team All-County in both the 200- and 500-meter freestyle, winning both events at the Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League (NNJIL) meet, and he racked up the most points for his team, as the Maroons finished with a 10-2 record and a third-place showing at the NNJIL meet.
Said Ridgewood head coach Annie Fischer at the time, "James has always been very dedicated to the team. He has shown a lot of leadership and has always been a positive influence on the other kids."
Sullivan was ranked among the top five college recruits in the nation and was invited to attend the USA Swimming National Team Eagle Camp at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.
In the 1993-94 campaign, Sullivan was the team's points leader and was first team All-County in the 200-meter freestyle and second team All-County in the 500 freestyle, as Ridgewood placed second at the league meet. He beat out Bergen Catholic's Kevin Pchola with a time of 1:47.22 for the 200 freestyle championship of the league meet.
In the 1992-93 season, Sullivan was named the Most Valuable Swimmer for the Maroons, who compiled a 10-1 record and had a second-place finish at the league meet. He made second team All-County in the 400 relay and honorable mention All-County in the 100 butterfly.
As a freshman in the 1991-92 season, Sullivan was named the Most Promising Swimmer for the Maroons (6-5) after being named second team All-League in both the 200 and 500 freestyle. While in high school, Sullivan was a four-year captain (1991-95) of the Ridgewood YMCA Breaker swim team. He was a three-time Y national champion in both the 500 and 1,650 freestyle.
Sullivan also was a Junior National East champion in the 1,500 freestyle and a Senior National finalist.
The summer after his senior year of high school, Sullivan was training to make the Olympic trials cut at the Senior Nationals, but badly injured every muscle in his upper back.
"That ended up slowing down my swimming career," he said. "I spent freshman year [at Princeton University] kicking practice rather than swimming and saw about 100 different doctors. Over the course of the four years, I spent 20-to-30 hours a week in rehab or visiting doctors. By sophomore year, I was splitting my time between kicking and swimming and only able to compete in a limited few meets. It wasn't until the end of junior year that I had recovered enough and scored a personal best time in the 1,000 freestyle. I was awarded the John Alan Swabey Memorial Trophy, which is awarded to the swimmer for their contribution through spirit, sportsmanship and improvement in swimming."
His senior year at Princeton, Sullivan was elected captain of the swim team. After graduation, he spent several years consulting in the energy industry and then received an MBA from Duke University.
Sullivan is currently a vice president of operations for a national real estate developer and oversees the process of greening/creating eco-friendly apartment communities.
After a long hiatus from swimming, Sullivan has taken it back up and completed the 4.4-mile Chesapeake Bay Swim this summer and plans to do similar races as well as triathlons.
2002 Lacrosse
Mike Culver, a 2002 graduate, is one of the top lacrosse players in the history ofRidgewood High School. He was named The Record's Boys Lacrosse Player of the Decade this past spring.
Culver is the youngest athlete to be inducted into the RHS Athletic Hall of Fame for his play not only in lacrosse and football but for his success on the lacrosse field for the University of Virginia, the Chicago Machine of Major League Lacrosse (MLL) and the United States World Champion U-19 team, as well as his continued dedication to the sport of lacrosse on a national level.
While at Ridgewood, Culver was a three-year varsity letter winner and co-captain on the gridiron for Chuck Johnson's football teams and garnered first team All-League, first team All-Suburban and first team All-County honors while playing linebacker for the Maroons as well as being awarded the prestigious Stroker Award in 2002.
On the lacrosse field, Culver was a three-year varsity letterman and a multiple All-League, All-Suburban and All-State honoree, capped off by his senior season, when he was named first team All-League, first team All-Suburban, first team All-State, Gibbs Division Player of the Year, All-Suburban Player of the Year, Bergen County Player of the Year, New Jersey Player of the Year and All-America.
He moved on to Charlottesville and the University of Virginia, where, in his freshman year, he made the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Honor Roll, and the Cavaliers won the ACC championship. In 2003, Virginia claimed the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men's lacrosse national championship. Culver capped off the year by captaining the United States U-19 Team to the gold medal in the 2003 World Championships.
In his next three years, Culver accumulated numerous All-ACC and All-America awards, and, in 2006 as the captain of the Cavaliers, he led Virginia to an undefeated season and his second NCAA lacrosse national championship. At the conclusion of his senior season and his career with Virginia, he was honored with the UVA Team Leadership Award as well as All-ACC, Academic All-America, first team All-America and the NCAA National Defenseman of the Year awards.
He was the sixth overall draft pick in the MLL Draft and went on to start for the Chicago Machine. He made the MLL All-Star game and was voted as the Sportsman of the Year for not only his athletic performance but for his work with charities and youth lacrosse programs in the State of Illinois.
Culver works for MetroLacrosse, an organization driven to provide urban youth the chance to learn and experience the game of lacrosse as the director of external affairs, where he concentrates on fund-raising and connecting the inner city lacrosse programs on the East Coast.
1994 Soccer
Keith O'Connor, a 1994 graduate, is one of the most prolific and clutch scorers in the history of boys soccer at Ridgewood High School. He started varsity four years and scored 133 points on 46 goals and 41 assists. He is first on the school's all-time list for most varsity wins as a player (55) and most career assists (41) in boys soccer.
O'Connor's distinguished soccer career was recognized by The Record, when the newspaper named him to its All-Decade Boys Soccer Team in 2000.
O'Connor played for Ridgewood's winningest boys soccer coach, Dick Bennett. He kicked off his freshman year in 1990 in grand style, emerging as the team's leading scorer, racking up 14 goals and eight assists, to help lead the Maroons to a trio of titles — including the Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League (NNJIL), Bergen Countyand Group 4, Section 1 championships. As a result, O'Connor was named first team All-NNJIL, third team All-County and Honorable Mention All-State Group 4.
In 1991, he set the program record for most assists by a sophomore with 11 and was named first team All-NNJIL, second team All-County and Honorable Mention All-State Group 4. In addition, he was named the All-Suburban Boys Soccer Sophomore of the Year by The Ridgewood News.
In 1992, O'Connor became the first RHS boys soccer player to be appointed a captain in his junior year. Again, he led the Maroons in scoring with 17 goals and 13 assists, the latter number a program record for a junior, and he also established the school record for career assists (32) in boys soccer. Recognition of O'Connor subsequently escalated with him being named first team All-NNJIL, first team All-County, first team All-Suburban, first team All-State Group 4 and second team All-State All-Groups.
In his senior season of 1993, O'Connor earned the ranking of team captain. Unfortunately, he was injured in his first game versusPassaic and missed the next nine contests. Still, he scored 12 goals and had nine assists and was a driving force behind the Maroons again striking gold by winning the Bergen County championship and the Group 4, Section 1 state title. O'Connor's postseason honors would reach the summit, as he was named first team All-NNJIL, first team All-County, first team All-Suburban, first team All-State, the All-State Top 22 and the Associated Press' second team All-State.
O'Connor was also captain of the Wyckoff Torpedoes U19 team that won the New Jersey State Cup in 1994. He was named the Most Valuable Player of the tournament.
O'Connor also played baseball and was a three-year varsity letter winner for head coach Jack Van Yperen and assistant coach Jeff Yearing. He played the outfield, shortstop (despite being left-handed) and on occasion pitched. He was a career .280/.300 hitter.
In college, O'Connor was a four-year varsity award winner in soccer at Loyola University Maryland. After college, he was the JV boys soccer coach at Ridgewood for two seasons, compiling a 23-9-5 record, and also coached JV boys lacrosse at RHS for two years. In addition, for two summers, he was an assistant coach for Yearing's Jersey United girls soccer team that traveled annually to Europe to play in several countries.
O'Connor then moved on to coaching men's soccer in college, serving as an assistant coach at the University of Delaware for three years. While there, he served as a player assessor for the Delaware Olympic Development Program (ODP).
