Pro Day at Florida Starring Tim Tebow

For the record, I am not a fan of Pro Scout Days for college football teams trying to sell their "parts" off to a draft bidder.

Personally, I find them a waste of time. I don't think I have spent more than 30 seconds in my life watching the NFL Combine when some of college football's best players jump, run, catch and throw for a group of slobbering pro executives who jockey with other teams for a better draft selection or just want to feel like they have a shot at somebody they are completely high on.

But the Pro Scout Day at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 was a little different.

It was a place I had to be. No, not because it was assigned to me, but it was because members of two national championship clubs at the University of Florida were going to show off their talents for the scouts, guys who were not only sure-shots on a college football field, but guys who were going to make a mark in pro football.

There was Riley Cooper, the all-everything wide receiver who I had seen play both in college and for one state playoff game in high school at Clearwater Central Catholic. There was star cornerback Joe Haden, who was a much-heralded star on the defensive side of the ball. There was a highly touted linebacker getting looks from all these high-ranking NFL folks, Brandon Spikes. There was the prototype tight end with a bit of a checkered past that people were drooling over named Aaron Hernandez. And David Nelson, a Gator wide receiver with a lot of all-around talent, was also being looked at by these scouts and execs.

But c'mon! We all knew why we were there.

The star performer on this day was the young man who helped quarterback the Gators to two national championships and built a major following of fans over the years.

We were there for the "Chosen One," Mr. Tim Tebow.

My very few interactions I had with him over the years were very pleasant. He's everything that people advertised about him: He's polite. He's kind. He's respectful. And he keeps many, many things in perspective and is as real as you can get. As a matter of fact, I couldn't imagine what it might be like to be that young man on an everyday basis.

But for all his greatness on a football field, which included winning the 2007 Heisman Trophy, he wasn't pro football material. As someone who has covered the NFL since 2003, I knew exactly what it is that a team looks for when shopping for a quarterback. They want someone to "fit the mold." In that case, the "mold" is being accurate with your passes, not making it easy for the defense to strip you of the ball and running a "pro-style" offense and knows how to drop back on pass attempts properly.

Unfortunately, Tim Tebow was not efficient enough in all of those categories. And at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., less than two months earlier, this larger-than-life individual was made into a mere mortal when he completed 4 of 12 passes and coughed the football up twice.

Worse, he was running a style of offense under coach Urban Meyer that was far from "pro-style" friendly. For example, in his sophomore year, he became the first quarterback in college history to throw for 20 touchdowns (32) and score 20 touchdowns (23). He was a specimen that Meyer had no trouble exploiting in that regard.

But let's face facts -- Urban Meyer did not help Tim Tebow become a "pro quarterback." For the style of play he was used to, Tebow would have had to fit a hybrid-type of offense in which you ran the ball more and created more options from behind center than just the typical drop-back passer that guys like Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and recent Super Bowl champion Drew Brees perfected.

Tebow had been working on getting his throwing motion up instead of slinging the ball sideways and not allowing the defense to get its paws on the ball. This had been going on since that Senior Bowl and to many of us in the media, it seemed like what these people were trying to do with the 22-year-old was becoming long and arduous ... a process, really.

And whether he was ready or not, Tebow and his teammates looking to move on to the next level were about to be a showcase for the cattle-herders at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

Being at work the night before, I had very little chance to have sleep. I think it was one hour of a nap I took before I headed west on State Road-20 from Palatka to Gainesville on what was just a dreary, awful morning weather-wise with a little drizzle and dark clouds everywhere.

Bleary-eyed or not, I was in Gainesville and maneuvering around the throngs of people who came to see the Florida Gators on display as I pulled into a parking lot near the stadium at the school. I had about a quarter of a mile of a walk, but that wasn't so bad.

I had just been in this stadium the previous September for a Gators game, so I knew my way around a little. Once I had my credentials for the day, it was a matter of waiting around until the day began, so I stayed out of the rain underneath the stands. I did get a chance to snap some shots of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. I was immediately getting messages back to me on my Facebook page that read:

"Please give Tebow my number, and let him know I am ready for a relationship when he is," and "I'm sure you are there to cover Joe Ha(y)den today, right Mark? Cause we don't care about a qb drafted in the third round."

