On this particular Wednesday, I was all about girls soccer. It was May 23, 1990. This was the opening day of the Shore Conference Tournament in the sport and all eight first-round games were ready to kick off at various fields around Ocean and Monmouth counties.
On this particular Wednesday, my job was to cover two Ocean County teams facing off with one another -- No. 12 seed Jackson Memorial at No. 5 Central Regional. This would be the first time in my time at the Observer that I would be covering a Central soccer match at the soccer complex across the street from Central Regional.
The field was far from impressive, but what the heck, it was still playable for a tournament game. And it turned into a heck of a game. Central, under the fourth-year tutelage of Robbie Bechtloff, defeated the always-good Jaguars in penalty kicks to advance on as Kelly Edwards, a Central sophomore playing her first game in goal, protected the net to move the Golden Eagles along to the next round.
Got back to the Observer building in the early evening after a stop at Roy Rogers on Route 9, one of the few iconic restaurants on that road south of Toms River. Wrote the story up and my next bit of business was to sit around and get games over a phone when they called in from all the various sports. But my baby this evening was to round up of the first-round games.
One of our correspondents, Jim Hintelmann, was over at Toms River North covering the matchup between Lacey and North, so I knew that game was being taken care of. That left me to track down two games: the massacre that was going to be No. 1 seed and unbeaten Point Pleasant Boro hosting No. 16 Raritan, which carried the "just happy to be thought of to play in the tournament" banner and the battle of two Class A South rivals, No. 15 seed Brick at No. 2 seed Toms River East.
With the talent of players such as Kim Yankowski, Jennifer Shutt, Charisse Hopkins, Karen Brzyski, Heather Kenny and sisters Wendi and Christie Pearce, Point Pleasant Boro was the overwhelming favorite to win the tournament. But they had a dominating team in 1989 also, and lost to eventual champion Lacey, 1-0, at home in one of the more stunning upsets in tournament history. So even with the most dominant team I've ever seen on a soccer pitch, I was not 100 percent assured Point Boro was winning the SCT title, even as it went into the tournament with a 16-0 mark and outscored its opponents, 162-0. Anything could happen.
But Toms River East was the second seed and if anyone had a chance at Point Boro's feisty Panthers, it was this group of talented Raiders, easily coach Ed Polhemus' best team since it won the first-ever SCT title in 1985. This Raider team was talented from top to bottom, starting with standout forwards Tara Nichols and Nancy Fenimore, continuing into the midfield with senior standout Krista Gerard and into the back with senior stopper Maureen Bonner and junior goalie Sue Lewis, among the best goalies in the area. Like Point Boro, East had a lot of players contribute offensively -- 17 to be exact. That was actually two more players than the Panthers who contributed with either a goal or an assist.
Oh, there was one more thing that the No. 1 Panthers and No. 2 Raiders shared in common -- unbeaten records. East was 14-0, and if you listened to "Professor" Polhemus, you would have thought his Raiders were razor-bladed by the seeding committee for the tournament. He had an argument that his team played a far-better schedule than the far-from-impressive lot the Panthers played.
But Point Boro had that star attraction -- they had Yankowski, the all-time leading scorer in county and Shore history. They had another four-time All-County standout at midfield in Shutt, who was signed, sealed and delivered to go to ACC Country like Yankowski, who was going to North Carolina State. Shutt was heading to the University of Virginia. Wendi Pearce was a tremendous facilitator with the ball and could also put the ball in the back of the net as her 34 goals and 26 assists that season would attest to. She would ultimately earn a full scholarship to Monmouth University to continue her career. Two years later, her younger sister would follow. And all Christie Pearce did was have the most amazing freshman season I have ever witnessed -- 49 goals and 24 assists for 122 points.
East's leading scorer was Nichols with 15 goals and seven assists, while Fenimore had nine goals and five assists. East's schedule of Toms River North, Brick, Jackson Memorial, Brick Memorial and Toms River South was far tougher than Point Boro's "feared" lot of Shore Regional, Manasquan, Point Pleasant Beach, Holmdel and Mater Dei.
Somehow, though, I had the feeling that seeding committee was not a huge fan of Polhemus, who was sounding quite a lot like his 1985 persona when he had the kind of squad that no one within, ummm, 3,000 miles could beat and then proved it as the top seed by winning the SCT title.
"What does Doctor Kulessa have to say about his team?" he would ask me. I would simply tell him that he thinks he's got a really, really good team, too. Polhemus could not wait to prove to the Shore area soccer "experts" that his team was the best at the Shore. And so in the back of my mind, these first-round games were just warmups for both Boro and East.
At 8:30 p.m., Kulessa, one of my favorite people of all time, called me up to give me the results of his game. It was as expected -- Boro 9, Raritan 0. In the six-year history of the event, it was the most lopsided score ever. Yankowski scored four goals to push her total to 53 on the season, making her the first county player to ever score 50 goals in a season. And Christie Pearce had a halfway decent game -- two goals and three assists.
I'm not sure if Doctor Kulessa was listening in on my phone conversations with Professor Polhemus, but if he was, he was certainly sending a message to his team.
Moments after I got off the phone with Kulessa, Jim came traipsing into the building. The defending champion Lacey Lions, the 11th seed, knocked off No. 6 seed Toms River North, 2-1. So once I was able to get the statistics confirmed from Lacey coach Paul Groben at about 9:30 that evening, all was set with that game. Then he asked me about the other games on the day and I told him all the results with the exception of the one game that was still out -- Brick at East.
"They must be having a hell of a game," he said.
"Maybe," I answered back. "I still think East is better than Brick."
"Don't count Brick out," he said. "They're a nice little team that is starting to play well."
And now, I was waiting for the result of the game from Polhemus. It was after 10 p.m. and I gave him a call. Got his wife. She told me he'd have him call me when he got in.
Earlier in the night, I had talked to Toms River South softball coach Jim Christiano for a preview of his Ocean County Tournament championship game against defending champion Toms River East in a rematch of the 1989 final. The game was to be on Friday and that was the day the preview was going to be in the paper.
At 10:20 p.m., Christiano called me up. Though he was a longtime fixture at Toms River South, his house was on Dunedin Street, the street alongside Toms River East. He had a concern as he went out to walk his dog for the last time that night.
"I just got back from walking the dog and the lights are still on at East and I can hear a crowd," he told me.
I can't quite remember the rest of the conversation, but that one sentence led my mind to this one belief ... this was about to become a looooooonger night than I ever anticipated. For if two teams are still on a soccer field and there's a crowd at about 10:20 at night, this is not very, very good at all.
The phone rang at 10:35 p.m. It was Polhemus. The way he explained how his game went was sort of like this:
"We played a scoreless tie through overtime. Then we went to penalty kicks. It was tied after five kicks at 3-3. Then both teams scored goals. Then they (Brick) went up and Sue made the save on the kick."
I was waiting for the payoff at that point. Boy was I about to be stunned with what I heard next.
"The officials then left and supposedly declared us the winner. The referees were furnished with a copy of the rules in the tournament and they came to the determination that we were declared the winners. And that was it."
I got whatever results I got from him on who scored in the penalty kicks as well as the goalkeeper saves, but I knew we were about to have a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge problem.
My first phone call after this was to Brick High coach and overall good guy John Hasbrouck. He got home moments before I called him up and from the tone of his voice, he was far from upset.
More stunned than anything, really.
"I'm sure we'll file a protest. I hate to do it because it demeans from the game and both teams played a great game. Right now, it's out of the coaches' hands."
How the hell did this situation ever come about? This was a disgrace ... an absolute embarrassment and indictment of the sport thanks to officials who did not have a grasp of the situation, and worse, a coach ... in this case, Polhemus ... who tried to pull a fast one.
Yes, 23 years later, I'm still calling out Ed Polhemus for this embarrassment. Just because the officials declared a winner doesn't mean you sit still and do nothing! And that's basically what Ed Polhemus tried to do. "The game's over? Fine! We win!" Did he ever once think that Hasbrouck and his players weren't keeping abreast of the situation?
All I knew was my night was about to be turned upside down.
Here's what I could reconstruct from the information both Polhemus and Hasbrouck gave me. After 90 minutes of zeroes, the teams went into the penalty shots. It remained tied at 3-3 going into the sudden-death portion of the shots. Brick was first in shooting each round, and in its sixth kick, first in sudden death, Tina Foray beat Lewis to make it 4-3. But the Trenton State-bound Gerard saved the day by scoring on sophomore goalie Kristin Abernathy to make it 4-4, sending it to the seventh round of kicks.
Up first for Brick was a young lady named Stacy Krasowski. She took her shot and it was stopped by Lewis, which now left it up for whoever was going to kick next for East to win the game and advance the Raiders to the next round against No. 7 seed Middletown North.
This is, sadly, when the three officials, led by a credible head referee named Art Harmon, lost handle of where the game was at. They declared East the winner even though East had yet to take its seventh shot. They walked out of the complex with Brick players and Hasbrouck in shock -- and probably left the East complex with their reputations in tatters because of this boneheaded moment, which, to Harmon's credit the very next day he admitted he simply fouled up. To this day, I'll always remember Art Harmon's candor and respect for what happened.
Nonetheless, it left me to have to call around to athletic directors involved. My first call was to Brick athletic director Jim Rochford, who easily was never on of my favorite people to deal with. If the term "crotchety old man" ever was placed on someone, it would have been this man, who seriously never wanted anything to do with the press, let alone me. But it was my duty to have to call him at 11 o'clock to ask him what he was going to do and if he was going to place a protest with the Shore Conference Disputes and Controversies committee.
Oh, the man was also the co-director of the tournament with Middletown North AD Dean Vorvoort, so you would think he would know what to do here, right? Well, this is what I got from Mr. Rochford when he answered the phone and I asked him just what he would do about what happened.
"I don't know. I was asleep. I'm going back to bed."
He hung the phone up and that was it. Geez, thanks for nothing, assclown.
My next phone call was to Bruce Mulford, East's athletic director, who was there and unlike the Brick AD was a far better person to deal with. He explained what the process was for a protest and that more than likely, he would discuss what would happen the next morning.
I wrote the roundup with the East-Brick controversy leading it off. My lead was unconventional and not from the "this happened, so this happened and this will happen later on" style. It was more sarcastic.
Just when you think you've heard and seen everything in the sport of soccer, the Toms River East and Brick girls' teams topped it one better, thanks in part to a referee's decision.
My boss was not happy that it took until the seventh paragraph to get to the payoff of the story, but at that point, I really didn't care what he was feeling.
It just meant my Thursday was about to be thrown into a tizzy with phone calls.
Turns out the next morning, Rochford files the protest to Mulford, who is the Shore Conference president, which alone would sound very, very awkward. But since both schools are involved in the controversy, both ADs had to excuse themselves from their duties with the Disputes and Controversies committee.
The job of discussing what was to be done about the Brick-East game was left in the hands of three men -- Vorvoort, Monmouth Regional AD Joe Lister and Toms River North (and former East) athletic director Bill Lundy.
In the early afternoon, I reached out to Lundy. Though I may have had my differences over the years with the man, he is still to this day one of the two best athletic directors I have ever dealt with in my career. If you had a question about a ruling or how things worked within his job, he can clear that up easily in five minutes or less. And that was the case with how the ruling ultimately went here.
"We talked for about 15-20 minutes about the situation as it occurred and we thought the fairest thing to do was play the overtime periods again instead of having Brick go to East for maybe one penalty kick. That's unfair to their goalie and to East's shooter to have a game decided on one kick.
"We also thought it would be unfair to play the game over again because both teams played close to three hours. We talked about those options. But we decided on having five-minute overtimes and then penalty kicks, just so they could get into the game again. So I called Bruce and Jim up again and they both agreed to the decision."
And that was it. Bill Lundy brilliantly explained to me what happened that morning and what was about to happen that afternoon. Either way, I knew I wasn't going to Point Pleasant Boro High School for an anticipated Boro-East matchup -- no, not soccer, but softball. Steven Falk got that Shore Conference Tournament assignment for us.
I was heading over to Toms River East to watch what was going to be 10 minutes of scoreless soccer and then the "re-mix" of the penalty kicks shootout. There was no way in Hades that either Brick or East after 90 minutes of zeroes the night before were going to give in to one another in 10 minutes.
So I arrived at East for the continuation of this bizarre night-day doubleheader for myself. East players and Polhemus looked rather miffed to be back here again ... but hey, it was partly their fault they were back here. Hasbrouck and his Green Dragons were in "nothing-to-lose" mode. Abernathy was as good a goalie as Lewis, but less heralded.
And as predicted, the teams fought hard for nothing in the two five-minute overtime sessions. And here we went again into the penalty kick shootout. I didn't know what to think ... after all, Brick should have been sitting home on this Thursday, May 24. East should have been practicing for the game against Middletown North. And I was supposed to be watching East-Boro softball. This assignment wasn't going to take more than 35 minutes from the moment they kicked the ball off until I finished my last interview.
Once again, Foray was true with her kick against Lewis. And once again, Gerard nailed her shot past Abernathy to tie it at 1-1 after the first round of kicks. After Brick missed its second attempt, Bonner, who was set to kick that seventh-round attempt when the game suddenly ended in East's so-called victory, nailed her shot past Abernathy to make it 2-1.
Brick was down again, but it was Krasowski to the rescue again with a shot past Lewis to make it 2-2 in the third round. East missed its next two attempts as did Brick in its fourth, leaving it at 2-2 going into the fifth kick. Up stepped Jen Kosces, who had four goals all season. She calmly stepped up and nailed her shot to make it 3-2.
This left it up to Fenimore, a freshman, to continue this matchup. To this day, I can still see the look in her eyes as she set the ball down on the sun-drenched Vincent J. Dvorak Field grass. I can see her sizing up Abernathy, who was a study of concentration. And I remember looking at Fenimore's face as if she really didn't want to be put in this situation.
What 15-year-old wants this moment? Not many I know.
The body language, I think, said it all. Everything about that moment said that Fenimore was going to her right ... to Abernathy's left. I wasn't a soccer savant by any nature, but even I could tell she was going there.
So did Abernathy. The ball got booted to the kicker's right. Abernathy went left on a dive and smothered the ball, knocking it away. It could not have been more than a millisecond later that this 15-year-old who should never have been put in the position to be kicker No. 5 in a five-round penalty kick scenario put her hands over her face and began to ball her eyes out as she walked away from the site of her failure to keep the match going on. I never saw Nancy Fenimore's face, but I, again, didn't have to be a genius to know the emotion she was feeling.
East players stood silently, some in tears over the ending. Yes, tough Toms River East's girls soccer team was reduced to nothing more than a mess of emotions. And in the background, Brick players sprinted from where they were standing in the shootout to mob and tackle Abernathy, the rising sophomore star in net.
I can see Polhemus walking over to the gentlemanly Hasbrouck and congratulating he and his team on the win and advancing on. I know inside it killed the man who served as my gym teacher at Hooper Avenue Elementary School for four years and who I covered in this sport for over a decade. Ultimately, both teams came away from their emotional peaks and valleys to shake hands and officially put an end to this 21-hour ordeal.
And though I only got to see the "re-mix" of the game ... better known as "Day Two" ... I had just witnessed the biggest upset in Shore Conference Tournament history in the sport.
Hasbrouck and his players were understandably excited to be the team moving on. And the Green Dragons more than took advantage of this moment of glory -- they went on to stun No. 7 seed Middletown North in -- you got it! -- penalty kicks to reach the semifinal round where Wall would ultimately tear them up and spit them out, 7-0. Brick would ultimately finish the season at 10-7-2, but for all the young talent the Green Dragons had -- including standout sophomore sweeper Dana Anderson and Abernathy, they never could go to the next level, leaving that 1990 run to the semifinal the pinnacle of their success at that time.
As for East, it was left to me to talk to Polhemus over the stunning turn of events. From the moment he started uttering words in that mild-mannered, elegant tone he always took, I knew he wasn't thrilled with the decision brought down by the three-man committee of Vorvoort, Lister and Lundy, his former boss at East before a shakeup in the athletic directors in 1989 moved Lundy from East to North and Mulford from South to East.
"We abided by the ruling those people came up with, but personally, I don't agree with it. Quite obviously, we had a penalty kick in last night's game and it would have put us ahead 5-4 and won us the game. I thought we should have started at the penalty kick or started the game over again. It's a heck of a way to lose, but it's not the end of the world. That's just the reality of life."
It's not the words necessarily that resonated as much as the tone Polhemus took. While he was in control of his words and emotions, inside you can tell the man wanted his one pound of flesh for being put in this situation, but wasn't sure who to take it out on.
Ultimately, though, as egregious as the mistake Harmon made in declaring East the winner of a game it had not won officially the night before because of human error, it was still up to Polhemus and his players to politely point out that they still had one more kick left to take. Everyone -- and I mean everyone -- from the East players to the Brick players and Hasbrouck to the officials who worked the game to the fans to even myself, who was missing out on a Point Boro-East softball game because of this train wreck, deserved much, much better handling of that scenario.
Would East have beaten the vaunted Point Pleasant Boro Panthers in the 1990 SCT final? My guess is probably not, but it would have been a terrific game. That's what happens in the game of "What if?" We will never know. The Panthers would beat Wall in the championship on their home field, 4-1, to clinch their second SCT title in four years with Yankowski scoring three times to finish her unbelievable season at 62 goals and 34 assists for 158 points. Wendi Pearce scored the other goal in the final. They finished the season at 20-0 and outscored their opponents, 190-5, ending the greatest soccer season I have ever witnessed, male or female.
That's how good they were as a unit -- Yankowski, Shutt, Hopkins, Brzyski, Megan and Erin Quigley, Kenny, Wendi Pearce. And Christie Pearce, who would carve out her little niche in the history of Point Boro soccer and go on to a pretty decent career at Monmouth and, eventually, the U.S. women's national soccer team as three-time Olympic champion and one-time World Cup winner Christie Rampone.
East, meanwhile, still had a number of talented players back from the 1990 team and were expected to be the favorite to win at least the Class A South title and go on another run in the SCT in 1991. That didn't happen. A group of Brick Memorial Mustangs led by standout center-midfielder Cindy Beltran upset that apple cart and won the division title.
That was it for the Raiders in the Polhemus Era. They never quite recovered from that.
But then again, many observers including myself believe East never recovered from that two-day circus on May 23-24, 1990 on that Vincent J. Dvorak Field against a gutty Brick High team that wouldn't go into the night quietly.
Remembering the human error and circumstances of what happened initially on that particular Wednesday, they had no reason to ever go quietly into the night in the first place.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
The epic '93 OCT drama that was East-North
No high school softball rivalry to me was as more intense in the 1990s within Ocean County, New Jersey as the one between Toms Rivers East and North.
There were plenty of reasons why, but the main was the fact it was always the teacher -- North's Becky Miller, who founded the program in 1971 -- against the student, Debbie Schwartz, who played for Miller in the mid-to-late 1970s. And if you watched both of them on the sidelines, there was one word that can describe the two coaches when it came to gametime.
Focused.
Both coaches Miller and Schwartz were just that ... focused. Both would pull out all the stops to win their respective games, but it really showed when the coaches had to play one another, which was twice a year in the Shore Conference Class A South season. Any other meetings between the two schools would come in either the Shore Conference Tournament or the state tournament or, more than likely, the Ocean County Tournament.