In 2002, he was the head coach of the AC Milan U16 team that advanced to the semifinals of the Delaware State Cup. In 2003, he was the head coach of the AC Milan U17 team that advanced to the Delaware State Cup Finals. Presently, O'Connor is the men's soccer head coach at Centenary College in Hackettstown. In 2006, he was the Skyline Conference Men's Soccer Coach of the Year and the Centenary College Coach of the Year.
O'Connor and his wife, Ellen, and daughter, Cadey, reside in Easton, Pa.
2000 Track
Josh Kauke, a 2000 graduate of Ridgewood High School, is a three-time state champion in the 800-meter run and regarded as the best-ever in that event in Bergen County history.
Kauke made his mark in both indoor and outdoor track, first winning the 800-meter state title in spring track his junior year with a time of 1:53.27, coming from behind to stun the prohibitive favorite. Paul Schwartz described the performance in The Record's Friday, June 4, 1999 edition with the words, "[Kauke] burst ahead of favored Eric Motzenbecker of Wall in the 800 meters and raced to an upset victory, one only he and those closest to him thought he could achieve.
That same spring, Kauke earned the Bernard Smith Award for outstanding running performance in the Bergen County Relays, and he went on to place fourth in the 800 at Foot Locker Nationals in North Carolina.
His senior year, Kauke ran a 1:57.42 to claim the 800 indoor track state crown and, come spring, topped that with a 1:50.19 to run away with the State Meet of Champions 800-meter title. The latter time broke the previous Bergen County record that had stood for 24 years, and the mark still endures today.
In addition, he helped the Maroons to a national championship in the sprint medley relay, combining with Dan Cooper, Andrew Dolgin and Steve Pawlowski for a 3:27.58 that still stands as an RHS record in the event.
Upon his graduation in 2000, Kauke's 1:50.19 ranked as fifth-fastest in New Jersey history. That year, he was named All-American with the nation's fifth-best time in the 800 meters. Olympian Alan Webb had the eighth-best time.
A soccer standout for much of his youth and early high school athletic careers, Kauke wound up winning dozens of league, county and state-sectional titles in track, setting records in the 400-, 800- and 1600-meter runs and in the relays. His effort of 1:52.04 in a Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League Meet broke the record held by 1993 Ridgewood graduate Bob Keino.
Kauke's clocking of 1:53 in the 800 meters in the 1999 Bergen Meet of Champions is still the event record.
After graduating from RHS, Kauke went to Princeton University, where he had a solid four-year varsity career. He was All-Ivy League in indoor track in 2003 and 2004 and has the sixth-best indoor time in the 800 meters in Princeton history.
A great relay runner, he was part of the outstanding Princeton 4 x 800 squad that won IC4A national championship in 2002. His relay teams in the indoor 4 x 800 and distance medley both hold Princeton records.
1983 Cross Country/Track
Patti Mileski, a 1983 graduate, is one of the top-!ight cross-country and track athletes in the history of Ridgewood High School. Patti joined the Ridgewood cross-country program her sophomore year when she arrived at the high school.
For the next three seasons, the Maroons had an unprecedented run of three triple crowns, a Group 4 state championship and a second in the State Meet of Champions (SMOC). With her sister, Mary Ellen, as a training partner, she achieved first team All-County three times and first team All-State twice and was a first-team All-American selection her senior year.
Patti was equally successful in track and field, setting school and Bergen County records in the one-mile and two-mile runs. Teaming with Mary Ellen on the relays, Patti had a fabulous series of accomplishments: school record in the javelin relay, a national record in the indoors distance medley, finalist in the Penn Relays 4 x 800, Bergen County records in the sprint medley, 4 x 800, distance medley and 4 x 1-mile relays. Her performance in the 4 x 1-mile relay still stands as a Bergen County record and was the national record when run in 1983 and stood as the best mark ever for 17 years.
Patti was third in the SMOC in the 3,200-meter run as a senior and competed and placed in the inaugural
national prep championship in Portland, Ore. Patti attended Texas A& M for one year with full track scholarship. She then transferred to the University of Notre Dame where they only offered club track and field because there was no intercollegiate program for women at
the time. Today, Patti has an active group of athletic children in New Hampshire. Winter time finds her teaching
adaptive skiing at the local ski hills.
1983 Cross Country Track
Mary Ellen Mileski, a 1983 graduate, is one of the top-!ight cross-country and track athletes in the history of Ridgewood High School. At the end of her 8th grade year at George Washington Junior High School, Mary Ellen decided to run in the
Ridgewood Memorial Day Run. This experience led her to try out for the high school cross-country team as a GW 9th grader. Back in the days of the three-year high school, ninth graders tended to focus their sports at the junior high level. But Mary Ellen enjoyed running and thought she might find some success in the sport.
This decision enabled Mary Ellen to be one of the few four-time All-Bergen County athletes (in any sport). As a freshman, she placed second in the Bergen County Cross-Country Championships and in the spring won the county title in the mile, setting a new Ridgewood record in the process. Her freshman success foreshadowed an outstanding running career in cross-country and track and field at Ridgewood High School.Mary Ellen set school records in the 1,500-meter and one-mile runs. She joined with her sister, Patti, to lead Ridgewood to triple crown team titles in both cross-country and track and field. Mary Ellen was outstanding in the relays, running everything from the 4 x 440 to 4 x 1-mile and throwing in the javelin relay. With her sister, Patti, she set school records in six relays. The 4 x 800, sprint medley and distance medley were all county records. Their crowning achievement, however, was the 4 x 1-mile relay, as Ridgewood set a national record in that event that lasted for 17 years. Mary Ellen was the Group 4 state champion in the 800 meters her senior year and placed in the top five in the national prep meet in Portland, Ore.
Mary Ellen attended Texas A& M for one year with full track scholarship. She then transferred to the University
of Notre Dame where they only offered club track and field because there was no intercollegiate program
for women at the time. She coached track and field and cross-country in the Chicago area after college for
several years before raising her family.
Kitty Batterson was the founder of the Ridgewood High School girls volleyball program and served as head coach from 1974 to 1986. Coach Batterson always demanded the best in play, attitude and sportsmanship from her players. A leader by example, her methodology was to give the responsibility for success to her teams while taking a very passive role during matches. Her teams were well-prepared during training and always coached to play with the highest standards of ethical behavior and dignity.
Coach Batterson's squad won the Bergen County championship in 1982, an NNJIL championship in 1984 and the Group 4, Section 1 state title in 1986. The 1986 squad boasted a career best 23-3 record for coach Batterson.
In 1983, her RHS squad was selected to play a preliminary match at Hofstra Universitybefore a USA versus Japan women's match.
Coach Batterson's final record as a coach stands at 199-71, but well beyond the wins and losses over the years is the incredible education each of her players received about being outstanding citizens of the world, whether that included volleyball or not.
Class of 1927
Henry Blauvel (class of 1927) made his mark in Ridgewood High School athletics in football, playing varsity football all four years and serving as a team captain in the 1925 and 1926 seasons.
Playing right halfback, he led the Maroons in yardage gained and touchdowns for two seasons.
Blauvelt also earned multiple varsity letters in basketball, track and baseball. He was awarded the RHS Trophy for Excellence in Athletics in 1927.
Class of 1941
Frank Bradley (Class of 1941) made his mark in Ridgewood High School athletics in football as a quarterback. In the 1940 season, his senior year, he led the Maroons in rushing and passing yardage, as well as touchdowns. He was awarded the prestigious High Y Award, given to the RHS football player who showed excellent and clean activity on the gridiron and also in his classes, home life and relations with colleagues. Bradley was also a successful track athlete on many of RHS' Penn Relay teams.
After graduating, he attended The Peddie School in Hightstown in Mercer County for the 1941-42 scholastic year and was selected a captain of the football team, earning All-State honors as a running back. From 1943 to 1945, Bradley served in World War II with the Air Force as a navigator for B17 Bombers.
From 1946 to 1950, he attended Cornell University and lettered four years in football as the starting right halfback. The Big Red won the Ivy League championship in 1948 and 1949.
