The night of Thursday, May 29, 1986 would be one of the most humiliating days of my life.
For months, I had planned on this as a special night -- I was to graduate from Ocean County College in my hometown of Toms River, N.J., getting my associate's degree. This was a big night for myself and my parents and sister. Just two years earlier, I had graduated a proud Raider at Toms River High School East.
Now I was to graduate a proud Viking from OCC. It was a beautiful, sunny 74-degree night in Toms River on the campus and the hour or so long ceremony was full of pomp and circumstance, just like any graduation ceremony would be.
The ceremony ended and so it was time to go back to the media center at the other end of the campus to collect my actual degree that I got in journalism. I hand in my gown and mortarboard, just like I did two years ago at East. I get handed my diploma to tuck inside the soft, leathery (not the actual leather, mind you) case that they hand you during the ceremony. I know the drill.
Instead, there's a white folder waiting for me with my name on it. And there inside the folder is not the diploma with my name on it. Instead, there's a neatly typewritten piece of paper that explains why it isn't my diploma.
I didn't read it all the way through, but the word "fail" and "biology" came up on it. There was no diploma. The toughest course I had in my so-called last semester at OCC tripped me up from continuing on. I should have followed my instincts and taken chemistry -- where numbers are involved and I'm so much better in that regard!
But no! I'm hard-headed and wanted to not take the easy way out. I struggled with biology in high school, so I should have known better. But I passed by the end of the year there. College biology was not as basic as high school biology, though, and once you slip down that bunny hole of struggle, you have a hard time recovering.
So swallowing the words that I was not graduating was tough enough. Now I had to go tell the family waiting outside to celebrate.
Let's say they didn't take the news that well. We went straight home where it was explained to me that I was a failure in the family and that whatever I was doing from this time on I would have to pay for myself.
OK, I'm exaggerating when it comes to the first part -- I held down a full-time job while going to college at the Ocean County Observer. That was full-time working every day, even if it was as a correspondent. But the second part was partly true -- to get my degree and move on to Monmouth College in West Long Branch where most of my credits were transferrable I would have to pay for the course I would take during six weeks of summer school at OCC.
I rarely told a soul of what happened that humiliating May 29, 1986. More on the aftermath later.
I think I made one call to work to find out if Lacey beat Wall in the Shore Conference Girls Soccer Tournament to advance to the championship game and keep its unbeaten season going. The Lady Lions did.
I went to bed early that night, disappointed by what had transpired hours earlier. But what to do about it would have to wait until the following Monday.
By 8 the next morning, another sunny and beautiful day in the upper 70s, dad had gone to work in Asbury Park, probably still fuming over his son's failure to graduate properly. My sister had gone to school and I was left with mom. Mom was always the easy-going one who put things in perspective far better than any of us could. She, too, knew there was no reason to remain upset and that nothing could be done until after the Memorial Day weekend ended.
I had a state tournament softball game to cover in southern New Jersey that early afternoon and wanted to go to our county mall a half an hour before going on the road to a high school I had never been to before.
Breakfast eaten and newspapers read from what I missed in local sports the night before, I was off to the mall at 10:30 a.m. I was there for one reason -- I was to stop into Camelot Records, located on the eastern end of the mall by Sears. They knew me by name at both Camelot and Listening Booth, the other record shop on the west end of the mall. There in the cassette aisle was what I was looking for -- Peter Gabriel's "So" cassette. It was locked up in that orange contraption to trap thieves from stealing from the store that a single key could unlock it out of its case.
I, like millions of American music fans, became fascinated by the first single release from that Gabriel album (the first one I ever bought by him) called "Sledgehammer." And for the next hour and half while I was on the road to Hammonton High, taking Route 70 west into the Route 206 circle and going south until finding the high school, I resisted hitting rewind and replaying "Sledgehammer" repeatedly. But I listened to the tape from start to finish and found it to be one of the most fascinating cassettes I ever bought -- not really a bad song in the bunch.
So on this Friday afternoon, May 30, 1986, I found myself at Hammonton High School for a 1 p.m. softball game. Why 1 p.m. on a Friday? Because it so happened that the team I was there to cover that day -- Central Regional High School -- was having their senior prom that night, so coach Norm Selby and athletic director Jerry Golembeski asked for an earlier start, that way the "young ladies" as Selby always called the players on the team could get back home to prepare for their special night.
But since the Observer did not have a Saturday paper, I had all day to cover the story and get home whenever I wanted, This was only my second spring of covering softball, but I had been to enough Central Regional games to know the pre-game drill by now -- Selby hitting grounders to his infielders and assistant coach Gloria Garibaldi hitting fungos to the outfielders, while new assistant coach Phyllis Angellella was watching pitcher Dee Duffy warm up down by the third-base coaching line. She had been part of Selby's first varsity team in 1981 that went 26-4 and came close to winning a South Jersey sectional title, losing in the championship to Lenape in the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association Group IV.