To this day, the most amazing game I saw the two teams battle against one another in was the 1990 Shore Conference Tournament semifinal at Southern Regional High School when North grabbed a 6-1 lead in the sixth inning, only to watch East score four times in the bottom of the sixth and two more in the seventh to steal a 7-6 victory as Schwartz kept having her players bunting on the third-base side while North third baseman Jen Carlisle stayed even with the bag. I can still see East cleanup hitter Jeannine Zarrillo laying down the game-winning bunt with the bases loaded.
It was only then that I got a gist of what Schwartz was doing in that game. And I can still see North pitcher Heather Richards, so angered by the outcome, taking her glove and whipping it against the dugout wall as if she was trying to knock the wall over.
In the Ocean County Tournament, Schwartz's Raiders and Millers' Mariners would play one another seven times between Schwartz's first year at East in 1988 and Miller's last year at North in 2000. Miller's Mariners won the '88 battle, Schwartz's Raiders won the '00 matchup, both in blowout victories.
Four of the seven matchups between the two teams were blowouts of eight runs or more with both teams winning two games each. There was the bizarre 1999 semifinal at Toms River South when North fireballer Lauren Anderson threw a one-hitter that was a no-hitter originally and lost to East, 2-0. And the 1994 semifinal came down to a final at-bat with East winning the game in the bottom of the seventh, 5-4.
But of those seven matchups, none of them quite had the intensity and determination as the quarterfinal-round game at Point Pleasant Boro Middle School on Saturday, May 22, 1993.
The two teams were closely seeded at the meeting, North getting the fourth seed over No. 5 East. This game was part of a tripleheader of quarterfinal games that day at Boro's field. The first quarterfinal had been played on the previous evening with No. 7 seed Jackson Memorial springing an upset on Class A South champion and No. 2 seed Southern Regional, 12-6, with seven runs in the top of the seventh inning on Boro's field.
After Lacey won a yawner from Pinelands Regional in the first game of the new day, 8-3, we were settling in for both East and North converging on the neutral field to play. You can sense it from watching the teams warm up and chatting a little bit with both head coaches that there was a nervous edge to this one. While top-seeded Central Regional was the spotlight team of the quarterfinal round of games, they had a supposedly easy game against No. 8 seed Monsignor Donovan waiting for them later on.
East and North was the spotlight game. I had a feeling neither team was going to disappoint.
East was 13-9 on the season and the second-place finisher to Central in the 1992 tournament. And the Raiders had most of their team back from the previous year, including hard-throwing right-hander Erin Tulko, now a junior. However, Tulko was not as intimidating as a junior as she had been her sophomore year and the 13-9 team record showed it. As a matter of fact, Schwartz was relying more on backup pitcher Marissa Kelly. If Tulko got into trouble, Kelly would be the girl to come in and bail the team out of trouble.
On the other hand, North was 15-6 and playing like it was the higher-seeded team going into the early evening/late afternoon battle. The Mariners were riding a five-game winning streak and had the steady and accurate Anna Solosky, also a junior on the mound. After being an extremely young team the year before and losing their All-County top power hitter to graduation, Paige Reinheimer, I wondered how much North had in it to make a run in the OCT.
As the public address announcer for the game, I went through the substitutes and starting lineups for both teams for which afterward the teams went back to their dugouts and the umpire yelled out, "Play Ball!"
East had an early first-inning threat against Solosky with runners on first and second in the top of the first, but Solosky got No. 5 hitter Cheri Klem to ground out to second baseman Jaclyn Cherubini to end the inning.
North got the bottom of the first going with leadoff hitter and head instigator Kristin Smith. She drew a four-pitch walk from Tulko ... a sign of things to come. Tulko came back, though, to strike out Cherubini, bringing up No. 3 hitter Lesley Gertner. On the second pitch of the at-bat, Miller had Smith stealing second. She got down there in plenty of time, and when first-year catcher Amanda McGovern's throw sailed into center field, Smith was on her way to third.
But I thought unwisely. Center fielder Julie Foukarakis was right there as if she knew the ball was going to come to her on a hop. A perfect throw would have nailed Smith by about 5 feet at third base. Unfortunately, Fouk, as most of us called her, uncorked a bouncer that got past third baseman Vicki Guarneri and into dead-ball territory that allowed Smith to score the first run of the game.
Not a promising start for East at all, I thought. North hadn't hit a freakin' ball and yet, the Mariners had a run. It was going to get more interesting. Gertner hit a groundball to shortstop Kelly Gyurecz, who fumbled it for the error. And within the first two pitches to cleanup hitter Kelly Gorga, Gertner had stolen both second and third. Suddenly, I was starting to think that the errant throw by McGovern right off the bat was playing games with her head.
East had to bring the infield in and that was a good thing when Gorga hit a grounder right at first baseman Angela Velardi, who looked Gertner back to third and tagged out Gorga. But Kim Scourzo walked and she was on second two pitches later.
The next battle was one of the best pitcher-versus-hitter struggles I've ever seen. No matter what Tulko threw, Stefanie Rusin was getting a bat on and fouling it off. She fought off three two-strike foul balls and worked the count to 3-2. Finally on the ninth pitch of the at-bat, Tulko struck out Rusin and escaped with the one run scoring.
Somehow, this was a victory for East. It got the Raiders fired up and they were about to take it all out on Solosky in the second inning. Fourkarakis led off the second with a single and one out later, McGovern singled her to second. Solosky struck out No. 9 hitter Krissy Klem for the second out, but it was back to the top of the lineup. Gyurecz hit a chopper to her counterpart at shortstop, Gertner, who fired, but the ball was wide of Scourzo at first and bounced away into dead-ball territory to score Foukarakis and make it a 1-1 game.
The other runners moved up and that was great news for the next hitter, second baseman Amy Mullane, who roped a single to right-center field to score both McGovern and Gyurecz to make it 3-1.
That would bring up Tulko, who had jacked seven home runs in 1992, one being in the OCT quarterfinals against Solosky and North in a 13-3 mercy-rule win. Though Tulko was struggling through issues during the '93 season, you can still see she had power. Tiger Woods may have a bad round or two in his game, but from time to time, he showed you he could still come through when needed.
And that was about to be the case with Tulko. On an 0-1 pitch, Tulko drilled Solosky's offering over Rusin's head in left field. On a wide-open Boro field, that was trouble. Mullane scored easily and Tulko didn't stop until she circled the bases for a two-run circuit clout to make it 5-1, her third career OCT home run in two years.
Although East put two more runners on base in the inning, Solosky did get the final out.
In '92, a 5-1 lead with Tulko on the mound was the equivalent of Mariano Rivera coming into the ninth inning with a lead and a save opportunity. In 1993, it wasn't the same thing.
North showed its resiliency ... and it's criminal-like demeanor. Tulko hit No. 8 hitter Bonnie Shapiro with a pitch. Then Shapiro stole second and third to get herself 70 feet form home plate with two outs and Smith up again. Tulko uncorked a wild pitch that allowed Shapiro to score to make it 5-2. Smith ultimately walked and stole second base. Cherubini and Gertner walked to load the bases. However, Tulko avoided trouble by getting Gorga to hit into a forceout to shortstop Gyurecz, who tossed to Mullane to end the rally.
North put runners on second and third in the third inning with two outs, but Tulko got Solosky to fly out to Foukarakis to end the rally.
While most people like myself thought North was wasting its scoring opportunities, North coaches, players and fans were looking at it as opportunities they may not have gotten against Tulko the year before and opportunities they thought were still out there the rest of the game.
East, though, was about to make this much harder for North in the fourth. With one out, Mullane hit a grounder to Gertner at shortstop, who bobbled the ball for one error, then compounded matters by throwing the ball in the dirt past Scourzo and into dead-ball territory for another error. Tulko singled to center and when the throw came to the plate to keep Mullane at third, Tulko scampered to second base, putting two more runners in scoring position.
Again, North's fielding was about to get the worst of it. Velardi hit another grouder, this one to third baseman Gorga. Gorga secured the ball, but she, too, threw wildly to first and into the dreaded dead-ball territory to score both runners, making it 7-2.
Not only was North blowing opportunities in its part of the inning, the Mariners were throwing the game away with their shoddy defense. By now, I started wondering how much they really, really wanted this one. I was just hoping they wouldn't embarrass themselves out of this one. That five-game winning streak wasn't very promising in continuing. Maybe East just had North's number for some reason. Like 1990 in that SCT game. Like 1992 in the one-sided OCT affair.
But North showed signs of life in the bottom of the fourth. With Cherubini on first and one out, Gertner hit a blooper out to center fielder. The ball landed in front of Fourkarakis, but because the play was iffy for her, it meant Cherubini had to hold up. Fouk got a perfect bounce and fired to Mullane at second to force out Cherubini.
All the bounces seemed to go East's way, too. But Gorga was able to get a hold of a Tulko pitch and place it out to right field. With Gertner going on the crack of the bat hitting ball with two outs, she wasn't stopping. Krissy Klem came up with the ball, but did not hit Guarneri at third with a perfect throw. It bounced away into -- you got it -- dead-ball territory to score Gertner and send Gorga to third to make it 7-3. Though the left-handed hitting Scourzo grounded out to Mullane to end the inning, it was certainly a sign of life for the Mariners.
Again, the Erin Tulko of '93 was not the same brand as the year before, so other teams were going to try and take advantage of it.
Solosky had a relatively easy top of the fifth. Then the Mariners exploited the Erin Tulko of '93 in a big way in the bottom of the fifth.
With one out, Megan Russell reached on a Mullane error. Once again, Miller began to play mind games on McGovern and the Raiders. On cue, she had Russell steal second. Then a passed ball by McGovern advanced Russell to third ... just like that. Tulko then walked Shapiro and Solosky, the Nos. 8 and 9 hitters, a huuuuuuge no-no for any pitcher.
Smith hit a groundball to Guarneri, who fired to McGovern at the plate to cut off Russell from scoring.With two outs, the batter was Cherubini. Cherubini worked the count to 3-2, then drew ball four for yet another walk ... and an RBI, cutting the lead to 7-5.
On the next pitch, Tulko uncorked a wild one to bring in pinch-runner Marureen Bojus. One more pitch later, Gertner singled to left-center field to bring home both Smith and Cherubini, tying the game at 7-all. Though Gorga hit a comebacker to Tulko to end the inning, North was making the message that it was here for the rest of the early evening.
That's when the game really took off.
The quiet Solosky, a study of concentration, sent East down in order in the top of the sixth. Then in the bottom of the sixth, Scourzo walked on five pitches against Tulko.
By this point, Schwartz had seen enough of her ace. She took Tulko out of the game after a sloppy 11 walks -- granted, not all of them were her fault with an umpire who was calling the strike zone very tight. She had only three strikeouts in this one. Schwartz brought her go-to girl in situations like this with Kelly.
However, Rusin greeted Kelly with a single and Russell singled to bring in Scourzo and North was ahead again for the first time since the first inning at 8-7. With runners on first and third and no outs, Kelly calmly settled down to get a strikeout, foulout and popup.
It was North's game and the fans were eating it up. The rivalry was in full bloom for everyone to see with each coaching staff -- Miller and Jayne Donald of North and Schwartz and Dawn Dziedzic of East -- expressing the importance of this final regulation seventh inning.
The Raiders were about to have the first crack at Solosky in the top of the seventh. With one out, Foukarakis, now playing left field with Tulko going to center, and Guarneri each singled to right field. McGovern then singled to left field to score Foukarakis with the tying run. Krissy Klem bunted for a base hit to load the bases and bring up the top of the order. Gyurecz singled to left field to score Guarneri and give East the lead back at 9-8, but Schwartz put the stop sign up for McGovern at third to keep the bases load. Mullane hit a short flyball to center field that Smith came on in to make the catch, but McGovern -- not the fastest afoot -- was held up by Schwartz at third, setting the stage for Tulko-Solosky tussle ... again.
There would be no drama to this one, though. Tulko went after the first pitch and skied a flyball to center field that Smith secured in her glove to keep it at 9-8.
At this point, I started wondering if Schwartz would go back to Tulko just because she can still dominate one inning if need be. Again, if you have Mariano Rivera on your team, you're not going to hesitate to use him.
But Schwartz stayed with Kelly. She felt Kelly would get her team the best shot at holding the lead and moving on to the semifinal round.
In 13 pitches -- three that made contact with aluminum -- the plan was about to backfire. Kelly started out very negatively by walking a stubborn Cherubini on a 3-1 pitch that Schwartz demanded an answer as to from the umpire as to why it was a fourth ball and not a second strike.
This brought up Gertner. On a 2-1 pitch, she hit a sinking line drive toward the left-field line. To this day, I can still see Foukarakis hustling for that ball with the knowledge of what would happen if she either caught it or did not.
Unfortunately for East fans alike, Foukarakis came up short on her dive to get the ball. It skipped past Fouk and bounced away from her, still in fair-ball territory. Cherubini scored easily and Gertner did not stop until she got to third.
Fouk's attempt at the ball was simply a "no-guts, no-glory" thing. She'd be a hero if she caught it. Fouk didn't and suddenly, the Mariners were 70 feet away from the plate and winning the game ... and, oh by the way, that brought up cleanup hitter Gorga. East's infield was in, trying to get the ball and make a play at the plate if need be.
The count got to 2-1. They could afford to put Gorga on first and take their chances at a double-play ball with Scourzo at the plate, They chose, instead, to have Kelly pitch to Gorga.
Gorga won. She stroked a single to center field to bring home Gertner to tip the scales in North's favor one last time, 10-9.
East miserably lost a game it had under its collective wings. Raiders players walked off the field hurt and saddened, no more so than Kelly, who was relied on heavily by Schwartz to pull out the win. I am not sure Marissa Kelly ever recovered from this one. Meanwhile, Schwartz was still seething from a ball-strike call against Cherubini to start the inning that didn't go in her favor.
North survived and advanced to the next round against top seed Central Regional. Most of us figured Central would walk right over North, especially thanks to an early-season victory. But North was not that same team it had been earlier in the year. The Mariners defeated Central in the semifinal round three days later and would finish out the unlikely story of them winning an OCT title by 10-run mercy rule against Jackson Memorial a week later. It is still, to this day, the only mercy-rule finish to an OCT title game.
The Jackson Memorial OCT title game win capped a 12-game winning streak to end the season, still the greatest ending I've ever seen a softball team had. In between the OCT games, North was successfully completing its Cinderella run to the Shore Conference Tournament title as an 11th seed, beating Central Regional again, this time, 2-1, in the final at Rash Field in Wall.
East would bounce back the next year to win the OCT, including that semifinal win against North.
In a heated rivalry between teacher and mentor, teacher won on this day because Miller wasn't going to leave a stone unturned in her bag of tricks in being aggressive with her pupil.
The East-North rivalry was, by far, the best rivalry of the decade, especially in the 1990s. The '93 game, though, will always be the classic in terms of OCT play just because of the one-upsmanship the teams displayed that late afternoon/early Saturday evening at Point Boro Middle School's field.
In the end, North was just a little more focused.
There were plenty of reasons why, but the main was the fact it was always the teacher -- North's Becky Miller, who founded the program in 1971 -- against the student, Debbie Schwartz, who played for Miller in the mid-to-late 1970s. And if you watched both of them on the sidelines, there was one word that can describe the two coaches when it came to gametime.
Focused.
Both coaches Miller and Schwartz were just that ... focused. Both would pull out all the stops to win their respective games, but it really showed when the coaches had to play one another, which was twice a year in the Shore Conference Class A South season. Any other meetings between the two schools would come in either the Shore Conference Tournament or the state tournament or, more than likely, the Ocean County Tournament.
To this day, the most amazing game I saw the two teams battle against one another in was the 1990 Shore Conference Tournament semifinal at Southern Regional High School when North grabbed a 6-1 lead in the sixth inning, only to watch East score four times in the bottom of the sixth and two more in the seventh to steal a 7-6 victory as Schwartz kept having her players bunting on the third-base side while North third baseman Jen Carlisle stayed even with the bag. I can still see East cleanup hitter Jeannine Zarrillo laying down the game-winning bunt with the bases loaded.
It was only then that I got a gist of what Schwartz was doing in that game. And I can still see North pitcher Heather Richards, so angered by the outcome, taking her glove and whipping it against the dugout wall as if she was trying to knock the wall over.
In the Ocean County Tournament, Schwartz's Raiders and Millers' Mariners would play one another seven times between Schwartz's first year at East in 1988 and Miller's last year at North in 2000. Miller's Mariners won the '88 battle, Schwartz's Raiders won the '00 matchup, both in blowout victories.
Four of the seven matchups between the two teams were blowouts of eight runs or more with both teams winning two games each. There was the bizarre 1999 semifinal at Toms River South when North fireballer Lauren Anderson threw a one-hitter that was a no-hitter originally and lost to East, 2-0. And the 1994 semifinal came down to a final at-bat with East winning the game in the bottom of the seventh, 5-4.
But of those seven matchups, none of them quite had the intensity and determination as the quarterfinal-round game at Point Pleasant Boro Middle School on Saturday, May 22, 1993.
The two teams were closely seeded at the meeting, North getting the fourth seed over No. 5 East. This game was part of a tripleheader of quarterfinal games that day at Boro's field. The first quarterfinal had been played on the previous evening with No. 7 seed Jackson Memorial springing an upset on Class A South champion and No. 2 seed Southern Regional, 12-6, with seven runs in the top of the seventh inning on Boro's field.
After Lacey won a yawner from Pinelands Regional in the first game of the new day, 8-3, we were settling in for both East and North converging on the neutral field to play. You can sense it from watching the teams warm up and chatting a little bit with both head coaches that there was a nervous edge to this one. While top-seeded Central Regional was the spotlight team of the quarterfinal round of games, they had a supposedly easy game against No. 8 seed Monsignor Donovan waiting for them later on.
East and North was the spotlight game. I had a feeling neither team was going to disappoint.
East was 13-9 on the season and the second-place finisher to Central in the 1992 tournament. And the Raiders had most of their team back from the previous year, including hard-throwing right-hander Erin Tulko, now a junior. However, Tulko was not as intimidating as a junior as she had been her sophomore year and the 13-9 team record showed it. As a matter of fact, Schwartz was relying more on backup pitcher Marissa Kelly. If Tulko got into trouble, Kelly would be the girl to come in and bail the team out of trouble.
On the other hand, North was 15-6 and playing like it was the higher-seeded team going into the early evening/late afternoon battle. The Mariners were riding a five-game winning streak and had the steady and accurate Anna Solosky, also a junior on the mound. After being an extremely young team the year before and losing their All-County top power hitter to graduation, Paige Reinheimer, I wondered how much North had in it to make a run in the OCT.
As the public address announcer for the game, I went through the substitutes and starting lineups for both teams for which afterward the teams went back to their dugouts and the umpire yelled out, "Play Ball!"
East had an early first-inning threat against Solosky with runners on first and second in the top of the first, but Solosky got No. 5 hitter Cheri Klem to ground out to second baseman Jaclyn Cherubini to end the inning.