Guess I couldn't hide where I was, could I?


Moments later, the news trickled down to us that the Gators' Pro Day was moved from 10:30 a.m. back to noon. The rain wouldn't stop and it was only fair that they wait so the young men who were out there to show off their skills had a fair chance, though I wasn't so sure how fair it would have been. The field wasn't going to absorb that rain that quickly and there was a chance that the rain would pick up again later. What they did was find an hour-long pocket to fit in a chance to have Pro Day rain-free.

For the next hour, I had a chance to talk to various other media members about what they were hoping to see. They, too, probably had enough with Tebow Overkill. I know they were interested in how well Haden would do as well as what Spikes might show in his performance. It also gave me a chance to talk to a number of Gator fans who made the trip to Gainesville just to watch the Pro Day ceremonies.

Yeah -- in the category of "How I spent my day off from work," there were diehards who were there just to watch Pro Day! These people were nuts, but really friendly. And they were bluntly honest about their love for Tebow and how they wanted to see him star on the next level. You couldn't find a bad thing anyone could say about him ... well, with the exception of the obvious flaws in his game.

"Much different game at the pro level," one old-timer told me.

Amen to that! Not all these Gator lovers were drinking the Kool-Aid. Don't get me wrong -- they wanted to see him succeed, but some fans were realistic, too. He needed a good day.

Most everyone dubbed this day the debut of "Tebow 2.0." And I was excited for the young man. He had a lot to prove and so little time to do so before April's draft.

The rain cleared up, but the clouds still loomed. If I were to sit in the stands and be a spectator instead of being down on the field, I'd have needed to clear the rain fallen on the seats. Something tells me I should have taken a towel with me this day.

By 11:45, some of the other "attractions" there were off and running in their chance to shine. Haden was out there and he was just killin' it -- he was running his defensive back drills with ease and even on a wet turf, he was running the 40-yard dash in the 4.3-second range. I remember my comment to someone after watching him perform.

"Yeah, he's pro ready."

Still no Tebow at this point, so after Haden was done, I walked back to inside the Gators media room located in a staging area on the west side of the field where we were all covered from the weather outside. I simply asked Haden if he felt he was ready to make the next step in his young career.

He looked at me and answered, "I'm ready. I've been playing with pro-type players since I've been here. Going to the NFL will definitely be a challenge every week, every day at practice, but I'm ready for it."

Another key guy there looking to impress for the scouts was Carlos Dunlap, a defensive end with a crazy amount of talent. He did not do well at the NFL Combine so his stock was on the line at this Pro Day. And he did well in improving his time in the 40 and looked much more prepared.

But one person who didn't have a good day was Spikes. The well-talked about linebacker, we came to find out, wasn't the swiftest person afoot and his time in the 40 was stunning. I had brought a stopwatch with me on this day and I wanted to see these guys run those 40s. I thought maybe I started my watch too quickly, but when the time came up just over five seconds, I was stunned. We all were. I can see the looks on some of these Gators backers. They couldn't believe it, either.

By 12:15 p.m., I can hear the crowd begin to roar, though.

He had stepped outside onto The Swamp dressed in a black soak-free shirt and white sweatpants.

It was now Tim Tebow's time to turn up the heat. First, he went through all the drills everyone else was going through to show if he had the coordination to make it in the NFL. He passed that test. They didn't make him run the 40 on this day because he wasn't 100 percent at doing it. And he only had one thing in mind to do on this day.

Prove the scouts and so-called experts wrong and that he could throw the ball with accuracy the way NFL personnel believe would make him succeed.

With each dropback, fans stood up from the stands where I was sitting. Numerous media members were on the field, but I wanted to see him from the level of the fans who watched him every Saturday. He didn't look like a guy who was following a step-by-step, how-to-throw-the-ball tutorial. He was looking good. Some throws were still being slung in a sideway motion, and that was to be understood since he was going through the transformation.

But with each throw he made to Cooper or Nelson or Hernandez, who was his favorite target on this day, Tebow was dropping the ball into their arms with the accuracy most quarterbacks need to survive in the league, whether it be short passes or with bombs. With each completion, the fans cheered loudly, the young girls screaming louder than their male counterparts.

This was not just Pro Day ... this was a happening!