Since Central Regional's population shrunk when Lacey Township High was built to open the following year and took some of the kids from the area, Central dropped from Group IV to Group III. And for the first time since losing in '81, the Golden Eagles were playing for the SJ III title against Ocean City.
The Red Raiders were 18-3 and talented up and down their lineup, a strong-hitting group with a burly, left-handed hurler named Cindy Rau in the circle throwing hard and neutralizing the opposing lineup.
On the other hand, Central Regional came into the game with one very distinct difference to its opponent -- there was not one senior starter on the team. Duffy was a three-year varsity junior and most of the starting lineup were juniors except the left side of the infield where third baseman and sometimes pitcher Angel Slack was a sophomore and shortstop Kelly McGowan was a freshman.
In other words, the expectations were not so high for Central Regional as it was for Ocean City. The Red Raiders were all but expected to win the SJ III title, but come in 1987, that was to be Central's year. After all, you'd think these young ladies from Central Regional would be distracted by the prom being that night.
Turns out, a Norm Selby-coached Central Regional team was finely focused. And the Golden Eagles sent a little message to their opponents they were ready to play from the start.
No. 2 hitter Duffy hit a dribbler that she beat out for a single with one out. Wallace singled to left field to put runners on first and second. That brought up right-handed hitting McGowan in the cleanup spot. She took a 2-1 pitch to the right side of the infield where the ball bounced off the glove of second baseman Laurie Good, who gave it a strong effort to go to her left to make the play. That allowed Selby to wave Duffy home for the first run of the game.
Rau worked her way out of trouble and for the next six innings after that, she was unhittable as she and her and her teammates were in sync in the field.
And while Rau and the Red Raiders were untouchable, Rau giving up three walks in that time, Duffy had her moments in the circle. In the third, the Red Raiders got the equalizing run as Good reached on a forceout, moved to second on a wild pitch, got to third on a Kellie Ross sacrifice bunt and scored on a single to right field by Denise Tauscher.
The fourth inning saw Duffy get into trouble by loading the bases with two outs. This could have been a pendulum-moving moment with Good at the plate, but Duffy -- always the fighter in the circle -- rebounded to strike Good out and end the threat. In the fifth inning, Ocean City put runners on base before Duffy got the third out to thwart the would-be rally.
The game remained 1-1 through the sixth inning, then the seventh. Extra innings were upon us.
So was 2:45 p.m., and the more and more time the game went on, the less and less time there would be to get on a bus, go home to Bayville and prepare for a prom that night in neighboring Monmouth County. By now, it seemed like a rush to get this game done and neither side was yielding to the other.
The Golden Eagles, who were 16-6-1 (they had a tie with Southern Regional during the season) were holding their own against the favored Red Raiders. With the top of the lineup coming up, the moment was right in the eighth inning to do something. So Slack started the inning by doing something the Golden Eagles had not done since the first inning -- get a base hit.
Duffy hit a screaming line drive -- she got a hold of the Rau delivery -- to left field. Shannon Garrity took off and made a running catch for if she didn't, Duffy and Slack could run all day. That forced Slack to scurry back to first base bringing up Wallace.
On a 1-1 pitch, Wallace hit a popup between the Ocean City dugout and the backstop. Catcher Tracy Smith backtracked and reached out just over the dugout fence to make the catch. Smith showed the ball enthusiastically and celebrated her accomplishment of a great catch over the dugout fence.
But she had a problem she totally forgot about -- there was a runner on base. And as soon as Smith caught the ball, Slack took off for second base. By the time Smith looked back to the field with her teammates and coaches screaming in her ear, it was took late. Slack safely landed at second.
Selby would tell me later, "We practice that, though it's not really a familiar play. Obviously, (Smith) did not know the ball was still in play. She made a nice play on it and while she and her teammates were celebrating, Angel took off for second."
It didn't seem like much at the moment, but it gave the next batter -- freshman talent McGowan -- a chance to knock her in. On a 2-2 pitch and after fouling off three two-strike pitches, McGowan delivered a single just out of Good's reach into right-center field, easily getting Slack to third. But when right fielder Lynn Argoe bobbled the ball, Slack headed toward the plate and easily scored the go-ahead run to make it 2-1.
Moments later, it was up to Duffy to finish things out. Three outs and the Golden Eagles were going home with the championship.