Bradley was elected to The Peddie School Athletic Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Cornell University Athletic Hall of Fame in 2001.
Class of 1980
Lucia Cancelmo (Class of 1980) made her mark in Ridgewood High School athletics in gymnastics, and she was named to The Record's All-Century Gymnastics Team.
Her senior season was her benchmark year, as she won Group 4 state-sectional and Group 4 state championships in the all-around, the balance beam and the uneven bars.
For all four years, Cancelmo was selected first team All- County, and she received the Ridgewood High School Outstanding Athlete Award in 1979, the same year she was selected to the United States Gymnastics Junior National Team.
Class of 1977
Chris DuFlocq (Class of 1977) made his mark in Ridgewood High School athletics in soccer. He was named to The Record's All- Century Boys Soccer Team as a first-team goalkeeper.
DuFlocq was the starting goalkeeper for the Maroons for the 1975-76 seasons. RHS won two NNJIL titles and a county championship with DuFlocq minding the nets.Ridgewood's combined record for those two seasons was 34-6-1 with two wins in the county tournament being credited to his goalkeeping skills in penalty shootouts.
DuFlocq recorded 27 shutouts in his career, including a heartbreaking overtime 0-0 decision to arch-rival Kearny in the 1975 state tournament that was then decided on corner kicks. In 41 matches for head coach Dick Bennett's Maroons, DuFlocq gave up 22 goals for a 0.54 goals-against average. In 32 league matches during his career, DuFlocq recorded 23 shutouts and gave up a total of 13 goals for a 0.40 goals-against average. Ridgewood recorded an outstanding 28-3-1 league record during that time.
He was named first team All-NNJIL and first team All-County in both 1975 and 1976. _ Jeff Yearing, who was an assistant coach to Bennett during DuFlocq's career and is now Ridgewood High School's girls soccer head coach, said, "In 36 years of coaching high school soccer, I have had the pleasure of coaching many incredible goalkeepers, both male and female. Chris DuFlocq still sets the standard by which I judge all others, and none have ever surpassed the complete talent that he possessed in so many different areas the position demands."
DuFlocq went on to an outstanding career at Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) and continued playing locally on many men's club teams.
Class of 1975
Renee DuFlon (Class of 1975) made her mark in Ridgewood High School athletics in volleyball and track and field. _ In 1974, the RHS girls track team had a banner year, being crowned Bergen County champions, winning the North A state-sectional championship and participating in the State Meet of Champions. DuFlon was cochampion with 22 points in the state-sectional championships, breaking a school record in the shot put with a throw of 31 feet, one and- a-half inches. She also cleared 4 feet, 10 inches in the high school jump and threw the discus 83 feet, 8 inches.
In volleyball, DuFlon's teams her junior and senior years were ranked number one by the NNJIL, and she was voted first team by all of the coaches and officials in the league.
DuFlon went on to play volleyball at the University of Delaware, where she received a varsity letter in both 1978 and 1979, when she was voted Most Valuable Player of the team both seasons. She participated in USVBA Nationals, receiving an All-American Rookie Award. During 1981-82, she played professional volleyball in Nykoping,Sweden.
The 1922-23 Ridgewood High School girls basketball team is the first team to be inducted into the RHS Athletic Hall of Fame in its third year of operation. The team was formed in 1919 as the first girls varsity sport offered at RHS. Entering the 1922-23 season, there was some speculation whether the program would be continued. The boys athletic program was just authorized to include soccer and cross country as varsity sports, which gave the boys of the time six sports (football, cross-country, soccer, basketball, baseball, track and field) in which to earn their varsity "Rs" compared to one (basketball) for the girls. Under the direction of faculty member Miss Elizabeth M. Sellier, the girls basketball team enjoyed a spectacular season with 10 wins, one loss and one tie while capturing the Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League girls basketball championship. There was anticipation for this team to succeed. Their accomplishment was a stepping-stone for the time that led to more interscholastic sports teams for girls in the 1920s. The team was written up in the bulletin issued by the State Commissioner of Education and the spring issue of the Arrow quarterly at RHS (1923) was dedicated to its success. The team's prized "Shield" recognizing the team's championship can still be seen outside Ridgewood High School's main gymnasium today.
Class of 1942
Harry Grundy (Class of 1942) made his mark in Ridgewood High School athletics in baseball, where he was a three-year varsity letter winner and a co-captain his senior year. A pitcher, Grundy won 28 of 31 varsity games pitched, the most wins by any RHS baseball player in school history. He hurled four shutouts his senior year versusLyndhurst, St. Cecelia of Englewood, Hackensack and Bogota, tossing 34 straight scoreless innings. Against Lyndhurst, he pitched a perfect game, striking out 12 batters.
Grundy averaged giving up only four hits a game (seven innings) and walked just four of 107 batters faced in the first half of the 1942 season. In both the 1941 and 1942 seasons, he was named first team All-League and first team All-County. His 1941 team won the Group 3 state championship.
After high school, Grundy had tryouts with the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants. He signed a professional baseball contract with the Dodgers in 1942 and was assigned to play Double A ball in Mobile, Alabama, where he pitched for two seasons.
In 1942, Grundy was drafted into the U.S. Army and served four years. He fought in the European Theatre in 1944 and 1945 and received the Bronze Star for distinguished served. Honorably discharged in 1946, he resumed his professional baseball career for the Dodgers. He retired from playing professional baseball in 1948.
Grundy played with Gil Hodges, Chuck Connors (the actor) and Clem Labine. The Dodgers held on to his baseball contract for a number of years after he retired in case he ever changed his mind.
Jim Jones, a former sports editor of The Ridgewood News, is being inducted as a Special Contributor to Ridgewood High School athletics. Jones has covered sports on a full-time basis for The Ridgewood News since 1960, serving as sports editor from 1970 to Dec. 31, 2000, when he ended his full-time work at the newspaper. He has remained on the staff for part-time assignments since then. His sports sections received a number of awards in the New Jersey State Press Association contests, and, in 1969, his Sports Sidelights column was selected number one in New Jersey for daily and weekly newspapers.
Jones is a native of Bergen County, Montvale and Park Ridge High School. Starting as a correspondent for The Record in high school, he later did newspaper work in a four-year stint in the Air Force on Guam and Columbus, Ohio, and received a BA in English from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, where he worked four years full-time for the Muncie Star, a morning daily, and left as the assistant sports editor, returning to New Jersey.
Jones was the sports information director at Fairleigh Dickinson University through the 1960s in addition to his work at The Ridgewood News. He received an award from the Bergen County Coaches Association in 1998 for long-time contributions to scholastic athletics. Jones served as co-chairman of the Sports Medicine Seminar with Doctor Vincent W. Giudice, then head of orthopedics at The Valley Hospital, 1974-1986. Jones has been honored by the North Jersey Masters Track and Field Club for helping the Ridgewood Run to become one of the top road races in New Jersey, and he covered 23 of the first 25 races, starting in 1976.
Class of 1985
Joe LeMay (Class of 1985) made his mark in Ridgewood High School athletics in cross-country and track and field. During his senior year, LeMay ran times of 9:12 in the 3,200- meter run and 4:15 in the 1,600-meter run. He was part of a school record-setting distance medley relay, running 4:18 for his leg, with his team finishing in 10:11 for fourth place at the prestigious Penn Relays. LeMay passed up running in the State Meet of Champions his senior year to participate in a national meet, the Golden West Invitational, where he finished fifth in the 3,000 meters. His best running would come years later. LeMay went on to compete for Princeton University, graduating in 1989 as a Division 1 All-American in both cross country and track and setting the still-standing university record for the 10,000-meter run, 28:59.