North got the bottom of the first going with leadoff hitter and head instigator Kristin Smith. She drew a four-pitch walk from Tulko ... a sign of things to come. Tulko came back, though, to strike out Cherubini, bringing up No. 3 hitter Lesley Gertner. On the second pitch of the at-bat, Miller had Smith stealing second. She got down there in plenty of time, and when first-year catcher Amanda McGovern's throw sailed into center field, Smith was on her way to third.
But I thought unwisely. Center fielder Julie Foukarakis was right there as if she knew the ball was going to come to her on a hop. A perfect throw would have nailed Smith by about 5 feet at third base. Unfortunately, Fouk, as most of us called her, uncorked a bouncer that got past third baseman Vicki Guarneri and into dead-ball territory that allowed Smith to score the first run of the game.
Not a promising start for East at all, I thought. North hadn't hit a freakin' ball and yet, the Mariners had a run. It was going to get more interesting. Gertner hit a groundball to shortstop Kelly Gyurecz, who fumbled it for the error. And within the first two pitches to cleanup hitter Kelly Gorga, Gertner had stolen both second and third. Suddenly, I was starting to think that the errant throw by McGovern right off the bat was playing games with her head.
East had to bring the infield in and that was a good thing when Gorga hit a grounder right at first baseman Angela Velardi, who looked Gertner back to third and tagged out Gorga. But Kim Scourzo walked and she was on second two pitches later.
The next battle was one of the best pitcher-versus-hitter struggles I've ever seen. No matter what Tulko threw, Stefanie Rusin was getting a bat on and fouling it off. She fought off three two-strike foul balls and worked the count to 3-2. Finally on the ninth pitch of the at-bat, Tulko struck out Rusin and escaped with the one run scoring.
Somehow, this was a victory for East. It got the Raiders fired up and they were about to take it all out on Solosky in the second inning. Fourkarakis led off the second with a single and one out later, McGovern singled her to second. Solosky struck out No. 9 hitter Krissy Klem for the second out, but it was back to the top of the lineup. Gyurecz hit a chopper to her counterpart at shortstop, Gertner, who fired, but the ball was wide of Scourzo at first and bounced away into dead-ball territory to score Foukarakis and make it a 1-1 game.
The other runners moved up and that was great news for the next hitter, second baseman Amy Mullane, who roped a single to right-center field to score both McGovern and Gyurecz to make it 3-1.
That would bring up Tulko, who had jacked seven home runs in 1992, one being in the OCT quarterfinals against Solosky and North in a 13-3 mercy-rule win. Though Tulko was struggling through issues during the '93 season, you can still see she had power. Tiger Woods may have a bad round or two in his game, but from time to time, he showed you he could still come through when needed.
And that was about to be the case with Tulko. On an 0-1 pitch, Tulko drilled Solosky's offering over Rusin's head in left field. On a wide-open Boro field, that was trouble. Mullane scored easily and Tulko didn't stop until she circled the bases for a two-run circuit clout to make it 5-1, her third career OCT home run in two years.
Although East put two more runners on base in the inning, Solosky did get the final out.
In '92, a 5-1 lead with Tulko on the mound was the equivalent of Mariano Rivera coming into the ninth inning with a lead and a save opportunity. In 1993, it wasn't the same thing.
North showed its resiliency ... and it's criminal-like demeanor. Tulko hit No. 8 hitter Bonnie Shapiro with a pitch. Then Shapiro stole second and third to get herself 70 feet form home plate with two outs and Smith up again. Tulko uncorked a wild pitch that allowed Shapiro to score to make it 5-2. Smith ultimately walked and stole second base. Cherubini and Gertner walked to load the bases. However, Tulko avoided trouble by getting Gorga to hit into a forceout to shortstop Gyurecz, who tossed to Mullane to end the rally.
North put runners on second and third in the third inning with two outs, but Tulko got Solosky to fly out to Foukarakis to end the rally.
While most people like myself thought North was wasting its scoring opportunities, North coaches, players and fans were looking at it as opportunities they may not have gotten against Tulko the year before and opportunities they thought were still out there the rest of the game.
East, though, was about to make this much harder for North in the fourth. With one out, Mullane hit a grounder to Gertner at shortstop, who bobbled the ball for one error, then compounded matters by throwing the ball in the dirt past Scourzo and into dead-ball territory for another error. Tulko singled to center and when the throw came to the plate to keep Mullane at third, Tulko scampered to second base, putting two more runners in scoring position.
Again, North's fielding was about to get the worst of it. Velardi hit another grouder, this one to third baseman Gorga. Gorga secured the ball, but she, too, threw wildly to first and into the dreaded dead-ball territory to score both runners, making it 7-2.
Not only was North blowing opportunities in its part of the inning, the Mariners were throwing the game away with their shoddy defense. By now, I started wondering how much they really, really wanted this one. I was just hoping they wouldn't embarrass themselves out of this one. That five-game winning streak wasn't very promising in continuing. Maybe East just had North's number for some reason. Like 1990 in that SCT game. Like 1992 in the one-sided OCT affair.
But North showed signs of life in the bottom of the fourth. With Cherubini on first and one out, Gertner hit a blooper out to center fielder. The ball landed in front of Fourkarakis, but because the play was iffy for her, it meant Cherubini had to hold up. Fouk got a perfect bounce and fired to Mullane at second to force out Cherubini.
All the bounces seemed to go East's way, too. But Gorga was able to get a hold of a Tulko pitch and place it out to right field. With Gertner going on the crack of the bat hitting ball with two outs, she wasn't stopping. Krissy Klem came up with the ball, but did not hit Guarneri at third with a perfect throw. It bounced away into -- you got it -- dead-ball territory to score Gertner and send Gorga to third to make it 7-3. Though the left-handed hitting Scourzo grounded out to Mullane to end the inning, it was certainly a sign of life for the Mariners.
Again, the Erin Tulko of '93 was not the same brand as the year before, so other teams were going to try and take advantage of it.
Solosky had a relatively easy top of the fifth. Then the Mariners exploited the Erin Tulko of '93 in a big way in the bottom of the fifth.
With one out, Megan Russell reached on a Mullane error. Once again, Miller began to play mind games on McGovern and the Raiders. On cue, she had Russell steal second. Then a passed ball by McGovern advanced Russell to third ... just like that. Tulko then walked Shapiro and Solosky, the Nos. 8 and 9 hitters, a huuuuuuge no-no for any pitcher.
Smith hit a groundball to Guarneri, who fired to McGovern at the plate to cut off Russell from scoring.With two outs, the batter was Cherubini. Cherubini worked the count to 3-2, then drew ball four for yet another walk ... and an RBI, cutting the lead to 7-5.
On the next pitch, Tulko uncorked a wild one to bring in pinch-runner Marureen Bojus. One more pitch later, Gertner singled to left-center field to bring home both Smith and Cherubini, tying the game at 7-all. Though Gorga hit a comebacker to Tulko to end the inning, North was making the message that it was here for the rest of the early evening.
That's when the game really took off.
The quiet Solosky, a study of concentration, sent East down in order in the top of the sixth. Then in the bottom of the sixth, Scourzo walked on five pitches against Tulko.
By this point, Schwartz had seen enough of her ace. She took Tulko out of the game after a sloppy 11 walks -- granted, not all of them were her fault with an umpire who was calling the strike zone very tight. She had only three strikeouts in this one. Schwartz brought her go-to girl in situations like this with Kelly.
However, Rusin greeted Kelly with a single and Russell singled to bring in Scourzo and North was ahead again for the first time since the first inning at 8-7. With runners on first and third and no outs, Kelly calmly settled down to get a strikeout, foulout and popup.
It was North's game and the fans were eating it up. The rivalry was in full bloom for everyone to see with each coaching staff -- Miller and Jayne Donald of North and Schwartz and Dawn Dziedzic of East -- expressing the importance of this final regulation seventh inning.
The Raiders were about to have the first crack at Solosky in the top of the seventh. With one out, Foukarakis, now playing left field with Tulko going to center, and Guarneri each singled to right field. McGovern then singled to left field to score Foukarakis with the tying run. Krissy Klem bunted for a base hit to load the bases and bring up the top of the order. Gyurecz singled to left field to score Guarneri and give East the lead back at 9-8, but Schwartz put the stop sign up for McGovern at third to keep the bases load. Mullane hit a short flyball to center field that Smith came on in to make the catch, but McGovern -- not the fastest afoot -- was held up by Schwartz at third, setting the stage for Tulko-Solosky tussle ... again.
There would be no drama to this one, though. Tulko went after the first pitch and skied a flyball to center field that Smith secured in her glove to keep it at 9-8.
At this point, I started wondering if Schwartz would go back to Tulko just because she can still dominate one inning if need be. Again, if you have Mariano Rivera on your team, you're not going to hesitate to use him.
But Schwartz stayed with Kelly. She felt Kelly would get her team the best shot at holding the lead and moving on to the semifinal round.
In 13 pitches -- three that made contact with aluminum -- the plan was about to backfire. Kelly started out very negatively by walking a stubborn Cherubini on a 3-1 pitch that Schwartz demanded an answer as to from the umpire as to why it was a fourth ball and not a second strike.
This brought up Gertner. On a 2-1 pitch, she hit a sinking line drive toward the left-field line. To this day, I can still see Foukarakis hustling for that ball with the knowledge of what would happen if she either caught it or did not.
Unfortunately for East fans alike, Foukarakis came up short on her dive to get the ball. It skipped past Fouk and bounced away from her, still in fair-ball territory. Cherubini scored easily and Gertner did not stop until she got to third.
Fouk's attempt at the ball was simply a "no-guts, no-glory" thing. She'd be a hero if she caught it. Fouk didn't and suddenly, the Mariners were 70 feet away from the plate and winning the game ... and, oh by the way, that brought up cleanup hitter Gorga. East's infield was in, trying to get the ball and make a play at the plate if need be.
The count got to 2-1. They could afford to put Gorga on first and take their chances at a double-play ball with Scourzo at the plate, They chose, instead, to have Kelly pitch to Gorga.
Gorga won. She stroked a single to center field to bring home Gertner to tip the scales in North's favor one last time, 10-9.
East miserably lost a game it had under its collective wings. Raiders players walked off the field hurt and saddened, no more so than Kelly, who was relied on heavily by Schwartz to pull out the win. I am not sure Marissa Kelly ever recovered from this one. Meanwhile, Schwartz was still seething from a ball-strike call against Cherubini to start the inning that didn't go in her favor.
North survived and advanced to the next round against top seed Central Regional. Most of us figured Central would walk right over North, especially thanks to an early-season victory. But North was not that same team it had been earlier in the year. The Mariners defeated Central in the semifinal round three days later and would finish out the unlikely story of them winning an OCT title by 10-run mercy rule against Jackson Memorial a week later. It is still, to this day, the only mercy-rule finish to an OCT title game.
The Jackson Memorial OCT title game win capped a 12-game winning streak to end the season, still the greatest ending I've ever seen a softball team had. In between the OCT games, North was successfully completing its Cinderella run to the Shore Conference Tournament title as an 11th seed, beating Central Regional again, this time, 2-1, in the final at Rash Field in Wall.
East would bounce back the next year to win the OCT, including that semifinal win against North.
In a heated rivalry between teacher and mentor, teacher won on this day because Miller wasn't going to leave a stone unturned in her bag of tricks in being aggressive with her pupil.
The East-North rivalry was, by far, the best rivalry of the decade, especially in the 1990s. The '93 game, though, will always be the classic in terms of OCT play just because of the one-upsmanship the teams displayed that late afternoon/early Saturday evening at Point Boro Middle School's field.
In the end, North was just a little more focused.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
The strong sense of a great softball season ... even in an opening-game loss
The opening day of the 1998 Ocean County high school softball season would have been heavenly.
If it had been held on March 31.
It's hard to believe, but March 31, 1998, a Tuesday, was a rare scorcher of a day at the Jersey Shore -- in the northeastern part of the United States for that matter. Temperatures on this last day of the third month of the year reached a high of 87 degrees. For a good part of this day, I thought I had moved to Florida by accident. The highlight of the afternoon was watching Alberto Castillo single home Brian McRae with the winning run to watch my New York Mets beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 1-0, in 14 innings at Shea Stadium.
At that moment, I thought this was the year for the Mets after so much disappointment. It was so close to happening, too.
But I was getting ready for the next day-- the anticipation of watching our county's best softball team open up with a tough road match-up in Middletown against perennial power South.
This was the year big things were going to happen with Toms River North. When I had last left the Mariners, a good amount of the players were in tears on the Toms River High School East softball field after Cheryl Zellman had belted the "shot heard 'round Ocean County" to give Central Regional a 2-1, nine-inning victory over the Mariners in the Ocean County Tournament championship. A sad way to end the season for North, however, the Mariners had won 20 games and had a lot of the players who felt the despair and pain that night at East returning.
This included their dynamic battery of junior pitcher Lauren Anderson ad senior catcher Teresa Andreani. They both had dynamite '97 seasons and the best was yet to come in the '98 season, Andreani coming off a fantastic field hockey season the fall before when North made it to the NJSIAA South Jersey Group IV championship game.
To prepare for the first day of the season, I wanted to make the coverage of the game "different." Instead of going up there to cover the game, I had planned with Al Ditzel, my boss, to use this game as my Thursday column, feeling this would be a great kickoff to the season and this game would stand out and alone for the section. The only thing was there would be no pictures to accompany the game since it was out of our coverage area, but that wasn't an issue. There would be this game as a column and the rest of the games would be put into one roundup.
All was OK by Al and I went to sleep Wednesday night thinking everything was hunky dory for the next day.
When I woke up the next morning, you could have blown on me and knocked me over. From this gorgeous, warm day on the last day of March, I was greeted by something quite a bit different. The temperature had gone from 87 degrees to 54. And that sunny day? Naah, that was like a distant memory now. The crazy Jersey weather was showing as it was raining on and off throughout the morning. I had to make a phone call up to Middletown South to ask the athletic office how the weather was some 35 miles from where I lived and if the game was still on.
"Still on," was the answer I got from the secretary. Even if I got up there and it poured again and the game was rained out, I was getting paid for turning my Ford Thunderbird LX over and driving to South and back to the Observer building.
I headed up north, going my normal route of Hooper Avenue, then onto Beaverson Boulevard in Brick, and onto Route 88 in Lakewood before getting on the Garden State Parkway and driving up to Exit 114 to get off at the Middletown exit. I'd been there numerous times for various events over the year, whether it was football, soccer or softball. And all the while, there was no rain, but the roads were still fairly wet and the clouds were still grey and yucky.
I still remember getting out of my car, notebook in hand, set to make the long walk from the parking lot to the familiar softball field where I covered my first game there in 1986 when Toms River South stunned then No. 1 seed Middletown South and pitcher Karen Rosenthal in the Shore Conference Tournament semifinals. And the two constants over the 12-year period were where the softball field was situated and how good the Eagles were. Still are, actually.
Oh, there was the third constant at Middletown South High -- long-time head coach Tom Erbig. Also the wrestling coach at the school, Erbig was one of the best "opposing" coaches I had known. He always invited me to call him if I ran into a jam or was writing a preview that involved his team.
North was going through the infield and outfield drills. North stumbled a bit defensively in warmups and I could not help but think this could be the preface for a bad afternoon under these grey, yucky clouds. But I knew one thing was a good constant -- the pitching of Big M, Anderson's nickname, but more importantly, her interaction with Andreani. Though they may have been a year apart in class at North, Andreani being the senior, Anderson the junior, you'd swear they were more sister-like than that.
And one other thing -- North had a lot to prove in '98, not because they had everyone back. It was just the way that the '97 season ended for the Mariners and longtime coach Becky Miller. The OCT final was tough enough for anyone to handle, but Anderson threw a no-hitter in the South Jersey Group IV championship game against Shawnee ... and lost! Yes, North lost the game, 1-0, because they couldn't hit either.
But the worst dignity-losing defeat was their Shore Conference Tournament game at Toms River East in the semifinal round against Allentown. The game was played the afternoon of North's senior prom, and it wasn't just the senior girls who were going to their once-in-a-lifetime occasion, but a number of North juniors and sophomores were being invited by the senior boys. And so even though North could bargain to play the game much earlier in the afternoon on that particular Friday, May 24, Allentown simply said, "Nope," infuriating everyone from Miller to the Mariners players and parents.
Without some key kids in the North lineup, Allentown won the game, 1-0.
And with Toms River East winning the Class A South title that particular year, the North Mariners came away with a 20-win season -- and nada to show for it.
This 1998 season was about to become one of "unfinished business." But for that to be in full effect, a very good effort was needed against one of the Shore's best teams in these Eagles, who would beat that Shawnee team North lost to in the SJ IV final in the '97 Group IV semifinals, but would lose in the state Group IV final.
With two outs in the first inning and Lisa Miller on base, cleanup hitter Anderson stepped to the plate. She got a hold of an Emilia Murtha offering and drilled a shot to deep center field. For one moment, I envisioned the ball disappearing over the center field fence and the Mariners taking a 2-0 lead. I was so sure of it. But as I watched center fielder Lindsey Keppler retreating as deep as she could, I could sense that the 240-foot sign in center field was looking more like 440 feet. Keppler camped under the ball and hauled it in 15 feet from the fence.
I knew the air was somewhat heavy that day with the humidity and all, but even I thought this was ridiculous.
Now it was Middletown South's turn to come up in the bottom of the first. And Alison Erbig, the coach's daughter, led off with a walk. Erbig moved to second on a wild pitch and a Katie Sullivan sacrifice bunt moved her up to third. One out and Anderson was in trouble. Didn't even take one inning for this to happen!
No. 3 hitter Jen Dodero came up. She was bunting against the hard-throwing Anderson. She popped it up between the pitcher's mound and home plate near the third base line. Anderson hustled as hard as she could to get after the ball. But she was not fast enough. Her dive was good enough to get a glove on the ball, but not smother it in her mitt.
The ball bounced into foul territory allowing Erbig to score. That was the kind of competitor Lauren Anderson was -- she was going after that pop-up even if any of her teammates told her to stay away from the ball for it was going to bounce foul.
Nonetheless, it was 1-0. And though Murtha was no Anderson by any means, she was still managing to get the ball over the plate and Mariner hitters were obliging to hit pop-ups, flyballs and groundouts to Eagle defenders. Murtha would only pick up three strikeouts, but her fielders collected 11 groundouts, five flyball outs, a lineout and a popup. In other words, Murtha made her effort look, well, effortless. When the Mariners had any inkling of a threat, there would be an "at'em ball" to an Eagles player to end the threat.
Just very frustrating for an opening game.
And Middletown South was making contact against Anderson, even if she picked up six strikeouts on the day.
Still, it remained 1-0 until the sixth inning. Sullivan went with an outside fastball and drilled a shot to the right-center field gap for a double. Three offerings later, she was standing on third after a wild pitch. One batter later, Aimee Barselona made the same adjustment on the outside fastball that Sullivan made and took Anderson to the opposite field for a double as well to score Sullivan to make it 2-0.
Down 1-0 with three outs to go gives you hope. But down 2-0 with three outs left? Forget it, especially the way Middletown South was fielding on this afternoon. North went down in the seventh inning in order and Middletown South had opened the season with the 2-0 triumph.