But leadoff hitter Lisa Crompton was about to make things uncomfortable. She drove a shot to the left-center field gap on the first and only truly hit hard ball of the day and didn't stop until she landed on third base with a triple. Just like that, the tying run was on base and the Golden Eagles needed to get three outs.
Smith, the catcher who forgot about the runner on base after catching that dramatic foul ball, was up next. She put down what was a safety squeeze bunt attempt. Duffy collected the ball and looked Crompton back to third base. The idea was once Crompton saw Duffy's intentions, she was to take off for home when the throw went to first base.
However, Duffy had another plan in mind. She faked the throw to first baseman Bonnie Evans and instead chased after Crompton, who had already started down the third-base line and was dead meat. Evans threw the ball to Slack, who chased Crompton to catcher Dawn Cosnoski, who got the ball and chased Crompton back to third where she threw the ball back to Slack to nail her for the all-important first out -- and the one that was closest to scoring the tying run.
Only two people I've ever covered in 36 years of high school softball have ever been successful with that fake -- I saw Michelle Carlson do that in the 1990 Ocean County Softball Tournament final for Toms River East and that successful fake by Duffy.
Still, that left Smith in scoring position at second base with one out. Dorann Foglio got under a Duffy pitch and lofted a flyball to center fielder Betty Hester for the second out of the inning. That left it up to Kristie Miller to tie things up or at least keep things going. But on a 1-2 pitch, Duffy rang her up for her ninth strikeout of the game.
And just like that, Central Regional was the unlikely South Jersey Group III champions. Teammates jumped all over Duffy and Cosnoski and after congratulating the foes they just conquered afterward, the cheers and tears began to come out of the straight-laced, businesslike Golden Eagles.
Selby, the tough-as-nails disciplinarian of a coach, looked at the smiles and the tears and just about lost it addressing the team.
"I wish I can split both these softballs into 17 or 18 different places," he started, holding a softball in each hand and holding back tears. He gave Duffy one of the game balls for her effort that saw her allow five hits and walk five batters beside the nine strikeouts. The other game ball?
"One of these I'm keeping for myself," he said with players laughing.
Duffy was a hero in the win. So was McGowan, a freshman star in the making, who delivered both hits that drove in the Central runs. And this 15-year-old was in tears herself ... tears of joy, though.
The shy McGowan, who was more outgoing three years later when I did a feature story on her as a senior, would say, "It's been hard to be someone that is counted on. But it's worth it."
Selby said that this championship -- the second in Ocean County history after Toms River South's NJSIAA South Jersey Group IV championship in 1976 -- was for the county and not all for Central Regional, though it was a history maker at the time.
"Winning a conference title is nice and winning two Ocean County Tournament titles (at that time) is a joy, but this is the most gratifying win I've ever had," Selby said after the victory. "I think it's time Ocean County gets its due credit in softball."
The team packed up its gear and got on the bus to head back to Bayville. I tallied up my statistics and was going to head back to Toms River, but I was going to stop by the nearby Wawa that I remembered was not far from the high school heading there.
I get into the parking lot and there's Central's bus there. I saw Selby again in the store and we talked again for a few minutes about the team and how special these young ladies (again, it's what he would call the girls who played for him in his 14 years as coach) were. He said he was pleasantly surprised it would be this group that brought him he and the program's first state sectional title. He also talked about how special the ride was to take with both Garibaldi and Angellella.
Turns out the fun part of the ride was only beginning for Selby and his players. On Monday, June 2, Duffy would throw a no-hitter as Central defeated Pinelands Regional to advance to the county championship against 24-4 Toms River South. The very next day, Central would beat Hamilton East, 7-1, in the NJSIAA Group III semifinal for what would be Selby's 100th career victory. The very next day -- the third game in three days and the fourth in six days with a prom put in between, the Golden Eagles defeated Toms River South, 9-5, to win their third county tournament title.
And the following Saturday, June 7, the Golden Eagles played in the NJSIAA Group III championship game at Trenton State College (now The State Of New Jersey), but could not do anything against Pam Froehlich's fastball in a 7-0 loss to Parsippany High School.
Now as for myself, I headed back to Ocean County College that Monday and signed up for six weeks of chemistry classes. Turns out I had a better time with my beloved numbers and mixing things together in class. It also turns out that I met my first girlfriend, a senior-to-be named Mary, in that class that summer. Nonetheless, I got a B grade in the class and got my diploma about 10 days later and was off to Monmouth.
And "Sledgehammer" hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late July, one of the busiest summers I've ever been involved in during my career.
Turns out May 29, 1986 was a humbling day for me. But everything after that -- starting with the unlikely South Jersey Group III softball championship won by Central Regional -- was more than good.