After college, LeMay became known for training over 100 miles a week while holding down a full-time job, and he continued to compete in road and track races at a national and international level. He represented the United States at the World Half Marathon Championships twice and the World Cross-Country Championships once. At the 1996 Crescent City Classic 10K in New Orleans, LeMay ran a 28:00, making him the sixth fastest American ever for that distance. He finished second in the 1996 United States Olympic Trials for 10,000 meters and won both the 1997 Gate River Run 15K in Jacksonville, Fla. with a time of 43:35 and the 1999 California International Marathon with 2:13:55 clocking. On Memorial Day of 1993, LeMay set the Ridgewood Run course record for the 10-kilometer run [6.2 miles] in a time of 29:11, a standard that still endures.
LeMay has appeared on the cover of Running Times Magazine twice, and was pictured in a widely distributed Adidas poster in 1997. LeMay retired from running on a national level in 2002, but still competes in local races near his home in Danbury, Conn.
Class of 1989
Jen McDermott (Class of 1989) made her mark in Ridgewood High School athletics in gymnastics and track and field, receiving All- County or All-State recognition in both sports in 11 of her 12 seasons competing. She is the holder of 12 school records in track and field.
McDermott was named Ridgewood High School Female Athlete of the Year in 1989 and was named to The Record's All-Century Team for track and field.
She went on to star in track and field at Georgetown University, where she attained All-American status. She still holds the indoor long and triple jump record at Georgetown.
Class of 1994
Shannon McGarrigle (Class of 1994) made her mark in Ridgewood High Schoolathletics in basketball. A four-year varsity starter, she is Ridgewood High School's all-time leading scorer in basketball, both boys and girls, with 1,967 points. In the BergenCounty girls tournament, McGarrigle is also the all-time leading scorer with 289 points.
McGarrigle's top honor came when she was selected to The Record's All-Century Team. She is in the top ten, all-time, for scoring in girls basketball in Bergen County. For three consecutive years (1992, 1993 and 1994), she made first team All-County, first team All- Area North Jersey in the Herald and News and first team All- Suburban in The Ridgewood News. She was named first team All-State in 1994.
Team-wise, McGarrigle played on Ridgewood's Group 4 state championship team of the 1990-91 season and the Maroons' Bergen County championship teams of 1992, 1993 and 1994. McGarrigle received a basketball scholarship from Northwestern University.
Now the head girls basketball coach at Ramsey High School, McGarrigle was named The Ridgewood News' All-Suburban Girls Basketball Coach of the Year for the 2006-07 season.
Tony Napier was Ridgewood High School's boys gymnastics coach from 1967 to 1987 and is considered the father of the gymnastics movement in Ridgewood.
Bringing the sport into the elementary schools in the early 1960s, coach Napier found the boys gymnastics club in 1967 at RHS. In 1969, the program received varsity status as an interscholastic sport. The team flourished under coach Napier's direction, producing many individual places and champions at the league, county and state levels. His boys teams captured three consecutive Bergen County titles during the 1973-74, 1974-75 and 1975-76 seasons.
The popularity of boys gymnastics waned across the county and state in the early 1980s, and Ridgewood was forced to drop its program after the 1983 campaign. With Title IX regenerating opportunities for female athletes RHS formed a girls gymnastics program in 1976. The varsity seasons for men's and women's athletics coincided with each other, and during the 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1983 seasons, Napier took on the job of head coach of both the girls and boys programs. He remained on as the girls head gymnastics coach through the 1987 campaign.
During the 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1979 seasons, the girls gymnastics team compiled undefeated dual meet campaigns with a combined 43-0 record. Napier was head coach for three of the four seasons (1977-79) while the teams went 35-0 in dual meet competition. The girls team stretched its record to 50-0 when it won the first seven meets of the 1980 season.
Under coach Napier's direction (1977-79), the girls team captured three state-sectional championships, while the 1978 squad won the overall state title. The 1977 team took a second place overall and the 1979 team a fourth.
Many of coach Napier's gymnasts captured individual titles during his tenure as well. His vision and legacy for gymnastics inRidgewood is reflected in the outstanding success the girls program has enjoyed over the years.
Coach Napier continues to be active in gymnastics nationally and internationally as a renowned judge. He was elected to the National Gymnastics Judges Hall of Fame in 1996 and was recognized as a distinguished alumnus of Montclair StateUniversity's Panzer School of Physical Education for contributions to the sport of gymnastics.
Tony Napier was Ridgewood High School's boys gymnastics coach from 1967 to 1987 and is considered the father of the gymnastics movement in Ridgewood.
Bringing the sport into the elementary schools in the early 1960s, coach Napier found the boys gymnastics club in 1967 at RHS. In 1969, the program received varsity status as an interscholastic sport. The team flourished under coach Napier's direction, producing many individual places and champions at the league, county and state levels. His boys teams captured three consecutive Bergen County titles during the 1973-74, 1974-75 and 1975-76 seasons.
The popularity of boys gymnastics waned across the county and state in the early 1980s, and Ridgewood was forced to drop its program after the 1983 campaign. With Title IX regenerating opportunities for female athletes RHS formed a girls gymnastics program in 1976. The varsity seasons for men's and women's athletics coincided with each other, and during the 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1983 seasons, Napier took on the job of head coach of both the girls and boys programs. He remained on as the girls head gymnastics coach through the 1987 campaign.
During the 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1979 seasons, the girls gymnastics team compiled undefeated dual meet campaigns with a combined 43-0 record. Napier was head coach for three of the four seasons (1977-79) while the teams went 35-0 in dual meet competition. The girls team stretched its record to 50-0 when it won the first seven meets of the 1980 season.
Under coach Napier's direction (1977-79), the girls team captured three state-sectional championships, while the 1978 squad won the overall state title. The 1977 team took a second place overall and the 1979 team a fourth.
Many of coach Napier's gymnasts captured individual titles during his tenure as well. His vision and legacy for gymnastics inRidgewood is reflected in the outstanding success the girls program has enjoyed over the years.
Coach Napier continues to be active in gymnastics nationally and internationally as a renowned judge. He was elected to the National Gymnastics Judges Hall of Fame in 1996 and was recognized as a distinguished alumnus of Montclair StateUniversity's Panzer School of Physical Education for contributions to the sport of gymnastics.
Vince Robertiello (Jamie Roberts), a former Sports Editor of The Ridgewood News, is being inducted as a Special Contributor to Ridgewood High School athletics.Robertiello began his sports writing career in 1944 when he was a sophomore at long-defunct Paterson Central High School. He covered their football, baseball and basketball teams as a stringer for the also now defunct Paterson Morning Call.
He graduated high school in 1946 and spent a semester at the Columbia School of Journalism, landing a job with the Call full time as a general assignment reporter. The late Bob Whiting rescued him from the politics of the city by offering a place on the sports department staff.
Robertiello served in the Korean War for three years as an Army staff sergeant and, in 1954, went to work at The Ridgewood News as a general assignment reporter and later as sports editor.
Robertiello covered Ridgewood High School football for 30 years and also worked for a succession of corporations. He then covered baseball, basketball and track at RHS, as well as coach Otis Grendler's marvelous 100-match regular season tennis unbeaten streak, the Ridgewood YMCA swim team and the highlight, following Carin Cone Vanderbush's championship swimming career during his five-year stay as The Ridgewood News sports editor and, subsequently, as a reporter and Sports Editor of the Paterson Evening News and beyond.
Jamie Roberts, his alter ego, was born in 1962 when United Merchants, a New York Textile company, had him under contract as its editor of publications and refused to allow him to write elsewhere under his own name. The "Jamie" was from his son, James, and the "Roberts" a contraction of his last name. He used that pen name covering Ridgewood High School sports from then on.
Robertiello's prized two sports writing awards highly, both were for columns. He earned first place in the New Jersey Press Association's sports writing division for a column on Ridgewood High School's late football coaching legend, Frank Mozeleski, published in The Ridgewood News and repeated in 1972 competition's in the weekly sports writing category for a column featuring RHS head football coach Roger Sweeney and Paramus High School head football coach John DeGasperis.
Vince Robertiello (Jamie Roberts), a former Sports Editor of The Ridgewood News, is being inducted as a Special Contributor to Ridgewood High School athletics.Robertiello began his sports writing career in 1944 when he was a sophomore at long-defunct Paterson Central High School. He covered their football, baseball and basketball teams as a stringer for the also now defunct Paterson Morning Call.