Ten minutes after he began throwing the ball, Tebow's coach, Meyer, nonchalantly walked out onto the field and members of the media wanted to get a quote from him. I wasn't there to talk to him -- his time with all these guys were over and, really, he would have given the normal, coach-speak that most of us have heard over the years from him and others.

This day belonged to the Gators going on to the next level. It was estimated later on that a few thousand people were there to watch this Pro Day in person on a miserable, grey-clouded, drizzling day. And if they weren't there in person, ESPN was showing the day on television. Todd McShay, one of ESPN's  NFL draft experts, was one of Tebow's detractors and most Gator fans who saw him made some kind of comment toward McShay if he were within distance to shout at. But he was pretty much insulated under a tent that ESPN set up for the day.

Yeah, a tent. It felt like a three-ring circus in some ways this morning and afternoon.

By the end of Tebow's workout for the media, scouts and fans, I was on the field, mingling with other media members with what we saw and eyeballing the NFL personnel who were there. I saw Eric Mangini, the head coach of the Cleveland Browns, and not too far from him was his new general manager, the legendary Mike Holmgren. I could see New York Giants coach and former Jacksonville Jaguars mentor Tom Coughlin on the field not far from then-Jaguars general manager Gene Smith, who was being pressured to draft the "local guy." You have no idea of how ramped-up that time period was.

I can see Carolina Panthers coach John Fox there talking to some other personnel on the field. Little did he know the fate that was about to come his way within the next 18 months when it came to Tebow. And right beside me was a throng of media members surrounding Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Raheem Morris, who was starting his second year as the Bucs' coach.

"Is the whole Tampa Bay media out here?" Morris joked. "Where is my P.R. (public relations) director?"

I was also there that day to see if I could corner Tebow into asking him a question about his faith and how it would help him at the next level, though I sensed that one, I wasn't going to get that comfy, cozy, one-on-one feeling with him and two, this wasn't about his faith. The previous September, I had begun work on a column about faith and football and had spent a good couple of minutes talking about that with Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner after he had carved up the Jaguars in game. I enjoyed talking to him, but the story would not be complete unless I got Tebow.

Turns out that Tebow was more embarrassingly insulated from the media than Todd McShay was under that ESPN tent set up for him. Getting a chance to talk to Tebow was like getting an interview with the Dalai Lama. I understand a lot of people wanted to talk to this fine, young man and I couldn't for one minute envy what kind of a headache this could be for the UF media communications department. I was all right in getting something until he got his bell run against Kentucky in a game a few weeks later.

Then I got an email from a media member at UF that simply read, "We will not be coordinating any interviews with Tim for some time since he is recovering from his concussion. I would make alternate plans at this time. Thanks in advance for your understanding."

Bottom line: He was off limits and this guy didn't want to deal with the problem.

It is why I grit my teeth if I have to handle anything that is Gator media-related.

And on this day, I was following behind Tebow as we headed into the interview room where Haden had been an hour earlier. Even if I got to within a mere foot or two from him, you couldn't talk to Tebow. The former Nease High School star quarterback who led his team to a state championship in 2005 was surrounded by an entourage of family, friends, agent, etc. At one point, his father Bob became surly about something someone wanted to ask. 

Again, I couldn't imagine the headache being this likeable young man. We were all seated and I found a spot in the front row for the press conference. Everyone was pretty much set and he looked around for someone to give him the chance to talk. For some reason, he looked my way.

I spoke.

"So how do YOU think it went for you today?"

"It went pretty good," he started as he looked at me. "I thought it was pretty positive. I was happy with the fact I made a lot of changes and that I improved on a lot of things, but I think there's still a lot of room for improvement. I think there are things I can get better at. But I think I made a lot of strides."


That broke the ice. He was free-flowing with his answers from other media members, always was polite with the answers and remained positive throughout. I asked him later in the "presser" about some of the best advice that he was given by those closest to him and maybe not so close.

"It's hard to say who's given me the best advice," he started. "There's been so many people who have invested in me and in my life, especially my whole life, for the last few months. It goes all the way back from my family, my brothers, my sisters, my mom, my dad to the quarterback coaches I worked with to my agents and the people I've been around, even coaches I met with at the Combine have believed in me and invested in me and encouraged me."