I knew the possibility of this would happen. I wondered aloud if these Mariners were still suffering the hangover of the '97 season, the clutch-less clan of softball players who couldn't buy a hit when needed. But I realized, too, that this was just the first game of the season. There was a long Class A South season and then the postseason would arrive. With the warmer weather so, too, the Mariners would warm up.
As I typed in my column later on, "There will be plenty of good days against the opponents for the Mariners ... this one was just an early lesson about what to do and what not to do against a team that has, well, been there, done that.
It was true. But not only did North not hit, Anderson was far from being, well, Lauren Anderson. She walked four South Eagles. That's bad alone. But she also uncorked five wild pitches. Five! This was not the Big M I knew.
Still, throughout her tough day, I knew she was going to be all right in this season. Because she had a patient backstop that day behind the plate in Andreani. I've seen a lot of great catchers, some who could hit the ball a ton and some who handled their pitcher or pitchers with the right temperance you need to keep them in line.
Rarely, though, have I ever seen a catcher mix those two traits.
Teresa Andreani is the only catcher I have ever covered in nearly 30 years of covering softball who could do that and do it with a fireballing battery mate. You think catching a hard-thrower is a lot of fun? Try to do so when that hard-thrower is not on top of her game.
I've seen a lot of special pitcher-catcher relationships over the years. I saw Kathy Hawtin handle Kim Tompkins between 1987-89 at Toms River East. And I saw Kelly Honecker handle Kristy Tice at Central Regional between 1995-97.
But I saw something special with T and Big M. I interviewed both of them after the game. All Anderson could talk about on this terrible day weather-wise was how off she was and how terribly she performed, putting all the blame for the loss on herself.
Well Andreani wasn't having anything to do with Big M taking the loss on her shoulders by her lonesome. I asked T if her battery mate takes things too hard. She answered, "I think she does."
What soon followed was the reason I believe North was going to be the best team I saw in this season -- and arguably the best Ocean County team I would see for one year on a diamond.
Anderson looked at her teammate and retorted, "Do not!"
"Do too."
"Do not."
"Do too."
Finally, Anderson gave her teammate one more, "Do not," following it up by saying, "If my team loses, I feel that it's my fault for it and I'll take the blame for it."
That conversation soon ended. I knew it wasn't all Lauren Anderson's fault for the loss. It wasn't her fault that a ball that she hit in the first inning that felt like it was going about 300 feet simply died in the cool, humid air in the center fielder's glove. And to give up two earned runs to a very, very good Middletown South team is more than good.
It's when your team can't score one run that you know there might be a problem.
Still, there were going to be far more better days than bad days for North's Mariners. They wound up winning the Class A South title in a runaway, losing one game in the division that season to Jackson Memorial. North did it again in the state tournament as Anderson threw a no-hitter ... and lost again, this time to Lenape.
But when it came to the Shore Conference and Ocean County tournaments, the Mariners were at the top of their game. They won the OCT going away, beating Jackson Memorial in the final, 4-1, as Anderson would earn Most Valuable Pitcher honors with 48 strikeouts in three games and outfielder Barb Ihrig claimed Most Valuable Player honors for a big finale.
And wouldn't you know it -- guess who North had in the SCT final at Wall High School? If you said Middletown South, give yourself a prize! And unlike the first outing on that ugly, yucky April 1 game, this finale, played under sunny, blue skies was never a contest. Anderson struck out 15 Eagles hitters and the reliably-sound defense of Middletown South fell apart under the avalanche of eight errors in an 8-3 North win.
North finished the season at 24-3. And both Andeson, who struck out a county-record 367 batters, including an amazing 30 in a 15-inning, 1-0 SCT quarterfinal-round game against Lacey, and Andreani earned All-State first-team honors as Andreani was on her way to St. Joseph's on a full scholarship to continue her softball career.
Everything that year clicked for Toms River North in a big way. And I knew it was going to thanks to a pitcher and catcher who were in tune to each other all season long.
Even if the first game of the season didn't go so well.
If it had been held on March 31.
It's hard to believe, but March 31, 1998, a Tuesday, was a rare scorcher of a day at the Jersey Shore -- in the northeastern part of the United States for that matter. Temperatures on this last day of the third month of the year reached a high of 87 degrees. For a good part of this day, I thought I had moved to Florida by accident. The highlight of the afternoon was watching Alberto Castillo single home Brian McRae with the winning run to watch my New York Mets beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 1-0, in 14 innings at Shea Stadium.
At that moment, I thought this was the year for the Mets after so much disappointment. It was so close to happening, too.
But I was getting ready for the next day-- the anticipation of watching our county's best softball team open up with a tough road match-up in Middletown against perennial power South.
This was the year big things were going to happen with Toms River North. When I had last left the Mariners, a good amount of the players were in tears on the Toms River High School East softball field after Cheryl Zellman had belted the "shot heard 'round Ocean County" to give Central Regional a 2-1, nine-inning victory over the Mariners in the Ocean County Tournament championship. A sad way to end the season for North, however, the Mariners had won 20 games and had a lot of the players who felt the despair and pain that night at East returning.
This included their dynamic battery of junior pitcher Lauren Anderson ad senior catcher Teresa Andreani. They both had dynamite '97 seasons and the best was yet to come in the '98 season, Andreani coming off a fantastic field hockey season the fall before when North made it to the NJSIAA South Jersey Group IV championship game.
To prepare for the first day of the season, I wanted to make the coverage of the game "different." Instead of going up there to cover the game, I had planned with Al Ditzel, my boss, to use this game as my Thursday column, feeling this would be a great kickoff to the season and this game would stand out and alone for the section. The only thing was there would be no pictures to accompany the game since it was out of our coverage area, but that wasn't an issue. There would be this game as a column and the rest of the games would be put into one roundup.
All was OK by Al and I went to sleep Wednesday night thinking everything was hunky dory for the next day.
When I woke up the next morning, you could have blown on me and knocked me over. From this gorgeous, warm day on the last day of March, I was greeted by something quite a bit different. The temperature had gone from 87 degrees to 54. And that sunny day? Naah, that was like a distant memory now. The crazy Jersey weather was showing as it was raining on and off throughout the morning. I had to make a phone call up to Middletown South to ask the athletic office how the weather was some 35 miles from where I lived and if the game was still on.
"Still on," was the answer I got from the secretary. Even if I got up there and it poured again and the game was rained out, I was getting paid for turning my Ford Thunderbird LX over and driving to South and back to the Observer building.
I headed up north, going my normal route of Hooper Avenue, then onto Beaverson Boulevard in Brick, and onto Route 88 in Lakewood before getting on the Garden State Parkway and driving up to Exit 114 to get off at the Middletown exit. I'd been there numerous times for various events over the year, whether it was football, soccer or softball. And all the while, there was no rain, but the roads were still fairly wet and the clouds were still grey and yucky.
I still remember getting out of my car, notebook in hand, set to make the long walk from the parking lot to the familiar softball field where I covered my first game there in 1986 when Toms River South stunned then No. 1 seed Middletown South and pitcher Karen Rosenthal in the Shore Conference Tournament semifinals. And the two constants over the 12-year period were where the softball field was situated and how good the Eagles were. Still are, actually.
Oh, there was the third constant at Middletown South High -- long-time head coach Tom Erbig. Also the wrestling coach at the school, Erbig was one of the best "opposing" coaches I had known. He always invited me to call him if I ran into a jam or was writing a preview that involved his team.
North was going through the infield and outfield drills. North stumbled a bit defensively in warmups and I could not help but think this could be the preface for a bad afternoon under these grey, yucky clouds. But I knew one thing was a good constant -- the pitching of Big M, Anderson's nickname, but more importantly, her interaction with Andreani. Though they may have been a year apart in class at North, Andreani being the senior, Anderson the junior, you'd swear they were more sister-like than that.
And one other thing -- North had a lot to prove in '98, not because they had everyone back. It was just the way that the '97 season ended for the Mariners and longtime coach Becky Miller. The OCT final was tough enough for anyone to handle, but Anderson threw a no-hitter in the South Jersey Group IV championship game against Shawnee ... and lost! Yes, North lost the game, 1-0, because they couldn't hit either.
But the worst dignity-losing defeat was their Shore Conference Tournament game at Toms River East in the semifinal round against Allentown. The game was played the afternoon of North's senior prom, and it wasn't just the senior girls who were going to their once-in-a-lifetime occasion, but a number of North juniors and sophomores were being invited by the senior boys. And so even though North could bargain to play the game much earlier in the afternoon on that particular Friday, May 24, Allentown simply said, "Nope," infuriating everyone from Miller to the Mariners players and parents.
Without some key kids in the North lineup, Allentown won the game, 1-0.
And with Toms River East winning the Class A South title that particular year, the North Mariners came away with a 20-win season -- and nada to show for it.
This 1998 season was about to become one of "unfinished business." But for that to be in full effect, a very good effort was needed against one of the Shore's best teams in these Eagles, who would beat that Shawnee team North lost to in the SJ IV final in the '97 Group IV semifinals, but would lose in the state Group IV final.
With two outs in the first inning and Lisa Miller on base, cleanup hitter Anderson stepped to the plate. She got a hold of an Emilia Murtha offering and drilled a shot to deep center field. For one moment, I envisioned the ball disappearing over the center field fence and the Mariners taking a 2-0 lead. I was so sure of it. But as I watched center fielder Lindsey Keppler retreating as deep as she could, I could sense that the 240-foot sign in center field was looking more like 440 feet. Keppler camped under the ball and hauled it in 15 feet from the fence.
I knew the air was somewhat heavy that day with the humidity and all, but even I thought this was ridiculous.
Now it was Middletown South's turn to come up in the bottom of the first. And Alison Erbig, the coach's daughter, led off with a walk. Erbig moved to second on a wild pitch and a Katie Sullivan sacrifice bunt moved her up to third. One out and Anderson was in trouble. Didn't even take one inning for this to happen!
No. 3 hitter Jen Dodero came up. She was bunting against the hard-throwing Anderson. She popped it up between the pitcher's mound and home plate near the third base line. Anderson hustled as hard as she could to get after the ball. But she was not fast enough. Her dive was good enough to get a glove on the ball, but not smother it in her mitt.
The ball bounced into foul territory allowing Erbig to score. That was the kind of competitor Lauren Anderson was -- she was going after that pop-up even if any of her teammates told her to stay away from the ball for it was going to bounce foul.
Nonetheless, it was 1-0. And though Murtha was no Anderson by any means, she was still managing to get the ball over the plate and Mariner hitters were obliging to hit pop-ups, flyballs and groundouts to Eagle defenders. Murtha would only pick up three strikeouts, but her fielders collected 11 groundouts, five flyball outs, a lineout and a popup. In other words, Murtha made her effort look, well, effortless. When the Mariners had any inkling of a threat, there would be an "at'em ball" to an Eagles player to end the threat.
Just very frustrating for an opening game.
And Middletown South was making contact against Anderson, even if she picked up six strikeouts on the day.
Still, it remained 1-0 until the sixth inning. Sullivan went with an outside fastball and drilled a shot to the right-center field gap for a double. Three offerings later, she was standing on third after a wild pitch. One batter later, Aimee Barselona made the same adjustment on the outside fastball that Sullivan made and took Anderson to the opposite field for a double as well to score Sullivan to make it 2-0.
Down 1-0 with three outs to go gives you hope. But down 2-0 with three outs left? Forget it, especially the way Middletown South was fielding on this afternoon. North went down in the seventh inning in order and Middletown South had opened the season with the 2-0 triumph.
I knew the possibility of this would happen. I wondered aloud if these Mariners were still suffering the hangover of the '97 season, the clutch-less clan of softball players who couldn't buy a hit when needed. But I realized, too, that this was just the first game of the season. There was a long Class A South season and then the postseason would arrive. With the warmer weather so, too, the Mariners would warm up.
As I typed in my column later on, "There will be plenty of good days against the opponents for the Mariners ... this one was just an early lesson about what to do and what not to do against a team that has, well, been there, done that.
It was true. But not only did North not hit, Anderson was far from being, well, Lauren Anderson. She walked four South Eagles. That's bad alone. But she also uncorked five wild pitches. Five! This was not the Big M I knew.
Still, throughout her tough day, I knew she was going to be all right in this season. Because she had a patient backstop that day behind the plate in Andreani. I've seen a lot of great catchers, some who could hit the ball a ton and some who handled their pitcher or pitchers with the right temperance you need to keep them in line.
Rarely, though, have I ever seen a catcher mix those two traits.
Teresa Andreani is the only catcher I have ever covered in nearly 30 years of covering softball who could do that and do it with a fireballing battery mate. You think catching a hard-thrower is a lot of fun? Try to do so when that hard-thrower is not on top of her game.
I've seen a lot of special pitcher-catcher relationships over the years. I saw Kathy Hawtin handle Kim Tompkins between 1987-89 at Toms River East. And I saw Kelly Honecker handle Kristy Tice at Central Regional between 1995-97.
But I saw something special with T and Big M. I interviewed both of them after the game. All Anderson could talk about on this terrible day weather-wise was how off she was and how terribly she performed, putting all the blame for the loss on herself.
Well Andreani wasn't having anything to do with Big M taking the loss on her shoulders by her lonesome. I asked T if her battery mate takes things too hard. She answered, "I think she does."
What soon followed was the reason I believe North was going to be the best team I saw in this season -- and arguably the best Ocean County team I would see for one year on a diamond.
Anderson looked at her teammate and retorted, "Do not!"
"Do too."
"Do not."
"Do too."
Finally, Anderson gave her teammate one more, "Do not," following it up by saying, "If my team loses, I feel that it's my fault for it and I'll take the blame for it."
That conversation soon ended. I knew it wasn't all Lauren Anderson's fault for the loss. It wasn't her fault that a ball that she hit in the first inning that felt like it was going about 300 feet simply died in the cool, humid air in the center fielder's glove. And to give up two earned runs to a very, very good Middletown South team is more than good.
It's when your team can't score one run that you know there might be a problem.
Still, there were going to be far more better days than bad days for North's Mariners. They wound up winning the Class A South title in a runaway, losing one game in the division that season to Jackson Memorial. North did it again in the state tournament as Anderson threw a no-hitter ... and lost again, this time to Lenape.
But when it came to the Shore Conference and Ocean County tournaments, the Mariners were at the top of their game. They won the OCT going away, beating Jackson Memorial in the final, 4-1, as Anderson would earn Most Valuable Pitcher honors with 48 strikeouts in three games and outfielder Barb Ihrig claimed Most Valuable Player honors for a big finale.
And wouldn't you know it -- guess who North had in the SCT final at Wall High School? If you said Middletown South, give yourself a prize! And unlike the first outing on that ugly, yucky April 1 game, this finale, played under sunny, blue skies was never a contest. Anderson struck out 15 Eagles hitters and the reliably-sound defense of Middletown South fell apart under the avalanche of eight errors in an 8-3 North win.
North finished the season at 24-3. And both Andeson, who struck out a county-record 367 batters, including an amazing 30 in a 15-inning, 1-0 SCT quarterfinal-round game against Lacey, and Andreani earned All-State first-team honors as Andreani was on her way to St. Joseph's on a full scholarship to continue her softball career.
Everything that year clicked for Toms River North in a big way. And I knew it was going to thanks to a pitcher and catcher who were in tune to each other all season long.
Even if the first game of the season didn't go so well.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
The dysfunctional situation that never truly has gone away
April 6, 2002. A routine Saturday for me at work at the Key West Citizen. The plan, as always, was to report to work around 3:30 p.m., collect whatever local sports news was happening in the Florida Keys that day and then help my assistant Jennifer put together the sports pages for the Sunday section.
Nothing out of the ordinary. Done this for over 2 1/2 years. No biggie.
And it wasn't. Then about 4:15 p.m., I see the executive sports editor walk in and make a bee-line to the managing editor's office and close the door. Kind of hard not to notice considering the door is no more than about 7 feet from where Jennifer and I are working. Still, business as usual.
Just over 10 minutes later, the door opens.
The managing editor peers out our direction and says, "Mark, can I see you for a moment?"
"OK."
Walked in and the door closed behind me. It was just the three of us -- myself, the managing editor, a man who took over the position from a very popular woman who left to tend to family in Michigan and practically got the job by default, and the executive sports editor, who once was the sports editor and was appointed this extravagant-sounding position the previous summer before for reasons I'll explain in a bit.
In other words, two men I had little, if any, respect for.
So Mr. I Got The Job By Default starts the conversation.
"Mark, we've got a problem. Of all our departments here in the newsroom, the sports department is our most dysfunctional."
Here's the definition of "dysfunctional" within the sports department: An executive sports editor, a sports editor and a layout person. Two chiefs and only one Indian. Do you see a problem here? More on how this bit of dysfunction came about ... it's going to leave your head spinning.
Then I answered because I knew what direction this was heading in.
"This dysfunction would not have come about had we not been put in this situation in the first place."
"Well it doesn't matter," was how he answered back. Hey, umm, jackass, it did matter. More later.
"We've asked you to work with (the executive sports editor), but you haven't done that. And we feel at this juncture that we need to make a break here, so we are letting you go. We'll set up your compensation and final paycheck and that will be it."
And at that particular point, I was able to give a half-smile and say, "Thank you," shake these two incompetents' hands and walk out quietly.
"What happened?" asked Jennifer.
"I will not be here helping you ever again," I said to her, Jennifer's mouth half-open as I quietly made this announcement to her. "My services are no longer needed. I wish you luck ... you're gonna need it."
I got what I needed for the night and said my goodbyes with the only other people in the whole building that really ever mattered to me -- the paste-up people and the press-room guys. Since there were not even a handful of them there at that moment, I said goodbye to two of my favorite people there, Dave, my University of Georgia fan and friend who worked in the press room, and Art, who was the jack of all trades in the paste-up room.
It was hard. I had to explain to them what had just happened and I can still hear Dave in his Southern drawl saying, "This place is going to hell in a hand basket."
There weren't a whole lot of people in the newsroom at that particular moment, but to me, that didn't matter. I certainly wasn't looking for an audience for my departure. I remember saying goodbye to Dick Wagner, who had been there for me since the start of my time at the paper in 1999 and was a good friend to help with any of the editing I needed to do on local stories when I was stressed in laying out a section or needed a second read.
And just like that, it was over. I made the short drive in my new Toyota Corolla that I had just made my first payment on two days earlier back to my apartment on Duck Avenue. I got into my apartment, which I had lived in all by myself since I moved in the previous April and the first thing I did was plop down on the mattress I had bought to lay on when I moved in. It was somewhere around 5 p.m. and Daylight Savings Time was not to start until the next day, so the darkness was settling in mixed with the sunshine as I stared out the window for the first 20 minutes I laid there. I was taking inventory of the events of the previous hour. And one prevailing point came to my mind.
For the first time in my almost 18 years in the business, I had nowhere to go to and it was a scary feeling. Since July 7, 1984, there was always work. And while most people complain about the idea of going to work, I always showed up regardless of how I felt. That's just how I've operated since I was 17. Now at 35, I had nowhere to be to get a paycheck.
But there was another prevailing point that soon followed that first one -- I'm glad I didn't have to go back to that shithole ever again.
Nothing out of the ordinary. Done this for over 2 1/2 years. No biggie.