He graduated high school in 1946 and spent a semester at the Columbia School of Journalism, landing a job with the Call full time as a general assignment reporter. The late Bob Whiting rescued him from the politics of the city by offering a place on the sports department staff.
Robertiello served in the Korean War for three years as an Army staff sergeant and, in 1954, went to work at The Ridgewood News as a general assignment reporter and later as sports editor.
Robertiello covered Ridgewood High School football for 30 years and also worked for a succession of corporations. He then covered baseball, basketball and track at RHS, as well as coach Otis Grendler's marvelous 100-match regular season tennis unbeaten streak, the Ridgewood YMCA swim team and the highlight, following Carin Cone Vanderbush's championship swimming career during his five-year stay as The Ridgewood News sports editor and, subsequently, as a reporter and Sports Editor of the Paterson Evening News and beyond.
Jamie Roberts, his alter ego, was born in 1962 when United Merchants, a New York Textile company, had him under contract as its editor of publications and refused to allow him to write elsewhere under his own name. The "Jamie" was from his son, James, and the "Roberts" a contraction of his last name. He used that pen name covering Ridgewood High School sports from then on.
Robertiello's prized two sports writing awards highly, both were for columns. He earned first place in the New Jersey Press Association's sports writing division for a column on Ridgewood High School's late football coaching legend, Frank Mozeleski, published in The Ridgewood News and repeated in 1972 competition's in the weekly sports writing category for a column featuring RHS head football coach Roger Sweeney and Paramus High School head football coach John DeGasperis.
Vince Robertiello (Jamie Roberts), a former Sports Editor of The Ridgewood News, is being inducted as a Special Contributor to Ridgewood High School athletics.Robertiello began his sports writing career in 1944 when he was a sophomore at long-defunct Paterson Central High School. He covered their football, baseball and basketball teams as a stringer for the also now defunct Paterson Morning Call.
He graduated high school in 1946 and spent a semester at the Columbia School of Journalism, landing a job with the Call full time as a general assignment reporter. The late Bob Whiting rescued him from the politics of the city by offering a place on the sports department staff.
Robertiello served in the Korean War for three years as an Army staff sergeant and, in 1954, went to work at The Ridgewood News as a general assignment reporter and later as sports editor.
Robertiello covered Ridgewood High School football for 30 years and also worked for a succession of corporations. He then covered baseball, basketball and track at RHS, as well as coach Otis Grendler's marvelous 100-match regular season tennis unbeaten streak, the Ridgewood YMCA swim team and the highlight, following Carin Cone Vanderbush's championship swimming career during his five-year stay as The Ridgewood News sports editor and, subsequently, as a reporter and Sports Editor of the Paterson Evening News and beyond.
Jamie Roberts, his alter ego, was born in 1962 when United Merchants, a New York Textile company, had him under contract as its editor of publications and refused to allow him to write elsewhere under his own name. The "Jamie" was from his son, James, and the "Roberts" a contraction of his last name. He used that pen name covering Ridgewood High School sports from then on.
Robertiello's prized two sports writing awards highly, both were for columns. He earned first place in the New Jersey Press Association's sports writing division for a column on Ridgewood High School's late football coaching legend, Frank Mozeleski, published in The Ridgewood News and repeated in 1972 competition's in the weekly sports writing category for a column featuring RHS head football coach Roger Sweeney and Paramus High School head football coach John DeGasperis.
Vince Robertiello (Jamie Roberts), a former Sports Editor of The Ridgewood News, is being inducted as a Special Contributor to Ridgewood High School athletics.Robertiello began his sports writing career in 1944 when he was a sophomore at long-defunct Paterson Central High School. He covered their football, baseball and basketball teams as a stringer for the also now defunct Paterson Morning Call.
He graduated high school in 1946 and spent a semester at the Columbia School of Journalism, landing a job with the Call full time as a general assignment reporter. The late Bob Whiting rescued him from the politics of the city by offering a place on the sports department staff.
Robertiello served in the Korean War for three years as an Army staff sergeant and, in 1954, went to work at The Ridgewood News as a general assignment reporter and later as sports editor.
Robertiello covered Ridgewood High School football for 30 years and also worked for a succession of corporations. He then covered baseball, basketball and track at RHS, as well as coach Otis Grendler's marvelous 100-match regular season tennis unbeaten streak, the Ridgewood YMCA swim team and the highlight, following Carin Cone Vanderbush's championship swimming career during his five-year stay as The Ridgewood News sports editor and, subsequently, as a reporter and Sports Editor of the Paterson Evening News and beyond.
Jamie Roberts, his alter ego, was born in 1962 when United Merchants, a New York Textile company, had him under contract as its editor of publications and refused to allow him to write elsewhere under his own name. The "Jamie" was from his son, James, and the "Roberts" a contraction of his last name. He used that pen name covering Ridgewood High School sports from then on.
Robertiello's prized two sports writing awards highly, both were for columns. He earned first place in the New Jersey Press Association's sports writing division for a column on Ridgewood High School's late football coaching legend, Frank Mozeleski, published in The Ridgewood News and repeated in 1972 competition's in the weekly sports writing category for a column featuring RHS head football coach Roger Sweeney and Paramus High School head football coach John DeGasperis.
Class of 1977
After leaving his mark in football and wrestling at Ridgewood High, Paul Ferraro has continued his career in athletics by advancing through the collegiate football coaching ranks to the National Football League. He was awarded the Outstanding Senior Athlete award in 1977 and also was recipient of the Stroker Award presented by the Stroker Family and the Ridgewood Junior Football Association.
Acknowledged as one of the greatest two-way football players in the school's history, he was acknowledged as a first-team All-Decade linebacker for the 1970s by The Record and was a two-time first-team linebacker on the All-County, All-Suburban and All-NNJIL all-star teams. He was the first single-season 1,000-yard rusher in school history and held the single- season rushing record of 1,079 yards (accomplished in nine games) for 28 years.
His rushing average for a season, 119.89, still stands. In addition to the three varsity letters earned on the gridiron, he was awarded two in wrestling. He was first-team All-Suburban, second team All-County and a two-time All-NNJIL pick (first team as a senior). He won a district championship and was a regional runner-up. He went on to play four varsity seasons of football at Springfield College where he was team captain and an All-East selection. His Division 1 and professional coaching career began as a defensive assistant at the University of Massachusetts in 1982 and had stints is various defensive capacities at Syracuse, Villanova, Dartmouth, Catholic University, Maine, Ohio University, Bowling Green, Georgia Tech and Rutgers before being named assistant special teams coach for the Carolina Panthers in 2005. He joined the Minnesota Vikings as head special teams coordinator in January of 2006. He is one of six children of Dr. Mario and Betty Jean Ferraro. Dr. Ferraro, a legendary Maroon football player and a long-time coach in the Ridgewood Junior Football Association program, died in 2002 and is also one of this year's Hall of Fame inductees. Paul's brother Michael was a standout at Paramus Catholic, and Pete, Chris and Mario all toiled on the field for RHS. His sister Mary was a cheerleader for the Maroons.
Class of 1942
A gifted athlete, he captained the Maroon basketball and baseball teams and also played football and soccer. The recipient of the Athletic Award for the Class of 1942 entered military service two months after graduation and tragically lost his life at age 20 as a Navy pilot in World War II. His athletic skills attracted college recruiters for football and the New York Giants for baseball.
He should have graduated with the Class of 1941 but complications from a broken leg sustained playing football his sophomore year held him back a year. He switched to soccer when he couldn't play football in the fall of 1941. Don was an only child and was a Boy Scout as a youngster. He took his pre-flight training at Chapel Hill, where he again played football, Squantum, Mass., and was commissioned in December of 1943 at Pensacola, Fla. Flying an F86 Hellcat out of Otis Field, Cape Cod, Mass., gave him frequent opportunities to come home on 24-hour passes. He died on July 3, 1944 when the aircraft he was ferrying went down in a storm near Callahan, Ga., 35 miles west of Jacksonville, Fla. He is buried in 12 Park, Plot E1/2 1475, Grave 1 in Valleau Cemetery in Ridgewood.