For the better part of 12-13 minutes, Tebow took questions about his throwing style and how he had to change up his game. He prided himself on the fact to where he made gradual changes in what he saw on tape from his recent UF days to where he was on the field that particular afternoon. He was even asked about his meeting with McShay, who he shook hands with after the workout.

"I just want to treat everyone the way I want to be treated," Tebow said laughing. The media members laughed.

By 1:15 in the afternoon, I was out the door as the field was being cleared for what would be the first day of spring practice with the new man in charge behind center, John Brantley. A new era was about to begin. I stopped at Leonardo's on University just off campus and had a couple of slices of pizza and a drink before heading back on SR-20 and into Palatka. The first bit of business when I arrived at my apartment -- sleep.

By the time 7 p.m. rolled around, I was up and headed into work to write the story that the Associated Press had already written. I checked quotes to make sure they sounded as accurate as what I had. I knew I was listening correctly to what the prospective pro football players said on this day.

Over a month later on Thursday, April 22, the opening round of the draft was held in New York, the first time the draft was held over three days instead of two. the opening night being in prime time. I was covering a district tournament softball game at Bartram Trail High School between Palatka and the host Bears that night so I missed the first few picks with the game starting the same time as the draft.

No surprise, Haden was the first Gator to go, No. 7 overall to the Cleveland Browns. Center Maurice Pouncey, was next to go at No. 18 to the Pittsburgh Steelers. As my ride was nearing its end to the office, the bombshell went off -- the Denver Broncos had traded their second-, third- and fourth-round picks to the Baltimore Ravens for Baltimore's first-round selection and the 25th pick overall.

Then Roger Goodell reached the stage as I listened on my car radio.

"With the 25th pick in the draft, the Denver Broncos select ... Tim Tebow, quarterback, University of Florida."

My jaw dropped. I think American football fans' collective jaws dropped. For all his improvements in his game, there was still no way this guy was a first-round selection, but here was where coach Josh McDaniels decided to take his chances on the kid. He saw the intangibles that Tebow brought to the table, including the fact the kid was a winner. How could you not see those things?

After all, McDaniels worked with Tom Brady and nearly won a Super Bowl with him to finish a perfect season three seasons earlier with the New England Patriots. Maybe he could turn him into a star quarterback in the league. Unfortunately, McDaniels never got to work with Tebow as he got fired in the 2010 season and the new coach in 2011 became Fox, who was there at Pro Day just one year earlier representing the Panthers, who fired him at the end of that season. When regular Broncos quarterback Kyle Orton struggled, Fox sent Tebow in and all those things McDaniels saw in Tebow -- as well as his biggest fans -- came to life as Tebow won one close game after another in spite of his flaws as a starting quarterback that were still apparent and raw.

By the end of the 2011 season, the Broncos won the scrambled up AFC West title with an 8-8 record, then it was Tebow's 80-yard scoring pass to another first-round pick in that 2010 draft, Demaryius Thomas, that beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in the wild-card round of the playoffs. Unfortunately, Tebow and the Broncos would be dump-trucked by the Patriots. Soon after that, though, legendary Broncos quarterback John Elway took over as the head of making personnel moves, signed the legendary Manning and let Tebow go. The quarterback, still with his minions of fans, bounced off to the New York Jets, who made him nothing more than a clipboard holder the entire year. After being released at the end of 2012, he hooked up with the Patriots and worked again with McDaniels, but he got cut late in camp.

He's still looking for that quarterback job he hopes to prosper in again and I wish him nothing but the best. He's doing well with ESPN's SEC Network, which debuted, ironically, on Tebow's 27th birthday of August 14, 2014.

As for the other Gators that I saw that day, Dunlap went to the Cincinnati Bengals in the second round and the Patriots took a shot on Spikes, drafting him in the second round. Hernandez would be drafted by the Patriots (Pats owner Bob Kraft listened to the "upside" in the troubled kid the Connecticut-raised Hernandez was from his friend Meyer, reportedly, a decision Kraft regretted after the trouble Hernandez got into off the field) in the fourth round and Cooper got taken in the fifth round by the Philadelphia Eagles.

Like I stated earlier, I'm not a huge fan of the Pro Scout Days. They can be tedious and you are there to witness things these young men wouldn't be normally doing in their everyday lives. It's also why I don't watch the NFL Combine at all.