And it wasn't. Then about 4:15 p.m., I see the executive sports editor walk in and make a bee-line to the managing editor's office and close the door. Kind of hard not to notice considering the door is no more than about 7 feet from where Jennifer and I are working. Still, business as usual.
Just over 10 minutes later, the door opens.
The managing editor peers out our direction and says, "Mark, can I see you for a moment?"
"OK."
Walked in and the door closed behind me. It was just the three of us -- myself, the managing editor, a man who took over the position from a very popular woman who left to tend to family in Michigan and practically got the job by default, and the executive sports editor, who once was the sports editor and was appointed this extravagant-sounding position the previous summer before for reasons I'll explain in a bit.
In other words, two men I had little, if any, respect for.
So Mr. I Got The Job By Default starts the conversation.
"Mark, we've got a problem. Of all our departments here in the newsroom, the sports department is our most dysfunctional."
Here's the definition of "dysfunctional" within the sports department: An executive sports editor, a sports editor and a layout person. Two chiefs and only one Indian. Do you see a problem here? More on how this bit of dysfunction came about ... it's going to leave your head spinning.
Then I answered because I knew what direction this was heading in.
"This dysfunction would not have come about had we not been put in this situation in the first place."
"Well it doesn't matter," was how he answered back. Hey, umm, jackass, it did matter. More later.
"We've asked you to work with (the executive sports editor), but you haven't done that. And we feel at this juncture that we need to make a break here, so we are letting you go. We'll set up your compensation and final paycheck and that will be it."
And at that particular point, I was able to give a half-smile and say, "Thank you," shake these two incompetents' hands and walk out quietly.
"What happened?" asked Jennifer.
"I will not be here helping you ever again," I said to her, Jennifer's mouth half-open as I quietly made this announcement to her. "My services are no longer needed. I wish you luck ... you're gonna need it."
I got what I needed for the night and said my goodbyes with the only other people in the whole building that really ever mattered to me -- the paste-up people and the press-room guys. Since there were not even a handful of them there at that moment, I said goodbye to two of my favorite people there, Dave, my University of Georgia fan and friend who worked in the press room, and Art, who was the jack of all trades in the paste-up room.
It was hard. I had to explain to them what had just happened and I can still hear Dave in his Southern drawl saying, "This place is going to hell in a hand basket."
There weren't a whole lot of people in the newsroom at that particular moment, but to me, that didn't matter. I certainly wasn't looking for an audience for my departure. I remember saying goodbye to Dick Wagner, who had been there for me since the start of my time at the paper in 1999 and was a good friend to help with any of the editing I needed to do on local stories when I was stressed in laying out a section or needed a second read.
And just like that, it was over. I made the short drive in my new Toyota Corolla that I had just made my first payment on two days earlier back to my apartment on Duck Avenue. I got into my apartment, which I had lived in all by myself since I moved in the previous April and the first thing I did was plop down on the mattress I had bought to lay on when I moved in. It was somewhere around 5 p.m. and Daylight Savings Time was not to start until the next day, so the darkness was settling in mixed with the sunshine as I stared out the window for the first 20 minutes I laid there. I was taking inventory of the events of the previous hour. And one prevailing point came to my mind.
For the first time in my almost 18 years in the business, I had nowhere to go to and it was a scary feeling. Since July 7, 1984, there was always work. And while most people complain about the idea of going to work, I always showed up regardless of how I felt. That's just how I've operated since I was 17. Now at 35, I had nowhere to be to get a paycheck.
But there was another prevailing point that soon followed that first one -- I'm glad I didn't have to go back to that shithole ever again.
The dysfunction that permeated that building from August 2001 just wreaked. I wanted off this ride, but finding another job and where I was located at the farthest end south in this country (location! location! location!) was not making the prospects of future employment that much better. Who the hell wants to pay for my moving costs after all?
The first phone call I made was to Toms River, N.J. My mom picks up the phone and the first thing I said to her was, "Guess what?"
"What?"
"I don't have a job to go to anymore!"
There was this sound of shock. Then I explained what happened and she got a better and clearer understanding of what was going on.
"Believe me. I'm relieved that it's over. I never was one to own a pair of knee pads."
I then explained the whole "knee pads" comment to her in which I wasn't in a mood to acquiesce to the publisher, which seemingly everyone in a higher-up position did at that particular time.
So how did it become so dysfunctional in such a short amount of time? Well, I will pick up the story on Thursday, August 23, 2001, the two-year anniversary for myself at the Citizen after my escape from the dysfunction that was taking place at the Ocean County Observer.
I had just returned from a 2 1/2-week vacation on that Tuesday where I went back to Toms River to see my family. By May 2001, the company owed me 37 days of comp time -- yes, you read right, 37 days! Why, you may ask?
The first part of this dysfunctional story began on Monday, December 18, 2000 when my managing editor called me up to tell me she was firing my assistant of 10 months. Seems the previous Friday, he had run out of a Key West bar that was open an hour later than it should have when the cops came in to find out what was going on and when they caught up to him, he had an ounce of pot and an ounce of cocaine on him. Now keep in mind one thing and one thing only -- he was not my hire. That was forced on me by the man who hired me, the previous managing editor, who wasn't willing to look at one more candidate that I wanted for the assistant's job in 2000.
That alone should have raised a red flag that this may not be the best organization to work for.
With the firing of my assistant of not even 10 months, I was now the only person in my department. And what was about to take place in the first week of 2001 was going to complicate matters even further. We were about to become a seven-day-a-week paper thanks to the new management. So guess what that meant for me? Yes ... I had to work every single day, which I did starting on December 31. By the middle of January, they hired this very knowledgeable layout guy named Matt from Chicago who was to be there to lay out my section and free up the work load for me.
That was all great, but that was Matt's sole purpose with the sports department -- layout. That's what he was hired for and I still had no assistant to actually help me put together a sports section. Another bit of help to me was that the paper had just started doing a Saturday recreational tab that was 16 pages and full of ads. They hired this guy who was once the sports editor at the paper in the 1990s and was glad to get out of the weekly he was working at to take on this new venture. But this was a section that was not completely affiliated with the daily sports section. He had his staff of one part-timer who would do games for me from time to time, but that was it.
Still, no one to directly help me. And until my managing editor directly said she did not want to see me in the building for one weekend in February, I worked every single day for 41 straight days. Why? The last thing I wanted to do to poor Matt was show even the hint of the dysfunction that was happening in that newsroom. But ultimately, he was OK with the idea of working six days, so I gave him Thursdays off since they were fairly easy for me to work and I'd find a day here or there that he didn't have to be at work. I would take off Sundays and be back at work on Monday.
This went on while my relationship with my girlfriend of nearly four years was falling apart at the seams. By late March 2001, it was over and we moved out of our two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment into separate one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartments in the same complex. The constant work schedule was not the reason for the breakup, but it wasn't helping that we weren't around each other much at this point. I ended up taking an entire weekend to move into my new apartment, but the task was finished late Sunday night/early Monday morning.
The schedule of six-day work weeks was taking a toll and it wasn't until May when finally -- finally! -- we had hired my assistant, a guy named Nick. And it meant Mark began taking time off from work starting in June. I ended up taking not one, but four weeks of vacation that no one raised any opposition to nor said anything about. They knew I was owed the time off for working all of 2001 with the exception of 14 Sundays total.
Let's just say the death eye would have been flashed any one's way if they even disagreed.
And so I took off for my vacations, two one-weekers that I stayed in Florida for, then the one to New Jersey from August 5-20. Frankly, I just didn't given a shit.
So I come back into work on Tuesday, August 21 and the first two days were getting re-acclimated to the everyday grind that now I was going to have to get used to. We had a football section to put together and thanks to Matt, we were able to get it done before the first regular-season game, which was August 31.
But before that was the two-year evaluation. I go into my managing editor's office and we talked about the previous year. She knew the craziness that had taken place to this point. The thing that endeared me to her was the fact that I worked hard. Though I had disagreements with a couple of people in the newsroom (one being the former assistant that worked with me), she knew I had the right intentions for the paper and the business.
"You're getting your raise," she started.
Then ...
"There's something you need to know."
Oh, no. What the hell else could be going on here?
"They had to deep-six the recreation section. The last edition of it is coming out Saturday."
Then she went on to explain how advertising had fallen asleep at the wheel, going from selling eight solid ads for a 16-page section when we started to just having three. That's not a good ratio and ultimately, it usually means the end. So now I'm waiting for the punchline -- what are they going to do with the guy in charge of the recreation section after she told me any recreational stories or agate that came in was going to be now put into the regular section.
"Management here has decided they wanted to keep him around," she began again.
I am pretty sure I'm not liking the direction of this.
"And so they have decided to create a 'new' position and have made him the 'executive' sports editor, which means you'll have to report to him."
There was about a 10-second silence after she said that.
"Let me see if I have this straight ... I'm getting my raise, BUT I'm no longer in charge of my department."
"I'm sorry, Mark. I don't like this any more than you do. But this is what they decided."
To this very day, I call that decision the most dysfunctional and stupidest idea any newspaper I've ever seen or heard of come up with. What f**king organization pulls off a stunt like this? For the following 16 months after my termination, I had to explain this whole situation to future employers, whether in person or on the phone and the reaction was usually the same.
Dumbfounderment. As far as they knew, they never heard of an organization this small that pulled this "prank" and ran with it.
Thursday, August 23, 2001 will forever be known as the day I stopped caring about what others outside my department that had been there already did at the Citizen with the exception of the press room and the paste-up people.
Suddenly, everyone else was the enemy. It did not make for the best environment to work in, but I kept a smile nonetheless and pretended I enjoyed working with the others. And I had to occasionally report in to my "executive" sports editor to tell him what's going on -- even if this guy was coming in after 9 a.m. and leaving at 4:30 to go home to his family and spend time with his wife, while the real sports people hung around to lay out the paper.
At a paper the size of say, the Miami Herald or the Sun-Sentinel, you can have an executive sports editor. At a paper with barely 11,000 circulation, people may want more answers as to why our crappy organization suddenly had an "executive" sports editor.
And still to prove the point we were understaffed for a seven-day-a-week newspaper, we had to get football games over the phone. Our coverage, which was beyond stellar in the 2000 season when two of our Keys teams went to the state tournament, had turned into crap the next fall having to cover a Friday night game and now laying out a section for a Saturday. Every Friday night seemed like a circus, and it was about to get worse -- within two weeks of each other, Nick left to take a teaching gig over at Key West High School and Matt left to go back to Chicago.
Thankfully, we replaced both of them with Jennifer, a 22-year-old fresh face out of the University of Florida. Jennifer was supposed to play the role of two people, but I knew that was unrealistic. She even admitted to me she wasn't really a writer. There was going to be no other hires -- Jennifer and I were the real sports department. And the worthless guy went home after 4 f**king 30 every goddamn day Monday through Friday to be with his family.
Great set-up!
Things hit a fever pitch on the first weekend of November 2001. I was set to cover the final game of the football season between Keys neighbors Coral Shores and Key West over at Tommy Roberts Stadium. Well, the "executive" sports editor tells me one day before the game -- one day -- we were going to have to switch up since our Marathon guy could not be at his game and so I was switched to go up to Marathon to cover that game against Gulliver Prep while our part-timer would do the Coral Shores-Key West game, a game that turned out to be a terrific one won by Key West in the final moments. I got stuck with a 49-7 Gulliver Prep rout.
The next day, November 3, 2001, I was scheduled to cover the world powerboat championships off Key West, something I enjoyed covering every year. The event, unfortunately, was canceled because of the impending Hurricane Michelle, which glanced past us without ever hitting the next day. But I had set that up with Jennifer that she'd come in to do the paper and I'd leave after a long day of working the powerboat race. This was not to be an issue whatsoever.
When I get to the paper after 4 p.m., Jennifer had not gotten there yet. Figured maybe she was doing something, but she'll get here within the hour. By 7 p.m. she had not gotten to the paper and I'm now concerned. I wound up calling her and asking her if things were all right.
"Oh, I'm fine. I was given the day off today."
Yeah. HE f**ked up my day and never even once had the nerve to even tell me he was doing so. If this powerboat event had gone off, I would have worked from about 10 a.m. until 1 a.m., covering the story and laying out a six-page section when I had prepared for my assistant to do the layout except for one page that I would do.
The hurricane blew through on that Sunday and come Monday, I was seething just looking at my so-called "boss." I basically ripped him a new one, how dare him not even say one word to me that he was giving Jennifer a day off when I needed her in the office.
His excuse: "I'm the boss! I'll make the decisions!"
Whatever relationship he and I had at that time ended. Period. Real management would have said something to me about their plans, but now, he was admitting to me for the first time that he was far greater than anyone else was in the sports department in not so many words.
You could have taken bets in the newsroom or the building for that matter of how long this relationship was going to last. I certainly was not in a mood to play nice or mend fences and whatever contact we did have was for the betterment of the section.
And having a product done by 11:30 p.m. every night was also grating on my nerves. And yes, we missed our deadlines, sometimes by about 45 minutes, but that was nothing compared to the managing editor, who must take years to read 300-page novels because I can still see the look on our new news-side layout guy who waited on him to read and edit stories so he could put headlines on them, slap them on the page and send them out. If they were so hot and heavy about us making deadline, didn't that also involve him being done on time, too?
I tell people now about my experiences at the Citizen that if I had known I was jumping from the Titanic (the Observer) to the Andrea Doria (the Citizen), I wouldn't have done it. After the two experiences as a sports editor, I was hesitant about wanting to run a sports department ever again.
And all may have been fine after they let me go on that April 6, until I went for my unemployment over two weeks later and got denied for it. I called up the woman who told me the reason they rejected me was that I was "insubordinate," according to the "executive" sports editor.
Geeeeeeeeeeeeeez. Shooooock-eeeer!
I told the nice lady my story and went practically chapter and verse with everything that had taken place from the beginning of 2001 until termination. I know I had to keep it to the abridged version because I would have taken up three hours of her time on the phone. Needless to say a week later, the paper didn't challenge and I got my unemployment.
But to this day, I haven't forgotten all the crap that took place. I don't think I ever will. The "executive" sports editor wrote me an email in 2005 after I was quoted in a story in the Charlotte Sun about the trials and tribulations of running a high school state poll, which I was doing with the Florida Sports Writers Association for boys basketball.
"Saw your name in the Charlotte Sun today. Didn't know where you were. Congratulations. Hope all is going well for you."
Needless to say, I never wrote him back. I was pissed off then. Still pissed off now of how things went down. I can never forgive him for what took place in those last seven-plus months. He had a chance to do something other than take a position that complicated matters beyond repair and he didn't.
Both he and the managing editor who told me we were running a dysfunctional sports department can both go kiss my ass as far as I'm concerned. I know I worked my ass off a lot harder than those two did combined. As for the publisher who helped concoct this great idea of an "executive" sports editor in an 11,000-plus circulation newspaper ... yeah, same fate.
He and his father are the worst bosses I've ever worked under in my career.
Still, the day after my termination, I went back to the office to clean out my desk after deadline and the very next day, I picked up my paycheck and compensation check. That was it. And to show how bad things had gotten, my dear friend Mr. Wagner was let go three weeks later, apparently aggravated by the lack of leadership shown there and not being shy about it, apparently still upset they let me go.
I stuck around Key West until Wednesday, June 5, 2002. The $275-a-week excuse for unemployment in this state wasn't going to allow me to live in this town long. I was gently coerced into sticking around Key West by my good friend at radio station WKWF-AM, Rick Lopez, who did a 5 p.m. local radio sports show from Chili's restaurant with his good friend and partner Todd Swofford.
The Monday after my termination, I was invited on to tell my side of the story. And I was being sincere when I said that I showed no ill will to the people who let me go. I actually said that I was "relieved" that it was over. I'm trying to tell my story while their "third" host -- my first assistant at the paper who left the company in 2000 -- kept interrupting me to tell the entire Keys listening audience of the horrible place the Citizen was to work at. And for the next two months, I had at least somewhere to go instead of sitting around my apartment and doing nothing all day. I was able to cull together a group of guests from coaches to athletes on the show that maybe Rick or Todd couldn't get. And for the first time in a while, I had fun doing something I liked until it was time for me to leave once and for all and head back to live with my folks in New Jersey until seeking out another job.
And the Saturday before I left to go back to New Jersey, my good friend Art gave me a "going-away" party that included a number of the paste-up people, Jennifer and Dave. I'll never forget that, especially the fact that after all was said and done, I was appreciated by those at the paper. Every one of those people there that June night will always get my love and respect no matter what.
As for my former department, let's say things didn't go so well after I left. I met my so-called "replacement" at the Key West High spring football game in late May and he was fresh out of college at Rollins. Nice kid, but when I told him what the job was to entail if he hadn't been told already (I think he was already seeing what was going on there), the smile was slowly wiping itself from his face. Story goes that one night, he told the managing editor that he had to go to take care of his grandmother on the Florida mainland and never came back.
And as for Jennifer, she and I kept in touch for over the next year. She was my sanity in a storm of insanity throughout the last seven months. She eventually moved over to the news side to lay out there after the news side layout guy left. But after one too many nights of being late and not enjoying working for the dynamic duo of the "executive" sports editor and the managing editor, she told me she wrote a letter to the publisher that she quit on the spot, stuck it under his door, packed up all her things and left and said in the letter that it was those two who were the cause of her leaving.
Jennifer was only out of a job for a couple of months. I helped her to get a layout job working for a CNI newspaper in Fernandina Beach. When the woman at the paper I was interviewed by on Jennifer's behalf asked me of what went on at the Citizen, I didn't hold back. I went chapter and verse of all the dysfunction that had taken place. She got the job in September 2002 and I ended up visiting her at the newspaper in late February 2003 while I was waiting on possible job offers and I had time on my hands, so I left cold New Jersey and traveled to Florida for two weeks.
As for myself, it took 16 months and a day before I finally hooked up with the newspaper I'm at now in Palatka, the Daily News. And believe me when I say this -- I don't wish unemployment on even my worst enemy. No one should ever go through that in their lives. Ironically, the PDN, I found out, was also under the same CNI umbrella as the paper I got Jennifer into, but by the summer of 2003, she had left to move on to wherever else she went to. Let's just say I never got a forwarding address.
I admit the whole experience of the last year or so at the Citizen left me jaded and cynical for the rest of my career, even though some of that has worn off over time thanks to the treatment of the people I've worked with at my current office and the 17 awards I've been handed for various stories, columns, features and layout I've done since 2005. I could never thank them enough for what they've done to rehabilitate my career.
Eleven years to the day, I still think about what happened and how all of it could have been avoided. But it wasn't.
The scars still remain no matter how much better the situation is.
Dysfunction does go a long way in life apparently.
The first phone call I made was to Toms River, N.J. My mom picks up the phone and the first thing I said to her was, "Guess what?"
"What?"
"I don't have a job to go to anymore!"
There was this sound of shock. Then I explained what happened and she got a better and clearer understanding of what was going on.
"Believe me. I'm relieved that it's over. I never was one to own a pair of knee pads."
I then explained the whole "knee pads" comment to her in which I wasn't in a mood to acquiesce to the publisher, which seemingly everyone in a higher-up position did at that particular time.