Class of 1994
Named to The Record's Bergen County All-Century Girls Soccer Team as a Midfielder, Wendy Hartwig, a 1994 graduate, is the leading goal scorer in the history of Ridgewood High School soccer, boys and girls programs, with 110 goals to go along with 49 assists over a four-year varsity career playing for head coach Jeff Yearing.
As a freshman in the 1990 season, Wendy made second team All-Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League (NNJIL) and then really caught the attention of many soccer observers the next season by receiving the following honors: first team All-League, first team All-County, All-State as voted by the New Jersey Girls Soccer Coaches Association (NJGSCA) and All-East and All-America teams as voted by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA). In 1992, despite a season-ending anterior cruciate ligament injury sustained in the tenth game against Ramapo, Wendy was named to the Parade Magazine All-America Team and All-League first team. At the time of her injury, she had 15 goals and four assists. Also that season, Wendy was named to the Olympic Development Program's Region 1 team.
In the 1993 season, Wendy led Ridgewood to its first county tournament championship in girl's soccer by scoring two goals in the last four minutes versus Ramapo to erase a 2-1 deficit and produce a 3-2 victory. Her first goal came on a direct kick from 25 yards out, and the clinching goal came on a penalty kick with 33 seconds remaining. Her senior year, Wendy set school records for goals (37), assists (23) and total points (97) in a season. She received the following honors: first team All-League, first team All-County, first team All-State, All Groups, first team All-State as voted by the NJGSCA, All-America as voted by the NSCAA and All-America in Parade Magazine. She was also selected to play in the NJGSCA Senior Showcase game and to the player pool for the United States Women's National Team.
Wendy accepted an athletic scholarship from the University of Virginia, where she was a four-year starter on the women's soccer team, earning All-Atlantic Coast Conference honors her sophomore, junior and senior years. On October 5, 1995, she had four assists against the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and that still stands as the single-game assist record at Virginia. She is also tied for third place in school history for game-winning assists in a season, three in 1996. Wendy is married to Harmen Vos, and they reside in Annandale, New Jersey, in Hunterdon County with their young son, Hunter.
Class of 1950 Tom Hopper moved from Illinois to Ridgewood in 1945 and brought the one-hand jump shot with him. It was the day of the set shot and new to New Jersey hoops. and coach Charlie Yennie said he introduced it to Garden State scholastic basketball. He scored 735 points over the 1948-49-50 seasons, was named All-County twice and selected on the All-State third team his senior season. He also played soccer for the Maroons, and Yennie coached him in both sports. After three years in the Marines, he went to North Carolina State and played three varsity seasons on the hardwood there. He began a career in the textile business after graduating in 1950 and spent two years in Spartanburg, S.C., before moving north to Glen Rock from 1961 to 1969. Then he went back south and has been in Atlanta ever since. The 73-yearold worked for the Milliken Company, a major textile manufacturer, for 17 years. He started his own business in 1972 and spent 26 years on his own before retiring. Tom and his wife Jan have four grown children.
Class of 1994
A five-time state champion, Bob Keino enjoyed a remarkable running career for the Maroons and still holds two RHS track records, 4:09.35 in the 1,600 meters and 9:02.73 in the 3,200 meters. He won back-to-back Meet of Champions titles. He was undefeated in distances from 800 meters to 3,200 meters both his junior and senior years. He was first team All-State six times, two each his cross country, indoor track and outdoor track, and first team All-County and All-League nine times.
He was the Penn Relays Athlete of the Meet his junior season when he ran a 4:08 1,600 anchor in the distance medley relay to take Ridgewood from 16th to third place and also turned in a 1:52 in the 800 meters. He won the Penn Relays 3,000 race his senior year. He was state champion in the 3,200m his junior and senior seasons, 3,200m indoors as a junior and in cross country both his junior and senior campaigns. He won the Footlocker Northeast race at Van Cortlandt Park in New York and finished fourth in the Footlocker Nationals in San Diego, Calif. He was All-America and All-Pac 10 running for the University of Arizona. He finished college at Rutgers but did not compete for the Scarlet Knights. He ran a 3:53 mile after college. The son of two-time Olympic gold medalist Kip Keino of Kenya, Bob did some sailing off the coast of Kenya in the Indian Ocean and became interested in sailing. After working for Catholic Charities in London, he enrolled in the UK Sailing Academy on Isle of Wight, England for certification on a luxury or racing yacht.
Class of 1994
A coaching legend who spent 27 years as a teacher/coach at Ridgewood, Mozeleski's football teams compiled a 92- 44 record over 16 years, racking up three undefeated seasons (the 1957 campaign had a tie), and the longest winning streak in the school's gridiron history (20-0-1) from 1955 through the first two games of 1958.
The Maroons won five Northern Bergen Interscholastic League titles (1950, 1951, 1956, 1957 and 1958) and Ridgewood was the Bergen County champion in 1956. His teams scored 2,689 points while allowing the opposition only 1,459, registered 38 shutouts and produced a number of All-County, All-State and All-League players. He also guided the basketball team to 97 victories, a Bergen County Jamboree title in 1963-64 and the Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League crown in 1960-61. And he coached golf for eight years, the last one a state champion in a 15-2 season.
He had 15 years of coaching experience under his belt when he was hired in 1943 to coach baseball at Ridgewood. He never handled a diamond squad, but his football, basketball and golf teams helped fill the school trophy cases. Gene Links, one of his All-County and All-State players in the 1944 and 1945 grid campaigns, was inducted into the Ridgewood Athletic Hall of Fame in 2004. The other, the late Dr. Mario (The Mole) Ferraro, is in this year's induction class. Mr. Moz, as he was forever respectfully known to all his athletes, died at age 75 in 1986 in Clearwater, Fla., where he spend the last 15 years of his life.
Class of 1981
Tim Mullen, a 1981 graduate, is Ridgewood High School's all-time leading scorer in basketball with 1,507 varsitycareer points. The 6-foot-5,190- pounder capped his scholastic career by leading the Maroons to a 22-4 record and the Group 4, Section 1 state semifinals and by leading the Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League (NNJIL) in scoring with 626 points, a 24-point average.
Tim is also the school record holder for most points in a game, 43. He scored more than 40 points three times and more than 30 points eight times. He shot 51 percent from the floor and 86 percent from the foul line his senior year, when he averaged nine rebounds, four assists, two blocked shots and two steals.
Tim was a three-year starter for head coach John Smith and was named All-League, All-Suburban, All- County and All-State his junior and senior years. Tim went on to star for the University of Virginia men's basketball team (pictured him with Michael Jordan) and was captain of the Cavaliers his senior season of 1984-85. His junior year, Virginia made the Final Four of the NCAA tournament, losing to the University of Houston, 49-47, in overtime in the semifinal round. Tim played in 127 games for the Cavaliers, tying Othell Wilson for sixth on UV's list for games played. Tim was a versatile player for Virginia, starting at small forward, second guard and point guard during his career. He led the Cavaliers in assists his senior season with 82 and averaged 7.3 points and 2.0 rebounds a game. For his career, Tim averaged 6.4 points and 1.8 rebounds a game. He had a career free throw percentage of .790 (166-for-210). Tim lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife and two daughters.
Class of 1994
One of Ridgewood High School's all-time running standouts, Jenna Rogers stills holds Maroon and Bergen County records. She was honored as an All-State first team athlete in both track and cross country in addition to numerous All-County first-team selections. Rogers' time of 10:33.9 in the 3,200-meter race still stands as a Ridgewood High and Bergen County record.
She is one of only three females in the state to win the individual state cross country title and a team gold medal, accomplished during her undefeated senior season in 1993.