But this was just an unusual day to remember, especially the cast of characters involved and the young man playing quarterback trying to get a pro team's attention who any mother would be proud for their daughter to bring home.

No, this day was just different.

My Mount Rushmore of Female Coaches

I've had plenty of time to think about this: The best female coaches I've covered in the last 30 years.

There are plenty of ladies who I covered who were good at their craft. And four coaches I want to single out for exceptional work as coach of their respective sports over the years, but who didn't make the Mount Rushmore Four, are Central Regional High School field hockey coach Madeline Dutton, legendary and late Toms River South and East field hockey and softball coach Gail Halbfoster, Marathon High girls basketball coach and current athletic director Teresa Konrath and Brick Memorial girls bowling coach Marie Kobilnyk, who in 2015 might be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Mustangs' first state championship in the sport somewhere.

But when I get down to it, there are four constants who stand out head and toes above the others. And in what is my 30th anniversary year of covering high school sports, I want to give them their love, respect and credit.

Becky Miller, Toms River North (field hockey, softball): Did coach Miller and I have disagreements during my 15 years I covered her teams in both sports? You bet we did. She was upset about a feature story I did, for example, on Nancy Williams, the venerable and rival Shore Regional coach in both those sports. Vowed she wouldn't talk to me until she "was good and ready" to do so. (Side note: I did a huge feature on her and her effect on girls sports in Ocean County for a special section honoring movers and shakers within our county borders at the Observer in 1992.)

That was during Toms River North's 21-0-3 NJSIAA Group IV championship field hockey season in 1987 and came days after having a most intense Shore Conference Tournament championship mach with Williams' Blue Devils on North's field that ended in a 1-1 tie.

The one thing, though, that I found out most about Becky Miller-coached teams over the years, though, was that her kids would run through a brick wall for her. She had been at North since 1969 and her field hockey teams became synonymous for greatness in the 1970s and into the 1980s. And just when you think she didn't have any new tricks to pull, there she was again coaching a team one win away from another NJSIAA South Jersey Group IV title in 1997.

That '87 team had a mission: They weren't getting stopped from winning a state championship. The stories that her star player, Kim Bush, told me about the very last intense practice the team had the day before the frigid state championship game against Morristown when game-time temperatures were 25 degrees and they were going all out as snow flurries were part of the practice still makes me smile to this day.

When North beat Morristown that Sunday night at Trenton State College (now The College of New Jersey), 2-1, it was already coach Miller's 19th season with the Mariners. That championship was well worth waiting for, especially after her 1980 team came up just short of that same title.

Cut to 11 years later when she was coaching North's softball team. For the second straight year, the Mariners were eliminated in the state tournament because no matter how hard star pitcher Lauren Anderson threw, her teammates couldn't get timely hits and while she threw a one-hitter, the Mariners lost. This would have just devastated any team, but after talking to her, coach Miller was confident. She told me that "these girls are resilient. We're going to be fine."

Boy were they! They breezed through the Ocean County Tournament to beat Jackson Memorial, 4-1, after an inning that could have accounted for near disaster that saw Anderson literally walk in a run. That came a day after North won the Shore Conference Tournament as fundamentally sound Middletown South stumbled, fumbled and embarrassed itself to the tune of eight errors in an 8-1 victory. Interestingly, that marked the third time that North won both the OCT and SCT in the same years and the first pitcher who helped the Mariners pull that season double in 1983, Debbie DeBenedetto, and the last one to do it in '98, Anderson, shared something in common.

Both had birthdays on November 17. You just can't make this stuff up.

She won the Observer Coach of the Year honor in field hockey three times in my 15 years there and she won Coach of the Year honor in softball in 1993 when her Mariners, powered by a strong junior class, shocked the Shore Conference softball world by winning the SCT (as an 11th seed) and the OCT (as a fourth seed). Two years ago on the 20th anniversary of that accomplishment, I called her and found she had retired and moved to South Florida. We reminisced about that team and others she coached over the years. She can still point to names that made her the coach she became. Both she and Halbfoster were "the mother hens" I remember when I first started at the Observer in 1984. We wound up talking on the phone for over 30 minutes. It was a very, very good conversation we had.