So how did it become so dysfunctional in such a short amount of time? Well, I will pick up the story on Thursday, August 23, 2001, the two-year anniversary for myself at the Citizen after my escape from the dysfunction that was taking place at the Ocean County Observer.
I had just returned from a 2 1/2-week vacation on that Tuesday where I went back to Toms River to see my family. By May 2001, the company owed me 37 days of comp time -- yes, you read right, 37 days! Why, you may ask?
The first part of this dysfunctional story began on Monday, December 18, 2000 when my managing editor called me up to tell me she was firing my assistant of 10 months. Seems the previous Friday, he had run out of a Key West bar that was open an hour later than it should have when the cops came in to find out what was going on and when they caught up to him, he had an ounce of pot and an ounce of cocaine on him. Now keep in mind one thing and one thing only -- he was not my hire. That was forced on me by the man who hired me, the previous managing editor, who wasn't willing to look at one more candidate that I wanted for the assistant's job in 2000.
That alone should have raised a red flag that this may not be the best organization to work for.
With the firing of my assistant of not even 10 months, I was now the only person in my department. And what was about to take place in the first week of 2001 was going to complicate matters even further. We were about to become a seven-day-a-week paper thanks to the new management. So guess what that meant for me? Yes ... I had to work every single day, which I did starting on December 31. By the middle of January, they hired this very knowledgeable layout guy named Matt from Chicago who was to be there to lay out my section and free up the work load for me.
That was all great, but that was Matt's sole purpose with the sports department -- layout. That's what he was hired for and I still had no assistant to actually help me put together a sports section. Another bit of help to me was that the paper had just started doing a Saturday recreational tab that was 16 pages and full of ads. They hired this guy who was once the sports editor at the paper in the 1990s and was glad to get out of the weekly he was working at to take on this new venture. But this was a section that was not completely affiliated with the daily sports section. He had his staff of one part-timer who would do games for me from time to time, but that was it.
Still, no one to directly help me. And until my managing editor directly said she did not want to see me in the building for one weekend in February, I worked every single day for 41 straight days. Why? The last thing I wanted to do to poor Matt was show even the hint of the dysfunction that was happening in that newsroom. But ultimately, he was OK with the idea of working six days, so I gave him Thursdays off since they were fairly easy for me to work and I'd find a day here or there that he didn't have to be at work. I would take off Sundays and be back at work on Monday.
This went on while my relationship with my girlfriend of nearly four years was falling apart at the seams. By late March 2001, it was over and we moved out of our two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment into separate one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartments in the same complex. The constant work schedule was not the reason for the breakup, but it wasn't helping that we weren't around each other much at this point. I ended up taking an entire weekend to move into my new apartment, but the task was finished late Sunday night/early Monday morning.
The schedule of six-day work weeks was taking a toll and it wasn't until May when finally -- finally! -- we had hired my assistant, a guy named Nick. And it meant Mark began taking time off from work starting in June. I ended up taking not one, but four weeks of vacation that no one raised any opposition to nor said anything about. They knew I was owed the time off for working all of 2001 with the exception of 14 Sundays total.
Let's just say the death eye would have been flashed any one's way if they even disagreed.
And so I took off for my vacations, two one-weekers that I stayed in Florida for, then the one to New Jersey from August 5-20. Frankly, I just didn't given a shit.
So I come back into work on Tuesday, August 21 and the first two days were getting re-acclimated to the everyday grind that now I was going to have to get used to. We had a football section to put together and thanks to Matt, we were able to get it done before the first regular-season game, which was August 31.
But before that was the two-year evaluation. I go into my managing editor's office and we talked about the previous year. She knew the craziness that had taken place to this point. The thing that endeared me to her was the fact that I worked hard. Though I had disagreements with a couple of people in the newsroom (one being the former assistant that worked with me), she knew I had the right intentions for the paper and the business.
"You're getting your raise," she started.
Then ...
"There's something you need to know."
Oh, no. What the hell else could be going on here?
"They had to deep-six the recreation section. The last edition of it is coming out Saturday."
Then she went on to explain how advertising had fallen asleep at the wheel, going from selling eight solid ads for a 16-page section when we started to just having three. That's not a good ratio and ultimately, it usually means the end. So now I'm waiting for the punchline -- what are they going to do with the guy in charge of the recreation section after she told me any recreational stories or agate that came in was going to be now put into the regular section.
"Management here has decided they wanted to keep him around," she began again.
I am pretty sure I'm not liking the direction of this.
"And so they have decided to create a 'new' position and have made him the 'executive' sports editor, which means you'll have to report to him."
There was about a 10-second silence after she said that.
"Let me see if I have this straight ... I'm getting my raise, BUT I'm no longer in charge of my department."
"I'm sorry, Mark. I don't like this any more than you do. But this is what they decided."
To this very day, I call that decision the most dysfunctional and stupidest idea any newspaper I've ever seen or heard of come up with. What f**king organization pulls off a stunt like this? For the following 16 months after my termination, I had to explain this whole situation to future employers, whether in person or on the phone and the reaction was usually the same.
Dumbfounderment. As far as they knew, they never heard of an organization this small that pulled this "prank" and ran with it.
Thursday, August 23, 2001 will forever be known as the day I stopped caring about what others outside my department that had been there already did at the Citizen with the exception of the press room and the paste-up people.
Suddenly, everyone else was the enemy. It did not make for the best environment to work in, but I kept a smile nonetheless and pretended I enjoyed working with the others. And I had to occasionally report in to my "executive" sports editor to tell him what's going on -- even if this guy was coming in after 9 a.m. and leaving at 4:30 to go home to his family and spend time with his wife, while the real sports people hung around to lay out the paper.
At a paper the size of say, the Miami Herald or the Sun-Sentinel, you can have an executive sports editor. At a paper with barely 11,000 circulation, people may want more answers as to why our crappy organization suddenly had an "executive" sports editor.
And still to prove the point we were understaffed for a seven-day-a-week newspaper, we had to get football games over the phone. Our coverage, which was beyond stellar in the 2000 season when two of our Keys teams went to the state tournament, had turned into crap the next fall having to cover a Friday night game and now laying out a section for a Saturday. Every Friday night seemed like a circus, and it was about to get worse -- within two weeks of each other, Nick left to take a teaching gig over at Key West High School and Matt left to go back to Chicago.
Thankfully, we replaced both of them with Jennifer, a 22-year-old fresh face out of the University of Florida. Jennifer was supposed to play the role of two people, but I knew that was unrealistic. She even admitted to me she wasn't really a writer. There was going to be no other hires -- Jennifer and I were the real sports department. And the worthless guy went home after 4 f**king 30 every goddamn day Monday through Friday to be with his family.
Great set-up!
Things hit a fever pitch on the first weekend of November 2001. I was set to cover the final game of the football season between Keys neighbors Coral Shores and Key West over at Tommy Roberts Stadium. Well, the "executive" sports editor tells me one day before the game -- one day -- we were going to have to switch up since our Marathon guy could not be at his game and so I was switched to go up to Marathon to cover that game against Gulliver Prep while our part-timer would do the Coral Shores-Key West game, a game that turned out to be a terrific one won by Key West in the final moments. I got stuck with a 49-7 Gulliver Prep rout.
The next day, November 3, 2001, I was scheduled to cover the world powerboat championships off Key West, something I enjoyed covering every year. The event, unfortunately, was canceled because of the impending Hurricane Michelle, which glanced past us without ever hitting the next day. But I had set that up with Jennifer that she'd come in to do the paper and I'd leave after a long day of working the powerboat race. This was not to be an issue whatsoever.
When I get to the paper after 4 p.m., Jennifer had not gotten there yet. Figured maybe she was doing something, but she'll get here within the hour. By 7 p.m. she had not gotten to the paper and I'm now concerned. I wound up calling her and asking her if things were all right.
"Oh, I'm fine. I was given the day off today."
Yeah. HE f**ked up my day and never even once had the nerve to even tell me he was doing so. If this powerboat event had gone off, I would have worked from about 10 a.m. until 1 a.m., covering the story and laying out a six-page section when I had prepared for my assistant to do the layout except for one page that I would do.
The hurricane blew through on that Sunday and come Monday, I was seething just looking at my so-called "boss." I basically ripped him a new one, how dare him not even say one word to me that he was giving Jennifer a day off when I needed her in the office.
His excuse: "I'm the boss! I'll make the decisions!"
Whatever relationship he and I had at that time ended. Period. Real management would have said something to me about their plans, but now, he was admitting to me for the first time that he was far greater than anyone else was in the sports department in not so many words.
You could have taken bets in the newsroom or the building for that matter of how long this relationship was going to last. I certainly was not in a mood to play nice or mend fences and whatever contact we did have was for the betterment of the section.
And having a product done by 11:30 p.m. every night was also grating on my nerves. And yes, we missed our deadlines, sometimes by about 45 minutes, but that was nothing compared to the managing editor, who must take years to read 300-page novels because I can still see the look on our new news-side layout guy who waited on him to read and edit stories so he could put headlines on them, slap them on the page and send them out. If they were so hot and heavy about us making deadline, didn't that also involve him being done on time, too?
I tell people now about my experiences at the Citizen that if I had known I was jumping from the Titanic (the Observer) to the Andrea Doria (the Citizen), I wouldn't have done it. After the two experiences as a sports editor, I was hesitant about wanting to run a sports department ever again.
And all may have been fine after they let me go on that April 6, until I went for my unemployment over two weeks later and got denied for it. I called up the woman who told me the reason they rejected me was that I was "insubordinate," according to the "executive" sports editor.
Geeeeeeeeeeeeeez. Shooooock-eeeer!
I told the nice lady my story and went practically chapter and verse with everything that had taken place from the beginning of 2001 until termination. I know I had to keep it to the abridged version because I would have taken up three hours of her time on the phone. Needless to say a week later, the paper didn't challenge and I got my unemployment.
But to this day, I haven't forgotten all the crap that took place. I don't think I ever will. The "executive" sports editor wrote me an email in 2005 after I was quoted in a story in the Charlotte Sun about the trials and tribulations of running a high school state poll, which I was doing with the Florida Sports Writers Association for boys basketball.
"Saw your name in the Charlotte Sun today. Didn't know where you were. Congratulations. Hope all is going well for you."
Needless to say, I never wrote him back. I was pissed off then. Still pissed off now of how things went down. I can never forgive him for what took place in those last seven-plus months. He had a chance to do something other than take a position that complicated matters beyond repair and he didn't.
Both he and the managing editor who told me we were running a dysfunctional sports department can both go kiss my ass as far as I'm concerned. I know I worked my ass off a lot harder than those two did combined. As for the publisher who helped concoct this great idea of an "executive" sports editor in an 11,000-plus circulation newspaper ... yeah, same fate.
He and his father are the worst bosses I've ever worked under in my career.
Still, the day after my termination, I went back to the office to clean out my desk after deadline and the very next day, I picked up my paycheck and compensation check. That was it. And to show how bad things had gotten, my dear friend Mr. Wagner was let go three weeks later, apparently aggravated by the lack of leadership shown there and not being shy about it, apparently still upset they let me go.
I stuck around Key West until Wednesday, June 5, 2002. The $275-a-week excuse for unemployment in this state wasn't going to allow me to live in this town long. I was gently coerced into sticking around Key West by my good friend at radio station WKWF-AM, Rick Lopez, who did a 5 p.m. local radio sports show from Chili's restaurant with his good friend and partner Todd Swofford.
The Monday after my termination, I was invited on to tell my side of the story. And I was being sincere when I said that I showed no ill will to the people who let me go. I actually said that I was "relieved" that it was over. I'm trying to tell my story while their "third" host -- my first assistant at the paper who left the company in 2000 -- kept interrupting me to tell the entire Keys listening audience of the horrible place the Citizen was to work at. And for the next two months, I had at least somewhere to go instead of sitting around my apartment and doing nothing all day. I was able to cull together a group of guests from coaches to athletes on the show that maybe Rick or Todd couldn't get. And for the first time in a while, I had fun doing something I liked until it was time for me to leave once and for all and head back to live with my folks in New Jersey until seeking out another job.
And the Saturday before I left to go back to New Jersey, my good friend Art gave me a "going-away" party that included a number of the paste-up people, Jennifer and Dave. I'll never forget that, especially the fact that after all was said and done, I was appreciated by those at the paper. Every one of those people there that June night will always get my love and respect no matter what.
As for my former department, let's say things didn't go so well after I left. I met my so-called "replacement" at the Key West High spring football game in late May and he was fresh out of college at Rollins. Nice kid, but when I told him what the job was to entail if he hadn't been told already (I think he was already seeing what was going on there), the smile was slowly wiping itself from his face. Story goes that one night, he told the managing editor that he had to go to take care of his grandmother on the Florida mainland and never came back.
And as for Jennifer, she and I kept in touch for over the next year. She was my sanity in a storm of insanity throughout the last seven months. She eventually moved over to the news side to lay out there after the news side layout guy left. But after one too many nights of being late and not enjoying working for the dynamic duo of the "executive" sports editor and the managing editor, she told me she wrote a letter to the publisher that she quit on the spot, stuck it under his door, packed up all her things and left and said in the letter that it was those two who were the cause of her leaving.
Jennifer was only out of a job for a couple of months. I helped her to get a layout job working for a CNI newspaper in Fernandina Beach. When the woman at the paper I was interviewed by on Jennifer's behalf asked me of what went on at the Citizen, I didn't hold back. I went chapter and verse of all the dysfunction that had taken place. She got the job in September 2002 and I ended up visiting her at the newspaper in late February 2003 while I was waiting on possible job offers and I had time on my hands, so I left cold New Jersey and traveled to Florida for two weeks.
As for myself, it took 16 months and a day before I finally hooked up with the newspaper I'm at now in Palatka, the Daily News. And believe me when I say this -- I don't wish unemployment on even my worst enemy. No one should ever go through that in their lives. Ironically, the PDN, I found out, was also under the same CNI umbrella as the paper I got Jennifer into, but by the summer of 2003, she had left to move on to wherever else she went to. Let's just say I never got a forwarding address.
I admit the whole experience of the last year or so at the Citizen left me jaded and cynical for the rest of my career, even though some of that has worn off over time thanks to the treatment of the people I've worked with at my current office and the 17 awards I've been handed for various stories, columns, features and layout I've done since 2005. I could never thank them enough for what they've done to rehabilitate my career.
Eleven years to the day, I still think about what happened and how all of it could have been avoided. But it wasn't.
The scars still remain no matter how much better the situation is.
Dysfunction does go a long way in life apparently.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
The first state bowling experience -- in an A.C. casino
Some combinations sound wonderful in the beginning. Whoever thought that soup-and-salad package at Panera's was going to take off? And whoever concocted chocolate, toasted marshmallows and graham crackers around campfires -- kudos!
Those are wonderful combinations from a food standpoint. But what about having the state high school bowling championships in an Atlantic City casino? Maaaaaaah-valous!!
Well, that's how I felt as I lobbied for covering the 1988 New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association boys bowling championship, which this particular year was being held at the Showboat Hotel Casino. Now, I admit that my wanting to cover the state bowling championship was for selfish reasons. Part of it was the fact that I had covered the sport for the Observer for four seasons, yet I had never covered a live event involving the sport. I knew how the sport worked and I knew the object of it was that the person or the team with the most pins knocked down would win.
To this day, I'm still not sure why I didn't get to cover any bowling up until then considering we had reams of space and pages back in the mid-1980s. And in all honestly, I wasn't really trying hard to cover the sport, but when it came to a state championship event, I wanted to at least be there! In 1987, Toms River North's boys, led by the dynamic duo of senior Steve Spector and junior Jay Stanton helped lead the Mariners to the state team title. And Southern Regional High senior Debbie Freeman won the state girls individual championship.
And I missed that. This time around, I wasn't going to miss something very big.
To set the stage for the 1987-88 bowling season, here's what you need to know: Brick High's dynamic duo of Kevin Musakiewicz and Gabe Kamphausen were lighting up the alleys at Ocean Lanes in Lakewood, where the Southern Division was bowled on a regular season basis. But then enter two young men who would change the way things went that year. There was Stanton, who was now the senior leader for North and he led the league with a gaudy 220 per match average -- which for an 18-year-old was pretty freakin' insane. I'm like, "A 220?! Reaaaaaally?" I like bowling, too, but I'd be lucky if I got 220 together for two games, let alone one.
All season, Stanton was fighting it out for the top average of the league with Toms River East junior sensation Shawn McCloud, whose father, Keith, I knew as the former boys cross country coach and now assistant principal at Toms River North. During the 1987-88 season, McCloud made history by rolling the first 300 game in county high school competition.
All I know was the numbers I kept getting from the alleys every Wednesday were making my head spin. And, yes, I, at one point, started to accuse these young men putting up the pretty steep numbers of being one-alley wonders -- in other words, I didn't think they were going to be successful once postseason tournaments began in other houses.
And I took a crap-load of flak for it, too. How dare I even believe that?!
But North was the defending state champion and they qualified in the top three teams at the South Jersey championships in Cherry Hill to advance to the 1988 state meet. And so did the two top guys in the division individually, McCloud and Stanton. And Brick High's boys were going to the state meet, too. Brick High's girls were going, as was the Lakewood High girls.
This 1988 state bowling championship event was one I had to be at. No questions asked! I needed to take a trip down the Garden State Parkway to Exit 38-A, then onto the Expressway until getting to A.C. This was also going to be the first time I was in Atlantic City since former Governor Brendan T. Byrne signed the law in 1978 allowing casinos in the city. The last time I had been in A.C. was in November 1975, over 2 1/2 years from when casinos became an everyday way of life. I was 9 years old and I went with my dad, mom and sister to a city that was totally different than what I was about to go to on this Saturday afternoon, March 12, 1988.
In 1975, Atlantic City had its boardwalk and it was just so serene. It was a quiet, large town that had no inkling that gambling and entertainment were about to overtake it and make it into this bustling city that even the makers of Monopoly never dreamed would happen.
But I also had a guy who was pretty positive as North's coach. Frank Hughes had taken over the reins as North's coach after the friendly Martin Greenfield had retired with his last hurrah being that state championship. And North had a great season, challenging for the division title. North ended up surprising the field that year and winning it over Brick, Brick Memorial, Lakewood and East. Hughes was also Toms River North's band director and one of the most popular teachers in the building. His enthusiasm for the boys bowling team he coached may not have matched that of the band he directed, but it was sure as heck a close second.
It was that enthusiasm and his saying, "Yeah, you ought to come down for this," that sealed the deal for me to go to A.C. on that beautiful March afternoon with temperatures in the low 50s.
When I got off the Parkway and off the Expressway and landed on the main strip of A.C., I had this "I believe were no longer in Kansas" feel. Thank goodness there were signs all over the place to direct me to where the Showboat was. I remember turning onto the street of the Showboat and having to go into the parking garage which cost me $2 to park.
More signs greeted me as I got out of the lot and into the building, which immediately had that wretched cigarette smell to it considering you could light up anywhere back in 1988. All I cared about as I passed by a casino in the building was where the bowling alleys were located. And they were located in an upstairs part of the building. So through the use of an escalator, I found myself on the floor of the bowling alley.