Rogers went on from Ridgewood High School to an outstanding collegiate running career at Dartmouth, where she was a five-time Division 1 All-American in cross country and track and captained the cross country team her junior and senior years. She led Dartmouth's non-scholarship squad to two fourth-place finishes in the NCAA nationals. She was named the outstanding senior female scholar- athlete in both her junior and senior seasons and also received the Kenneth Archibald Prize given to the senior who has been the best all-around athlete with regard to moral worth and high standing in scholarship.
After graduation, Rogers competed for the Boston Athletic Association for two years and started coaching track and cross country at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000. She then taught and coached the Suffield Academy, a boarding school in Connecticut, for three years. Since then she has taught and coached at Riverdale Country School in the Bronx. She received her master's degree from Columbia University Teachers College in educational administration in 2003. The 30-year-old Rogers is presently not coaching at Riverdale but still teaches and works in the admissions office. She ran her first New York Marathon in 2004 and was the 17th American woman finisher. She also ran in the 2005 New York Marathon and posted a time close to the 2004 mark despite running with an injury. Her brother Eric also was a Ridgewood High track athlete. Rogers, who lives in Manhattan, said that long-time RHS track and cross country coach Jacob Brown helped her a great deal in her career. "I wasn't burned out when I got to college," she said. "He looked out for my long-term health and progress."
Class of 1984
Recognized as an All-State athlete in two sports, O'Connell Skettini figured in several of RHS's all-time girls sports achievements. A two-time All-NNJIL, All-County and All-State selection in softball, she pitched coach Debbie Paul's Maroons to a undefeated (29-0 state championship in 1983 and a school and state record of 43 straight victories. The three-year varsity performer was selected All-State in 1983 and 1984 and was voted to The Record's All-Century Team in 1999.
Her sister, Debbie O'Connell, who was the catcher on those team, was inducted into the RHS Athletic Hall of Fame in 2004. O'Connell Skettini bowled for the Maroons from 1981 to 1984 and received first team All-County and All-State honors all four seasons for coach Art Rispoli's pinspillers, coming from Ben Franklin Junior High her freshman year. She did this while playing varsity basketball in 1983 and 1984 for coach Dick Bennett. O'Connell Skettini continued her superb softball pitching at Trenton State College with an overall record in college of 73-9 from 1985 to 1988. The 1985 team as second in the Division 3 Nationals, losing to Eastern Connecticut State, 1-0. She pitched Trenton State to the national championship in 1987, hurling two of the four games in the championship series and defeating Eastern Connecticut twice.
She was honored as a Division 3 All-American in 1987 and was picked on the All-New Jersey Conference All-Star team in 1987 and 1988. Donna and her husband Craig have three children and she continues to compete in Women's International Bowling Congress tournaments individually.
Class of 1958
For five years, she reigned supreme among the country's backstroke swimmers, winning 16 national titles from 1955 to 1960. At age 16 Carin won a Silver medal in the 100-meter backstroke in a dead-heat, world-record-time photo finish in the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia, a controversial decision that took officials 20 minutes to sort out.
The pretty blonde held four world records and 23 American standards. Carin scored several victories in the Pan Am Games (2 golds in 1959, backstroke and 400 medley relay) and AAU Nationals (three Junior and 16 Senior). Ridgewood had no swimming team so she trained on her own before school at Graydon Pool (the Village erected turning boards to help her) and at the National Swimming Association facility in Manhattan after school. Her mother, Ruth Cone, taught school in Ridgewood for 27 years.
Carin was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame as an Honor Swimmer in 1984. She was a dean's list student at both the University of Houston and the University of Maryland, where she transferred to be closer to home, and has a master's degree from the University of Alaska, where her husband's military assignment took them. She retired from competitive swimming in 1960 and married West Point football co-captain and All-American guard Al Vanderbush in 1962. On his third tour at West Point, Al became deputy athletic director (1984-90) and athletic director (1990-99) at the U.S. Military Academy. Carin taught kindergarten at West Point Elementary School for 18 years. They have two grown sons. She is pictured here with her Silver medal.
(1943-1956)
Charlie Yennie coached RHS teams to winning records in three sports over a 13-year span and also made important contributions to athletics in Bergen County. His basketball teams compiled a 150-102 record over 11 seasons (1945-56) and won Bergen-Passaic Interscholastic League championships in 1951 and 1955. He never had a losing season.
He was the founder of the Oscar F. Thompson Memorial Jamboree, the Bergen County boys basketball tournament. He coached soccer from 1944 to 1956 with an 81-63 record and two state championships (1944 and 1953). He was a founding father of both the Bergen County Soccer Coaches Association and the Bergen County Soccer Officials Association and was instrumental in starting the soccer state playoffs. He coached baseball from 1943 to 1945, with a record of 32-8 and a state title in 1945 when nine different players pitched an inning in a 3-2 victory. He served as athletic director of Benjamin Franklin Junior High School.
The Haledon native graduated from Paterson Central High School and Trenton State College (now The College of New Jersey) in 1936. He was inducted into the TCNJ Athletic Hall of Fame in 1986 for his accomplishments in football, track and golf. He started the Ridgewood Recreation basketball program and was recreation director for a number of years. All-told, he gave 42 years to Ridgewood youth as teacher and coach and in the Parks and Recreation Department. He coached at Clifton and East Orange before he came to RHS and had five state championships for his career. Charlie and Dorothy Yennie had two sons, Doug, retired after a 34-year career coaching basketball and golf at Bergen Community College, and Bo, a ski instructor in Steamboat Springs, Colo. Charlie died at age 86 in May of 2001.
Class of 1933
The legend of Paul Arrigoni, the winner of the RHS' Excellence in Athletics award in 1933, has lived on long after a tragic automobile accident claimed his life during his freshman year at Fordham University. In football, he was a powerful, shifty runner, a capable field general and a fair kicker who came up with his greatest performances when the chips were down.
While his basketball abilities were just average, he excelled in baseball. A versatile player, he was used as a pitcher, catcher, outfielder, and infielder and he played all the positions well. Jack Coffey, Fordham's varsity baseball coach at the time, called him one of the greatest high school hitters he had ever seen and put him down as a sure fire major league prospect. Arrigoni played catcher on Fordham's unbeaten freshman nine in 1934 before he was killed.
Class of 1957
When he graduated, the 6-foot-2, 160 pound Campbell held every individual scoring record at Ridgewood High School as well as four league standards and one county mark. With his accurate one-handed jump shot, he tallied 578 points in 22 games in his senior year and averaged 20 rebounds per game. He was All-Ivy three years at Princeton University, leading the Ivy League in scoring one season, ranking second the other two.
A brilliant math mind, Pete graduated from Harvard Business School and worked first at Price Waterhouse, then as comptroller at First Boston. He then became the CFO of Dillon, Read, and finally, was an options trader on the American Stock Exchange. He also was golf champion at Ridgewood Country Club. He passed away on October 23, 1995 at home in HoHoKus. Pete was an All-American basketball player who broke Chet Forte's Ivy League scoring record.
Class of 1996
He held every RHS basketball scoring record when he graduated. Cook had a 23.9 points per game average his senior year and finished his scholastic career with 1,287 points. During his three seasons at Davidson College, (1967-70) he scored 1,221 points and never scored fewer than 13 points per game in a season for coaches Lefty Driesell and Terry Holland.
For his career, the 6-foot 6-inch center averaged 14.6 points and 9 rebounds per game. He was an accurate shooter, hitting nearly 50% of his field goal attempts. He was named the All-Southern Conference second team as a sophomore, gained the conference tournament MVP award as a junior, and was first team all-conference as a senior, averaging in double-double (15.6 points, 10.2 rebounds). Davidson advanced to the NCAA Tournament all three seasons he was on the squad.
Class of 1977
She held the Bergen County indoor and outdoor high jump records for 23 years, the state outdoor standard for 8 and the indoor for 10, with leaps of 5-feet 8 inches outdoors and 5 feet 8 ΒΌ inches indoors. She won the 1975 Bergen long jump and high jump titles and the 1976 long, triple, and high jump titles in the group meet.