Did every girl she ever coach like her? Oh, no. She understood that. But the ones who stayed benefited under her. She got plenty of kids to go to college to play field hockey, including one of my all-time favorite young ladies in Kim Bush at Ohio State.

It's hard not to think of Ocean County female sports and not think of Becky Miller. We had our disagreements -- but in the end, I think of nothing but the great times and all her kids accomplished under her tutelage ... and not the over 1,000 victories she attained in both softball and field hockey.

Debbie Schwartz (Toms River East softball/field hockey): Did coach Schwartz and I have disagreements over the 11 years she coached both field hockey and softball? You betcha we did! She would let me know if something remotely sounded negative to her. As much as I love coach and all she did to help me and made my job easier, I will needle her every few years about the 1999 softball season when I believe she wasn't happy about almost anything I wrote that year and yet, she was still our paper's Coach of the Year even though the most her team won that season was the Class A South title!

Now why was that opening statement familiar? Because that's how I began with coach Miller. And you can see where coach Schwartz gets her competitiveness -- from the years she spent at North playing under Miller in both sports she would go on to be a head coach in.

Her 1989 Toms River East Raiders broke a long line of bad luck for the softball program -- that year, the Raiders won both the SCT and OCT titles, the first two championships in East's 10-year run as a program. I even kidded to her once from looking at the team picture of the '89 team we took for the paper by saying her team scored the most runs, gave up the fewest runs, won the most games (26) and had the most hair out of any team in Class A South. Oh, it was a much, much different time then.

The Toms River East softball program she inherited in 1988 from previous coach Rick Dispoto was good. But she and her coaches, first Diane Morrissey and then long-time assistant Dawn Dziedzic, worked ferociously to turn that program into a Shore power through the '90s. After winning the SCT title in '89, then getting back to the final the next year only to have Wall destroy the Raiders in the championship, 18-3, East didn't make it back to the SCT title game again until 2003. The Raiders continued to win throughout the '90s, but had only the OCT title to show for it in 1994.

However, keeping my roots strong in my home county because of my Web site, www.octsoftball.com, I  have kept a correspondence throughout the years with coach Schwartz. After I left the Observer in 1999, East became a juggernaut, winning four SCT titles in the 21st century and zooming past Central Regional as the all-time leader of OCT championships, winning crowns in 2001, '05, '07, '08, '11, '12 and '13.

Her 500th and 501st wins at East came in the SCT semifinals and championship in 2013. However, it was bittersweet because the Toms River Board of Education had made a new rule stating that if you were the head of your department (and she was of the high school physical education department for the three high schools, a position she held for years), you couldn't be a head coach of a sport. I look at athletic directors in my current home, Putnam County, Florida, and just sit in amazement over that bizarre rule made a few years ago, especially when Palatka High School's athletic director, Bobby Humphries, was just named the newest head football coach at PHS.

Since then, she took her talents with Dziedzic over to Monsignor Donovan and didn't miss a beat in sharing a divisional crown this season and had a memorable OCT semifinal with Pinelands Regional, the team the Griffins tied for the Class B South title, before losing. East, meanwhile, had a good season under their current coach, but nothing quite like it had experienced under Schwartz.

And it wasn't just in softball she had success. Schwartz was East's field hockey coach from 1992-97. Her best team was the '95 team that came out of nowhere and scored late on Shore Regional's field to tie the 1995 SCT final and ended up sharing the championship with Red Bank Regional, 2-2.

Anyone who has ever played for Debbie Schwartz has benefited from her expertise, whether it was Michelle Carlson, Lyndsey PeQueen, Jordan Weed or her own daughter, Corey, in softball or Jen Beresh and Kat Arnold in field hockey. They have fond memories of their times on the athletic fields to this day because of that woman, who I will forever call my friend and consider a true coaching legend. And needle about that '99 season.

Kathy Snyder (Southern Regional basketball/field hockey): The sadness that I still feel over not having Kathy Snyder around anymore is overwhelming to this day.

No Mount Rushmore is complete in my sports writing world without her. The first encounter I had with coach Snyder was in 1985 when she was Kathy Leslie and I was having to talk to her for a girls basketball roundup that I was putting together. They had gotten a win over Toms River North and I figured it'd be good to talk to her over the victory.