This is to show you how stringent things were when it came to coverage of big events back in 1988 -- I walked into the bowling alley and no one even gave me a glance as to check for a press pass. So I did what I would go and do for the next 11 years when it came to covering bowling: I'd find one of the teams I covered and stand behind them watching the action.
Since I was new to this, I really wasn't sure what to expect or the enthusiasm level. And it just so happened I found Hughes and his North Mariners. They had just finished rolling the first game and it was a good score for North as it rolled a 796. But now as I watched North roll the second game, I can see a fluency and cohesiveness that I became used to while covering the sport. If one guy had a bad frame, the next guy would come along and pick him up. But in this game, the Mariners were scorching hot, rolling a 970 to pull into a first-place tie with Union High at 1,766. Linden was in third at 1,723.
North had bowled such a quick and dominant second game that it had time to relax before the third-game pairings were announced. I went over to watch other matches, but I could not help watching a young man who was the anchor bowler of one of the North Jersey teams. He was trying to master the lanes of the Showboat and in doing so, had gotten on a roll with this wicked hook he was throwing. Well, it was affecting his wrist so badly that he needed to ice it down as he held it like he had broken it.
What a terrible toll to pay for trying to be the best in this sport.
Some teams were still rolling, so I had a little time to kill and I decided to go to the closest casino in the building. I had some dollars that I turned into quarters and I was hitting the slot machines pretty good for the few dollars I had. I would win a few quarters here and there, but ultimately, all the quarters would go. This would last maybe 3-4 minutes. When I finally left to go back, no more than two slot machines away was one of the participants in the tournament. And behind me at another machine was a couple of more kids. And as I walked back to the bowling alley, I think I saw a couple of more kids.
It was there that it hit me -- this whole concept of bowling a state championship in a casino was a bad, bad idea. These kids couldn't play any of the gambling games because of their age. Yes, a bad, bad idea.
The third game was about to take place and North was put up against, no kidding, the other first-place team in the house in Union. This was mano-a-mano bowling. And North was up to the task. The Mariners, led by Stanton, were having a big third game. The Farmers -- yes, that's Union's nickname believe it or not -- would continue to stay near North as the later frames were approaching. North ended up winning this game with Union by bowling an equally gaudy 915. Union ended up at 898, which meant North had a 17-pin lead, holding a 2,681 pinfall.
This should have been enough to win a state title and make history for North that afternoon less than four months after I covered North's field hockey team winning the NJSIAA Group IV championship on a chilly early evening at Trenton State College.
But as North and Union were finishing up at one end of the house, I started hearing loud roars from the other side. It could have been a girls team going crazy -- those high-pitched girls could practically scream in cheers of joy. But a moment or two later, a North parent came over to where the Mariner boys were finishing up their third-game win against Union.
"It's Linden," he said. "They're just connecting."
And they were. I scooted over from where North and Union were to see how Linden was going. Linden's Tigers were connecting in unison like five competing members of the Pro Bowlers Tour. One strike after another, right down the frame line. At one point, I think I counted seven consecutive strikes. It got down to the 10th frame. Linden was not backing down. It became near the very end of that frame the Tigers were going to overtake North and win the title.
And Linden did. In the end, and thanks to anchor bowler Jim Heimall's top game of the day at 289, the Tigers finished with a 2,713 series, rolling an insane 990 in the last game to be 32 pins better than North, which had to settle for second after winning the state title the year before. Heartbreaking, yes, considering the number of open frames North left late in the third game. The Mariners paid for it.
But while North's bowling team could not join its field hockey girls for state championship success that year, Stanton was able to join gymnast Janice Rogers as a Marinerz individual state champion. Stanton finished with a three-game ledger of 671 and capped one of the greatest scholastic bowling seasons I ever witnessed -- a 220 season average topped off by a state championship 671 in which he was practically true to his average -- 223.7 per game.
I ate crow. And I didn't mind for one moment doing that for Jay Stanton was one of the truly fine young men I came across in my career. Like Janice Rogers, Stanton was heading to Penn State University where he told me the school had a bowling team.
McCloud also proved his numbers weren't just juiced on a home alley in Lakewood. He finished in a not-too-shabby fifth individually with a 608. He, like Stanton, was just a class act in how he handled himself. I knew the sport was in good hands with McCloud, Musakiewicz, Kamphausen and other talents returning for the 1988-89 season.
The girls' championship saw Middletown North's Kelly Winters win with a 565 series individually and Edison High win its third straight team title with a 2,455 series, beating out Gloucester Catholic and Woodbridge for the crown. But Brick was right there in fourth place with a 2,340 series. Lakewood's girls were in ninth at 2,234. Individually, Debbie Matonis, who like Stanton was a North senior, was the top girl from Ocean County, placing sixth with a 540 series. Brick's Dawn Hawk finished eighth and Lakewood's Addie Dix, who as a sophomore would win the state title the next year, was 20th.
As for the state meet itself, this tournament ... as I figured it would be ... was one and done in the world's largest playground by the Shore. Too many complaints -- none by me, mind you -- dogged the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association and the next year, they moved the state meet to its longtime home of Carolier Lanes in North Brunswick, conveniently located off US-1. In 1991, I had the awkward position of covering the state meet at Carolier while stepping over some huge cable wires that ABC had put down to telecast the Johnny Petraglia Open, Pro Bowlers Tour event that same Saturday afternoon after the state high school championships had finished up.
Talk about uncomfortable.
And when it came time to pay the $2 ticket to park at the Showboat leaving, I pulled just exactly that out of my wallet ... two bucks. I had no money left. That will teach me to gamble while on the job! So for the next hour and change that late afternoon in March, I wound up having to go home via the Expressway, where I paid a quarter, which was all I had left, to get off at the exit where Route 9 was. And yes -- I took Route 9 aaaaaaaaaaaall the waaaaaaay back 45 miles, back into Toms River to the Observer building to write the story.
In one afternoon, I learned a lot about the competitive sport of bowling. Yes, high school bowling at its absolutely, exciting and competitive best. So inspired by covering it, I would go on and cover the state tournament every year through 1998 because we always had some individual or team up for a state championship. The state bowling championship is one of the best yearly events I've ever done in my nearly 29 years in this business.
Frank Hughes' enthusiasm sold me on the idea. Jay Stanton's performance that afternoon made me want to come back.
And my selfishness to want to go to Atlantic City certainly didn't hurt the cause either.
Those are wonderful combinations from a food standpoint. But what about having the state high school bowling championships in an Atlantic City casino? Maaaaaaah-valous!!
Well, that's how I felt as I lobbied for covering the 1988 New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association boys bowling championship, which this particular year was being held at the Showboat Hotel Casino. Now, I admit that my wanting to cover the state bowling championship was for selfish reasons. Part of it was the fact that I had covered the sport for the Observer for four seasons, yet I had never covered a live event involving the sport. I knew how the sport worked and I knew the object of it was that the person or the team with the most pins knocked down would win.
To this day, I'm still not sure why I didn't get to cover any bowling up until then considering we had reams of space and pages back in the mid-1980s. And in all honestly, I wasn't really trying hard to cover the sport, but when it came to a state championship event, I wanted to at least be there! In 1987, Toms River North's boys, led by the dynamic duo of senior Steve Spector and junior Jay Stanton helped lead the Mariners to the state team title. And Southern Regional High senior Debbie Freeman won the state girls individual championship.
And I missed that. This time around, I wasn't going to miss something very big.
To set the stage for the 1987-88 bowling season, here's what you need to know: Brick High's dynamic duo of Kevin Musakiewicz and Gabe Kamphausen were lighting up the alleys at Ocean Lanes in Lakewood, where the Southern Division was bowled on a regular season basis. But then enter two young men who would change the way things went that year. There was Stanton, who was now the senior leader for North and he led the league with a gaudy 220 per match average -- which for an 18-year-old was pretty freakin' insane. I'm like, "A 220?! Reaaaaaally?" I like bowling, too, but I'd be lucky if I got 220 together for two games, let alone one.
All season, Stanton was fighting it out for the top average of the league with Toms River East junior sensation Shawn McCloud, whose father, Keith, I knew as the former boys cross country coach and now assistant principal at Toms River North. During the 1987-88 season, McCloud made history by rolling the first 300 game in county high school competition.
All I know was the numbers I kept getting from the alleys every Wednesday were making my head spin. And, yes, I, at one point, started to accuse these young men putting up the pretty steep numbers of being one-alley wonders -- in other words, I didn't think they were going to be successful once postseason tournaments began in other houses.
And I took a crap-load of flak for it, too. How dare I even believe that?!
But North was the defending state champion and they qualified in the top three teams at the South Jersey championships in Cherry Hill to advance to the 1988 state meet. And so did the two top guys in the division individually, McCloud and Stanton. And Brick High's boys were going to the state meet, too. Brick High's girls were going, as was the Lakewood High girls.
This 1988 state bowling championship event was one I had to be at. No questions asked! I needed to take a trip down the Garden State Parkway to Exit 38-A, then onto the Expressway until getting to A.C. This was also going to be the first time I was in Atlantic City since former Governor Brendan T. Byrne signed the law in 1978 allowing casinos in the city. The last time I had been in A.C. was in November 1975, over 2 1/2 years from when casinos became an everyday way of life. I was 9 years old and I went with my dad, mom and sister to a city that was totally different than what I was about to go to on this Saturday afternoon, March 12, 1988.
In 1975, Atlantic City had its boardwalk and it was just so serene. It was a quiet, large town that had no inkling that gambling and entertainment were about to overtake it and make it into this bustling city that even the makers of Monopoly never dreamed would happen.
But I also had a guy who was pretty positive as North's coach. Frank Hughes had taken over the reins as North's coach after the friendly Martin Greenfield had retired with his last hurrah being that state championship. And North had a great season, challenging for the division title. North ended up surprising the field that year and winning it over Brick, Brick Memorial, Lakewood and East. Hughes was also Toms River North's band director and one of the most popular teachers in the building. His enthusiasm for the boys bowling team he coached may not have matched that of the band he directed, but it was sure as heck a close second.
It was that enthusiasm and his saying, "Yeah, you ought to come down for this," that sealed the deal for me to go to A.C. on that beautiful March afternoon with temperatures in the low 50s.
When I got off the Parkway and off the Expressway and landed on the main strip of A.C., I had this "I believe were no longer in Kansas" feel. Thank goodness there were signs all over the place to direct me to where the Showboat was. I remember turning onto the street of the Showboat and having to go into the parking garage which cost me $2 to park.
More signs greeted me as I got out of the lot and into the building, which immediately had that wretched cigarette smell to it considering you could light up anywhere back in 1988. All I cared about as I passed by a casino in the building was where the bowling alleys were located. And they were located in an upstairs part of the building. So through the use of an escalator, I found myself on the floor of the bowling alley.
This is to show you how stringent things were when it came to coverage of big events back in 1988 -- I walked into the bowling alley and no one even gave me a glance as to check for a press pass. So I did what I would go and do for the next 11 years when it came to covering bowling: I'd find one of the teams I covered and stand behind them watching the action.
Since I was new to this, I really wasn't sure what to expect or the enthusiasm level. And it just so happened I found Hughes and his North Mariners. They had just finished rolling the first game and it was a good score for North as it rolled a 796. But now as I watched North roll the second game, I can see a fluency and cohesiveness that I became used to while covering the sport. If one guy had a bad frame, the next guy would come along and pick him up. But in this game, the Mariners were scorching hot, rolling a 970 to pull into a first-place tie with Union High at 1,766. Linden was in third at 1,723.
North had bowled such a quick and dominant second game that it had time to relax before the third-game pairings were announced. I went over to watch other matches, but I could not help watching a young man who was the anchor bowler of one of the North Jersey teams. He was trying to master the lanes of the Showboat and in doing so, had gotten on a roll with this wicked hook he was throwing. Well, it was affecting his wrist so badly that he needed to ice it down as he held it like he had broken it.
What a terrible toll to pay for trying to be the best in this sport.
Some teams were still rolling, so I had a little time to kill and I decided to go to the closest casino in the building. I had some dollars that I turned into quarters and I was hitting the slot machines pretty good for the few dollars I had. I would win a few quarters here and there, but ultimately, all the quarters would go. This would last maybe 3-4 minutes. When I finally left to go back, no more than two slot machines away was one of the participants in the tournament. And behind me at another machine was a couple of more kids. And as I walked back to the bowling alley, I think I saw a couple of more kids.
It was there that it hit me -- this whole concept of bowling a state championship in a casino was a bad, bad idea. These kids couldn't play any of the gambling games because of their age. Yes, a bad, bad idea.
The third game was about to take place and North was put up against, no kidding, the other first-place team in the house in Union. This was mano-a-mano bowling. And North was up to the task. The Mariners, led by Stanton, were having a big third game. The Farmers -- yes, that's Union's nickname believe it or not -- would continue to stay near North as the later frames were approaching. North ended up winning this game with Union by bowling an equally gaudy 915. Union ended up at 898, which meant North had a 17-pin lead, holding a 2,681 pinfall.
This should have been enough to win a state title and make history for North that afternoon less than four months after I covered North's field hockey team winning the NJSIAA Group IV championship on a chilly early evening at Trenton State College.
But as North and Union were finishing up at one end of the house, I started hearing loud roars from the other side. It could have been a girls team going crazy -- those high-pitched girls could practically scream in cheers of joy. But a moment or two later, a North parent came over to where the Mariner boys were finishing up their third-game win against Union.
"It's Linden," he said. "They're just connecting."
And they were. I scooted over from where North and Union were to see how Linden was going. Linden's Tigers were connecting in unison like five competing members of the Pro Bowlers Tour. One strike after another, right down the frame line. At one point, I think I counted seven consecutive strikes. It got down to the 10th frame. Linden was not backing down. It became near the very end of that frame the Tigers were going to overtake North and win the title.
And Linden did. In the end, and thanks to anchor bowler Jim Heimall's top game of the day at 289, the Tigers finished with a 2,713 series, rolling an insane 990 in the last game to be 32 pins better than North, which had to settle for second after winning the state title the year before. Heartbreaking, yes, considering the number of open frames North left late in the third game. The Mariners paid for it.
But while North's bowling team could not join its field hockey girls for state championship success that year, Stanton was able to join gymnast Janice Rogers as a Marinerz individual state champion. Stanton finished with a three-game ledger of 671 and capped one of the greatest scholastic bowling seasons I ever witnessed -- a 220 season average topped off by a state championship 671 in which he was practically true to his average -- 223.7 per game.
I ate crow. And I didn't mind for one moment doing that for Jay Stanton was one of the truly fine young men I came across in my career. Like Janice Rogers, Stanton was heading to Penn State University where he told me the school had a bowling team.
McCloud also proved his numbers weren't just juiced on a home alley in Lakewood. He finished in a not-too-shabby fifth individually with a 608. He, like Stanton, was just a class act in how he handled himself. I knew the sport was in good hands with McCloud, Musakiewicz, Kamphausen and other talents returning for the 1988-89 season.
The girls' championship saw Middletown North's Kelly Winters win with a 565 series individually and Edison High win its third straight team title with a 2,455 series, beating out Gloucester Catholic and Woodbridge for the crown. But Brick was right there in fourth place with a 2,340 series. Lakewood's girls were in ninth at 2,234. Individually, Debbie Matonis, who like Stanton was a North senior, was the top girl from Ocean County, placing sixth with a 540 series. Brick's Dawn Hawk finished eighth and Lakewood's Addie Dix, who as a sophomore would win the state title the next year, was 20th.
As for the state meet itself, this tournament ... as I figured it would be ... was one and done in the world's largest playground by the Shore. Too many complaints -- none by me, mind you -- dogged the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association and the next year, they moved the state meet to its longtime home of Carolier Lanes in North Brunswick, conveniently located off US-1. In 1991, I had the awkward position of covering the state meet at Carolier while stepping over some huge cable wires that ABC had put down to telecast the Johnny Petraglia Open, Pro Bowlers Tour event that same Saturday afternoon after the state high school championships had finished up.
Talk about uncomfortable.
And when it came time to pay the $2 ticket to park at the Showboat leaving, I pulled just exactly that out of my wallet ... two bucks. I had no money left. That will teach me to gamble while on the job! So for the next hour and change that late afternoon in March, I wound up having to go home via the Expressway, where I paid a quarter, which was all I had left, to get off at the exit where Route 9 was. And yes -- I took Route 9 aaaaaaaaaaaall the waaaaaaay back 45 miles, back into Toms River to the Observer building to write the story.
In one afternoon, I learned a lot about the competitive sport of bowling. Yes, high school bowling at its absolutely, exciting and competitive best. So inspired by covering it, I would go on and cover the state tournament every year through 1998 because we always had some individual or team up for a state championship. The state bowling championship is one of the best yearly events I've ever done in my nearly 29 years in this business.
Frank Hughes' enthusiasm sold me on the idea. Jay Stanton's performance that afternoon made me want to come back.
And my selfishness to want to go to Atlantic City certainly didn't hurt the cause either.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
The Piner girls basketball championship I wasn't supposed to cover
Like a lot of things that have happened in my sports writing career, numerous events I got to cover came by accident.
Someone was supposed to cover the 1998 Little League World Series, not me. Someone was supposed to cover Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville in 2005, not me. Someone was supposed to cover the 1986 Jersey Shore Summer Basketball League championship, not me.
And when it came to witnessing my first state sectional championship in person, I wasn't supposed to be there either.
It was Friday night, March 8, 1985. And it was supposed to be a night off from work, my one night off a week I was supposed to get. But all that got changed the weekend before when Chris Christopher, our esteemed Ocean County Observer main sports writer, had a little accident at the gym he was a member of at the time. Seems the story goes that Chris was adjusting the weight he was lifting on one of the universal machines and as he was doing that, he had left his hand on the weight, not knowing his fate was about to be sealed a moment later when the suspended weight came accidentally crashing down on his fingers, breaking a couple of them.
There's nothing more frustrating than being a journalist with broken fingers. Henceforth, Chris was out of commission ... for practically an entire month! So that meant Mark's free Fridays got tossed to the wayside for the entire month. I spent every day -- even my one day off from work -- having to take scores over the phone (whatever there was left of the winter season since basketball season was winding down) and not only have to write all the team previews for the upcoming softball and girls soccer seasons, but for the upcoming baseball season. Good thing the season started on April 1.
And back in the day, it wasn't divisional previews involving our teams that would take up about six to seven inches per team ... nooooo, this was 15-20 inches per team. When I got done with what amounted to 44 previews since Point Pleasant Beach did not have a softball program as well as Ocean County College baseball and softball previews, I frankly did not want to write another preview for months.
But with the bad, there also came some good with Chris' absence ... though I certainly with all my other responsibilities at the time (which included coming up with the All-County boys and girls bowling teams and male and female swimmer of the year honors) wasn't too thrilled with doing a little extra.
The "little extra," though, involved covering the Lakewood High School girls basketball team, a talented team with the focal point being 6-foot-2 senior Faith Nafziger, a 1,000-point scorer who was taking her talents after graduation to St. Peter's in Jersey City. So at least I knew who to focus on when the Piners, who were now in the semifinals of the NJSIAA South Jersey Group III tournament, faced Rancocas Valley at neutral site court Collingswood High School.