Becky narrowly missed making the U.S. Olympic Team in 1976 and was selected on The Record's All Century Track and Field Team. She went on to win the Big 8 indoor and outdoor high jump titles at Iowa State University. Deetz, who also played basketball at RHS, lives in Louisville, Colorado and is a sales manager of the Colorado Division of Trend Technologies, a plastic injection molding company.
(1946-1963)
Boys' Tennis Coach for Ridgewood High School where his teams winning percentage over a 17 year span exceeded .880. His teams won five New Jersey State Tennis Championships, had eight consecutive undefeated seasons, and spanning a decade, won 129 consecutive matches.
Many of his players continued on to illustrious collegiate tennis careers. "Oats" was a master motivator, a caring coach, and he made competitive tennis fun for all of his players.
Class of 1991
Named to the All Bergen County Century Team at forward in soccer. Second leading scorer in school history with 96 goals and 43 assists. 1988, 1989, 1990 1st Team All NNJIL. 1989, 1990 1st Team All Bergen County. 1990 Team co-captain. 1990 NJ State Soccer Coaches Association 1st Team All State. New Jersey State Soccer Coaches Association Senior Showcase player and Most Valuable Player and NSCAA 1st Team All East. 1990 set single season scoring record for goals with 38.
Tied season assist record with 18. Accepted athletic scholarship to the University of Notre Dame where she became a 4-year starter for the Fighting Irish. 1993 named to "Soccer News" All-American Team. Played last NCAA Division 1 match in the National Championship game vs. North Carolina. She was also an outstanding basketball player and played on the State Group IV Championship team at RHS.
Class of 1946
A four-sport athlete who earned 12 letters in three seasons (freshman could not play on the varsity in that era), the versatile Links was All-County in three sports (football, basketball, and baseball) and an All-State player on the gridiron. He was the highest scoring end in the state as a junior and an all-state halfback when he led the team in scoring in his senior year. He batted .400 in baseball playing the outfield.
When he graduated, he held the single-season basketball scoring record. Athletic Director Duke DeRochi said, "He's the best all around athlete I've seen since Paul Arrigoni." DeRochi's tenure at RHS went back to 1936. Links was also a sprinter in track and ran the leadoff leg of the gold-medal mile relay team at the Penn Relays. After spending a year at Eastern Military Academy, (four sports), he went to William & Mary and played halfback. He signed a professional baseball contract with the Phillies organization. He was drafted in the Army after three years in the minor leagues. After his military service, he went into small loan and auto finance and owned his own company, Jefferson Loan Company in Paramus, for 20 years. He scouted for Ridgewood football for 11 years and assisted coaches Frank Mozeleski and Roger Sweeney for a number for years. He lives in Kinnelon.
Class of 1985
The first female to score 1,000 points in basketball at RHS, O'Connell was also a sparkplug of the Maroons' unbeaten (29-0) state champion softball team in 1983. She shared the 1985 RHS Award of Excellence in Athletics with Margaret Scutro. As a freshman, she was a starter in three sports- basketball, softball, and field hockey.
She earned four letters in basketball at Western Kentucky University and ranks third all-time at the school in games played (130). She is the head golf professional at Island Dunes Country Club in Jensen Beach, Florida, and was named to the Ladies Professional Golf Association and was named the 2002 Professional of the Year by the LPGA Teaching and Club Professional Division.
Class of 1994
Named to All Bergen County All Century Team as Defensive Midfielder. She was the second all time leading scorer in RHS women's soccer with 80 goals and has the RHS assist record with 56. 1991, 2nd team all NNJIL, 1992, 1st team All NNJIL, 1st team All County, NJGSCA, 1st team All State, Star Ledger 1st team All Groups All State, NSCAA All East Team.
1993 1st team all NNJIL, 1st team All County, NSCAA All East Team, Star Ledger 1st team All State. She was selected to play in the NJGSCA Senior Showcase and the only RHS soccer player named twice to the Star Ledger all state honors. Aimee was also an outstanding basketball player.
She is currently the Associate Director of Athletics at Boston College.
Class of 1949
The four-sport athlete was an all-state running back and team co-captain his senior year season when the Maroons had a 6-3 record. He also played defensive back. Perdue capped his career by accounting for 207 of Ridgewood's 302 yards gained (including two runs of over 60 yards) in the 32-6 Thanksgiving Day victory over Fair Lawn. He scored three touchdowns in the Lodi win.
Perdue played basketball three years, earned two varsity letters in track and one in baseball. He was awarded the RHS Award for Excellence in Athletics in 1949 and also the 18th annual High Y Award. He was offered several scholarships. He sandwiched a stint in the Marine Corps in his college years at Lehigh, playing football in college. He owned Perdue's Sport Shop in Ridgewood for a number of years.
Class of 1985
Margaret was a member of the National Record holding 4x1 mile relay team, a record that stood for 1 years. She was the State of New Jersey Meet of Champions champion whose state record in the mile still stands. She was the RHS record holder in the 800 meters and the 1600 meters.
Her Bergen County record in the 1600 meters still stands. Margaret was fourth all-time in New Jersey Women's Cross Country. Her National Record in the 1,000 meters stood for 18 years. At Georgetown University she was an All East selection.
Class of 1943
The recipient of the RHS excellence in Athletics Award in 1943, Simos was a three-letter winner in soccer, basketball, and baseball. He was captain of the soccer team that was regarded as one of the most outstanding scholastic teams in the East and batted over .400 in baseball his junior year before a broken ankle curtailed his play as a senior. He served 38 months in the Navy, with stints on Guam and in French Morocco, and then starred in baseball and soccer at Springfield College.
He played outfield on Springfield's baseball team that advanced to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska getting two hits in a 2-0 loss to Tennessee, and was co-captain of the soccer team that lost only one game. Simos, who taught the sport of soccer to HoHoKus youngsters for 35 years, has been inducted into the Bergen County Soccer Hall of Fame and the Bergen County Semi-Pro Baseball Hall of Fame.
Class of 1979
A three-year starter at RHS, Tambi is still the fourth all-time scorer in soccer at RHS with 81 career points. He was All-County twice and All-State his senior year when he was team captain. He was a member of four Ivy League championship teams at Columbia University and was captain of the Lions his senior season. He graduated in 1983 with a bachelor's degree in economics.
He was a member of the NASL's New York Cosmos in 1984-85, serving as the team captain during the international schedule. He was captain of the U.S. Olympic and Pan American teams. His career has also included stints with the Minnesota Strikers of the MISL and the Jersey Eagles of the ASL. Since 1990, Tambi has been director of training for more than 200 youth teams in New Jersey and been director of the World Class Soccer Camp for 15 years. He has served as the New Jersey Olympic Development coach. He earned his law degree from Seton Hall Law School in 1990 and is an attorney at law at the firm of Kopleton and Tambi in Wayne. He lives in Paramus.
Class of 1968
The 6-foot, 180 pound scrambling quarterback scored 54 points and passed superbly in a brilliant senior season when he was accorded All County and All Suburban first-team honors. In addition to two varsity football seasons, he played baseball three years and basketball two years. He was the recipient of the RHS Award for Excellence in Athletics in 1968.
He went to Taylor University in Upland, Indiana for one year, playing football and baseball, and then for three seasons of both sports at Auburn University where he started in the defensive backfield on the football team. He was an NAIA All American pitcher at Taylor and had the best ERA of the league in one season at Auburn. He has taught at RHS for 28 years, currently teaching physical education in the elementary schools and the high school and teaching and coordinating driver education at RHS.
Class of 1965
Ridgewood High School's only state wrestling champion, Whitaker was 21-0-1 his senior year when he captured the 123-pound NJ crown and winning district and regional titles. He compiled a brilliant 47-1-1 record for two varsity seasons on the mats.
In his sophomore year, he attended Will Rogers High School in Oklahoma where he was a state champion at 120 pounds. He now lives in Pine Brook.