Well, before I had to go down Route 70 and then I-295 south to get to my destination, there was going to be a passenger along the way with me for this ride ... and all the other rides I would take as long as LHS was still alive in the state tournament.
Yes, I had to take longtime Lakewood resident Chris Christopher with me to the games. This meant I would have to pick him up at the house he lived at with his parents off of Central Avenue. Yeah, it was taking me away from where I had to go, but back in 1985, I had a hell of a lot more patience than I do now.
For this ride and the subsequent road trips, I had to listen to him just talk non-stop ... from start to finish. I don't think he was completely convinced that these Piners had it in them to be a state sectional champion. Certainly on Tuesday, March 5, we would soon find out against Rancocas Valley's Red Devils.
Well, the Piners didn't look good as a team. Even though Lakewood had as much as a 14-point lead in the second quarter, the Red Devils cut the lead down and with 4:29 left, Terri Johnson's layup gave Rancocas Valley a 42-41 lead. But that would be the only lead the Red Devils would have the rest of the way as Lakewood got its second wind and got seven points from Nafziger and six more from point guard Carol Walters, in what would turn out to be a 55-44 Lakewood win.
So after I had dictated the story over the phone to our assistant sports editor, I had to take Chris back to his house in Lakewood -- more non-stop chatter the whole way. And I knew he'd be begging for a ride on this particular Friday night, March 8 when the Piners would face a formidable foe in Collingswood High.
Collingswood's Cols were a balanced team, but there was no doubt with who the leader was -- an almost 30-year-old man with beard and mustache named John Bach Jr. And I knew the name -- he was the son of the legendary coaching legend Johnny Bach, who by 1985 was the head coach of the Golden State Warriors, but a year later, would be let go and he'd hook up with the Chicago Bulls and be a part of three NBA titles in the early 1990s as an assistant.
So it was off again to pick up Chris on what was a night off for the newspaper, so there was no rush to have to find a pay phone, call collect and then dictate a story over the phone. Once again, I got Chris at his folks' place and off on Route 70 we went with him yapping all the way from start to finish and me thinking that I knew where I was heading to ... on this night it was Cherry Hill East High School. Somehow, for some strange reason, the directions I had were to Cherry Hill West High School. Apparently, the officer I spoke with the day before was a bit confused.
Once I stopped at a 7-11 in town to get an idea of where I was going, I found I didn't have far to get. The problem was by the time the two of us got back on the road and found our way to Springdale Avenue and on to Cherry Hill East High, it was the middle of the first quarter. I was going to have to wing it somehow from here.
Now before going on, let me tell you about the Lakewood High girls basketball team. The Piners were really good, but they had different characters making up that club. Heading the character list was cantankerous head coach Art Calabro. Coach Calabro was one of my all-time favorite mentors in my time at the Observer. The man was not afraid to speak his mind about not just the teams his squad was playing, but wasn't afraid to call out his own players as well as motivation.
And what a team he had -- beside Nafziger, who I found to be kind of inward then and not the way I know her now, there was junior forward Joanne Powell, who went about her own business as a rough-and-tumble rebounder who scored on occasion. Center and 6-foot-1 Chrystal Navarro and weak-side forward Chelsea Brown were not only talents at their positions, but were stunning-looking young ladies as well. Nafziger's sister, Deanna, came off the bench to provide a boost where she could.
But driving the bus as the team's point guard was sophomore Walters, a sophomore with an obtuse knowledge for the game of basketball who, when I set eyes on her for the very first time I knew I was watching someone very, very, very special. If she wanted to do things with Magic Johnson flair, I'm pretty sure she could, but that wasn't who she was. And while I'm sure he worked her hard and let her know if and when she was doing something wrong, Calabro thought the world of Carol Walters. He, too, knew he had something special.
This Collingswood team, though, was not only tough, but tall, too. As for the game, it was back and forth throughout with each team stopping the other's momentum for the first three quarters. The intense fourth quarter saw Collingswood begin what was a run that it thought would take it to the South Jersey Group III title. With over three minutes left, Collingswood took a 52-49 lead and then with 2:55 to go, Nafziger picked up her fifth foul.
Disqualification. Trouble for the Piners. The 6-foot-2 girl in the middle was gone. And so I thought the same about Lakewood's chances of winning the SJ III title, too.
But the Cols missed the front end of the one-and-one free-throw situation and Powell came down with the rebound. She handed off to Walters, who set up the Piners' offense until she felt comfortable with lobbing a pass in to Powell. The 6-foot Powell hauled in the pass and put a bank shot in for a layup, cutting the lead to 52-51 with under two minutes to go.
You'd think at that point, Lakewood would be patient and wait for a mistake. And that's what happened. Collingswood turned it over and the Piners had another shot at the basket. Once again, Walters was patient. When the opportunity presented itself, she threw a lob in Powell's direction.
Same results all the way round. A basket with just under a minute to go gave the Piners the lead.
Collingswood held the ball and waited for the moment to strike against the Piners. Bach called a timeout and set up for the final play. They executed it down low, but the Cols' forward missed the shot. Powell rebounded, but was fouled. They sent her to the free-throw line in a one-and-one situation, but she missed. Collingswood came up with the rebound and pushed the ball down the court for one last chance.
The shot went up but missed the mark.
Lakewood escaped once again -- but this time with the South Jersey Group III championship. Even without their 1,000-point scorer on the court for the final 2:55, the Piners found a way. And Calabro reacted like he won the overall state championship. Part of it, I came to find out later, was just a release from all the pressure he had felt with the job because the Piners started that 1984-85 season 0-4. They put it together after that start to win 18 of the next 20 games, including this run to the SJ III title, the second for the program in four years.
Got interviews with Walters, Powell and Calabro afterward. Chris was acting like a proud fan of the Lakewood Piners. After all, this was his hometown high school team -- even if he graduated from St. Joseph's High School. But that's another story.
We got out of Cherry Hill East and headed back across 70, me dropping him off at home and heading back on my way back to my parents' home in Toms River. And I realized I was lucky to even see this amazing moment. I wasn't supposed to be covering it, but I did. And I was proud to call it my first sectional championship as a journalist. The next day, I wrote the story at work and did it as a four-part play.
The focal point of that play was Walters, who at 15 years old showed me the leadership ability of a college point guard. I knew I was watching something special in this young lady. Like Nafziger, she, too, would be a 1,000-point scorer who would take her talents to nearby Georgian Court College, where she would be a star again with the basketball team between 1987-91. In 1987, she, Navarro and Brown helped lead another group of Piner ladies to another SJ III championship.
That ride, though, would end the same way this 1985 ride would end -- a loss to unbeaten and state power North Hunterdon. The game in '87 was much closer than the one I got to go to two years earlier. Oh, yeah, and I had to bring Chris along as his chauffeur again for the Group III game against North Hunterdon at Notre Dame High School in Lawrenceville, which was a lot easier to find than Cherry Hill East was.
Chris' chauffeur. Ha! I definitely wasn't being paid enough for what I did.
We actually got to Notre Dame so quickly that late afternoon, Tuesday, March 12, that we were two of maybe 11 or 12 people in the gym besides the Piners and the Lions. And that game was a disaster from the start. North Hunterdon jumped on a helpless Walters quickly as the Piners committed eight turnovers in the opening eight minutes to take a 21-4 lead just three minutes into the game and ultimately hold a 29-5 lead at the end of the first quarter. Calabro did everything within his power to slow the Lions down -- he called timeouts, he picked up two technical fouls (coaches were allowed three then) -- but it had little effect.
Lakewood would lose to North Hunterdon, 62-44, as the Lions invested in lots of second-half garbage time.
The year ended with the Piners going 18-7, the third straight 18-win season under Calabro. Nafziger finished with 22 points and ended her career with 1,196 points.
Chris and I ended up going to a nearby restaurant where we rehashed the game and I wrote what I needed to so I could dictate the story over the phone to our assistant sports editor. One final trip to Chris' house in Lakewood to drop him off and it was over.
Lakewood's season was over. My misery of writing 46 previews and writing up my all-county sports stories and his all-county basketball team stories was only beginning.
But I managed. I got through it. The last coach I talked to for a preview -- and I remember this vividly -- was Toms River South baseball mentor Ken Frank, who believed he had a very good team for the upcoming '85 season. When did that man ever have a bad team?
Mind you, I was 18 years old and had endless energy at the time. If I had to write 46 previews, do numerous all-county teams and cover a team playing in a state sectional tournament now, I'd burn my candle out a lot easier.
Still, it was a great learning experience, which I will always treasure. That March 8, 1985 was a milestone night for my career.
Someone else was supposed to cover that South Jersey sectional final, not me. But a journalist is worthless with broken fingers.
Someone was supposed to cover the 1998 Little League World Series, not me. Someone was supposed to cover Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville in 2005, not me. Someone was supposed to cover the 1986 Jersey Shore Summer Basketball League championship, not me.
And when it came to witnessing my first state sectional championship in person, I wasn't supposed to be there either.
It was Friday night, March 8, 1985. And it was supposed to be a night off from work, my one night off a week I was supposed to get. But all that got changed the weekend before when Chris Christopher, our esteemed Ocean County Observer main sports writer, had a little accident at the gym he was a member of at the time. Seems the story goes that Chris was adjusting the weight he was lifting on one of the universal machines and as he was doing that, he had left his hand on the weight, not knowing his fate was about to be sealed a moment later when the suspended weight came accidentally crashing down on his fingers, breaking a couple of them.
There's nothing more frustrating than being a journalist with broken fingers. Henceforth, Chris was out of commission ... for practically an entire month! So that meant Mark's free Fridays got tossed to the wayside for the entire month. I spent every day -- even my one day off from work -- having to take scores over the phone (whatever there was left of the winter season since basketball season was winding down) and not only have to write all the team previews for the upcoming softball and girls soccer seasons, but for the upcoming baseball season. Good thing the season started on April 1.
And back in the day, it wasn't divisional previews involving our teams that would take up about six to seven inches per team ... nooooo, this was 15-20 inches per team. When I got done with what amounted to 44 previews since Point Pleasant Beach did not have a softball program as well as Ocean County College baseball and softball previews, I frankly did not want to write another preview for months.
But with the bad, there also came some good with Chris' absence ... though I certainly with all my other responsibilities at the time (which included coming up with the All-County boys and girls bowling teams and male and female swimmer of the year honors) wasn't too thrilled with doing a little extra.
The "little extra," though, involved covering the Lakewood High School girls basketball team, a talented team with the focal point being 6-foot-2 senior Faith Nafziger, a 1,000-point scorer who was taking her talents after graduation to St. Peter's in Jersey City. So at least I knew who to focus on when the Piners, who were now in the semifinals of the NJSIAA South Jersey Group III tournament, faced Rancocas Valley at neutral site court Collingswood High School.
Well, before I had to go down Route 70 and then I-295 south to get to my destination, there was going to be a passenger along the way with me for this ride ... and all the other rides I would take as long as LHS was still alive in the state tournament.
Yes, I had to take longtime Lakewood resident Chris Christopher with me to the games. This meant I would have to pick him up at the house he lived at with his parents off of Central Avenue. Yeah, it was taking me away from where I had to go, but back in 1985, I had a hell of a lot more patience than I do now.
For this ride and the subsequent road trips, I had to listen to him just talk non-stop ... from start to finish. I don't think he was completely convinced that these Piners had it in them to be a state sectional champion. Certainly on Tuesday, March 5, we would soon find out against Rancocas Valley's Red Devils.
Well, the Piners didn't look good as a team. Even though Lakewood had as much as a 14-point lead in the second quarter, the Red Devils cut the lead down and with 4:29 left, Terri Johnson's layup gave Rancocas Valley a 42-41 lead. But that would be the only lead the Red Devils would have the rest of the way as Lakewood got its second wind and got seven points from Nafziger and six more from point guard Carol Walters, in what would turn out to be a 55-44 Lakewood win.
So after I had dictated the story over the phone to our assistant sports editor, I had to take Chris back to his house in Lakewood -- more non-stop chatter the whole way. And I knew he'd be begging for a ride on this particular Friday night, March 8 when the Piners would face a formidable foe in Collingswood High.
Collingswood's Cols were a balanced team, but there was no doubt with who the leader was -- an almost 30-year-old man with beard and mustache named John Bach Jr. And I knew the name -- he was the son of the legendary coaching legend Johnny Bach, who by 1985 was the head coach of the Golden State Warriors, but a year later, would be let go and he'd hook up with the Chicago Bulls and be a part of three NBA titles in the early 1990s as an assistant.
So it was off again to pick up Chris on what was a night off for the newspaper, so there was no rush to have to find a pay phone, call collect and then dictate a story over the phone. Once again, I got Chris at his folks' place and off on Route 70 we went with him yapping all the way from start to finish and me thinking that I knew where I was heading to ... on this night it was Cherry Hill East High School. Somehow, for some strange reason, the directions I had were to Cherry Hill West High School. Apparently, the officer I spoke with the day before was a bit confused.
Once I stopped at a 7-11 in town to get an idea of where I was going, I found I didn't have far to get. The problem was by the time the two of us got back on the road and found our way to Springdale Avenue and on to Cherry Hill East High, it was the middle of the first quarter. I was going to have to wing it somehow from here.
Now before going on, let me tell you about the Lakewood High girls basketball team. The Piners were really good, but they had different characters making up that club. Heading the character list was cantankerous head coach Art Calabro. Coach Calabro was one of my all-time favorite mentors in my time at the Observer. The man was not afraid to speak his mind about not just the teams his squad was playing, but wasn't afraid to call out his own players as well as motivation.
And what a team he had -- beside Nafziger, who I found to be kind of inward then and not the way I know her now, there was junior forward Joanne Powell, who went about her own business as a rough-and-tumble rebounder who scored on occasion. Center and 6-foot-1 Chrystal Navarro and weak-side forward Chelsea Brown were not only talents at their positions, but were stunning-looking young ladies as well. Nafziger's sister, Deanna, came off the bench to provide a boost where she could.
But driving the bus as the team's point guard was sophomore Walters, a sophomore with an obtuse knowledge for the game of basketball who, when I set eyes on her for the very first time I knew I was watching someone very, very, very special. If she wanted to do things with Magic Johnson flair, I'm pretty sure she could, but that wasn't who she was. And while I'm sure he worked her hard and let her know if and when she was doing something wrong, Calabro thought the world of Carol Walters. He, too, knew he had something special.
This Collingswood team, though, was not only tough, but tall, too. As for the game, it was back and forth throughout with each team stopping the other's momentum for the first three quarters. The intense fourth quarter saw Collingswood begin what was a run that it thought would take it to the South Jersey Group III title. With over three minutes left, Collingswood took a 52-49 lead and then with 2:55 to go, Nafziger picked up her fifth foul.
Disqualification. Trouble for the Piners. The 6-foot-2 girl in the middle was gone. And so I thought the same about Lakewood's chances of winning the SJ III title, too.
But the Cols missed the front end of the one-and-one free-throw situation and Powell came down with the rebound. She handed off to Walters, who set up the Piners' offense until she felt comfortable with lobbing a pass in to Powell. The 6-foot Powell hauled in the pass and put a bank shot in for a layup, cutting the lead to 52-51 with under two minutes to go.
You'd think at that point, Lakewood would be patient and wait for a mistake. And that's what happened. Collingswood turned it over and the Piners had another shot at the basket. Once again, Walters was patient. When the opportunity presented itself, she threw a lob in Powell's direction.
Same results all the way round. A basket with just under a minute to go gave the Piners the lead.
Collingswood held the ball and waited for the moment to strike against the Piners. Bach called a timeout and set up for the final play. They executed it down low, but the Cols' forward missed the shot. Powell rebounded, but was fouled. They sent her to the free-throw line in a one-and-one situation, but she missed. Collingswood came up with the rebound and pushed the ball down the court for one last chance.
The shot went up but missed the mark.
Lakewood escaped once again -- but this time with the South Jersey Group III championship. Even without their 1,000-point scorer on the court for the final 2:55, the Piners found a way. And Calabro reacted like he won the overall state championship. Part of it, I came to find out later, was just a release from all the pressure he had felt with the job because the Piners started that 1984-85 season 0-4. They put it together after that start to win 18 of the next 20 games, including this run to the SJ III title, the second for the program in four years.
Got interviews with Walters, Powell and Calabro afterward. Chris was acting like a proud fan of the Lakewood Piners. After all, this was his hometown high school team -- even if he graduated from St. Joseph's High School. But that's another story.
We got out of Cherry Hill East and headed back across 70, me dropping him off at home and heading back on my way back to my parents' home in Toms River. And I realized I was lucky to even see this amazing moment. I wasn't supposed to be covering it, but I did. And I was proud to call it my first sectional championship as a journalist. The next day, I wrote the story at work and did it as a four-part play.
The focal point of that play was Walters, who at 15 years old showed me the leadership ability of a college point guard. I knew I was watching something special in this young lady. Like Nafziger, she, too, would be a 1,000-point scorer who would take her talents to nearby Georgian Court College, where she would be a star again with the basketball team between 1987-91. In 1987, she, Navarro and Brown helped lead another group of Piner ladies to another SJ III championship.
That ride, though, would end the same way this 1985 ride would end -- a loss to unbeaten and state power North Hunterdon. The game in '87 was much closer than the one I got to go to two years earlier. Oh, yeah, and I had to bring Chris along as his chauffeur again for the Group III game against North Hunterdon at Notre Dame High School in Lawrenceville, which was a lot easier to find than Cherry Hill East was.
Chris' chauffeur. Ha! I definitely wasn't being paid enough for what I did.
We actually got to Notre Dame so quickly that late afternoon, Tuesday, March 12, that we were two of maybe 11 or 12 people in the gym besides the Piners and the Lions. And that game was a disaster from the start. North Hunterdon jumped on a helpless Walters quickly as the Piners committed eight turnovers in the opening eight minutes to take a 21-4 lead just three minutes into the game and ultimately hold a 29-5 lead at the end of the first quarter. Calabro did everything within his power to slow the Lions down -- he called timeouts, he picked up two technical fouls (coaches were allowed three then) -- but it had little effect.
Lakewood would lose to North Hunterdon, 62-44, as the Lions invested in lots of second-half garbage time.
The year ended with the Piners going 18-7, the third straight 18-win season under Calabro. Nafziger finished with 22 points and ended her career with 1,196 points.
Chris and I ended up going to a nearby restaurant where we rehashed the game and I wrote what I needed to so I could dictate the story over the phone to our assistant sports editor. One final trip to Chris' house in Lakewood to drop him off and it was over.
Lakewood's season was over. My misery of writing 46 previews and writing up my all-county sports stories and his all-county basketball team stories was only beginning.
But I managed. I got through it. The last coach I talked to for a preview -- and I remember this vividly -- was Toms River South baseball mentor Ken Frank, who believed he had a very good team for the upcoming '85 season. When did that man ever have a bad team?
Mind you, I was 18 years old and had endless energy at the time. If I had to write 46 previews, do numerous all-county teams and cover a team playing in a state sectional tournament now, I'd burn my candle out a lot easier.
Still, it was a great learning experience, which I will always treasure. That March 8, 1985 was a milestone night for my career.
Someone else was supposed to cover that South Jersey sectional final, not me. But a journalist is worthless with broken fingers.
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