She barely knew who I was, but she was literally "Chatty Kathy." No one I knew up to that point could talk X's and O's and strategy in that sport quite like she did. She told me what went into the victory that night and what defenses her teams played and she could point things out that were key to the win. I always appreciate someone who was a stickler for detail.

Here was a woman who was having to build her program back up again in my first full year as a professional writer at the Observer after a 28-2 SCT championship season that came to a sad and controversial ending in the NJSIAA South Jersey Group IV final against Washington Township and who was also a new mom just months earlier and yet, we spent a good 15 minutes on the phone.

I was hooked. Yes, over the years, her teams were unbelievably boring. But if boring means playing stellar defense and winning games, she'd take that kind of boring anyday. She was far and above the other coaches in the Class A South when it came to strategy. Even when coach Ray Cervino's Toms River North teams should have wiped out lesser Southern teams with far less athletic talent than the Mariners in the '90s, Kathy Snyder found a way to keep her team in the game. For as much as I loved the up-and-down style of Sandy Bisogno, Kristen Herzer and Allyson Seika at  North, I came to appreciate and understand the patient, slowed-down, halfcourt tempo of Jodie Davis, Kirsten Sciallo and Candice McCallum. And I appreciated the wins, the most famous of those being McCallum's stunning 3-point field goal with four seconds left over Dana Simonelli's outstretched hand as she made contact with her, leading to a four-point play and Southern's stunning 40-39 triumph in the 1994 SJ IV quarterfinals as Snyder ran on the court to hug her 6-foot-1 freshman center.

Three times in the mid-1990s Southern played for SJ IV titles. In 1995, the Rams had the lead against Washington Township at halftime with that slowed-down, boring, keep-it-close-to-the-vest style before losing the lead and game. In 1996, Southern and North played for the title at East and again, had the lead at halftime, 15-9, before North stormed back and won and eventually played for the Group IV title that year.

In 1997, Southern and North were back again in the title game. By now, I was practically rooting for Kathy Snyder. McCallum was a senior who was going to take her talents to Georgia Tech. One ... just one ... SJ IV title would have sufficed for that program and defined McCallum's career. I can remember all the emotion poured into that game that night at Toms River South when Southern held strong and beat the Mariners and finally Snyder had her championship after 18 years in charge of the program. Unfortunately, Piscataway and all-everything star center and future University of Connecticut standout Ashja Jones stood in McCallum and Southern's way from advancing to the state Group IV championship.

Snyder took over as Southern's field hockey coach in 1987 and had numerous All-County players, but never could they rise over the top until I was out of work in 2002 and living back home. Led by her daughter Erin and other seniors, the Rams played for the SCT title in a game I got to watch. They lost to Shore Regional. I congratulated her on getting that far. She took the loss all in stride.

Then again, it didn't bother her since she was losing to her mentor. Yes, long before she was Kathy Snyder, star coach, she was Kathy Leslie, star athlete at Shore Regional High. And amazingly, the same intensity that I used to hear at field hockey matches involving Nancy Williams was easily passed on to Kathy Snyder.

I can just hear the gymnasiums throughout Ocean County reverberate from Kathy Snyder yelling, "Charity Smead, where were you on that rebound!?" or "Lorie Citarella, you didn't move to get to that ball!" or "Candice!! Get into position to get that ball next time!" Those were her centers over the years that I got to cover Southern Regional girls basketball. She rode them like jockeys riding horses in a Triple Crown race.

That short time together on that Shore Regional field hockey field in October 2002 was so busy after the match that neither Snyder or I had a chance to truly talk more about what was going on.

That would be the last time I saw Kathy Snyder.

If you ever want to know the respect that lady received, all you had to do was watch the film from her memorial service at Southern in late January 2014 days after she passed away unexpectedly at the age of 58. I found it hard to get through the tributes her former athletes gave in her honor, notably Jodie Davis' tribute. I watched Davis grow up as an athlete in the two sports Kathy Snyder coached her in and see her do the best she could to not lose it on that podium with her teammates from those Rams teams of the 1990s while paying tribute.

I had a great relationship with Kathy Snyder. I still hurt for her husband, Ken, an absolutely great guy, and for their children. It's unfair she was taken away from us too soon.

Still, I'm glad for the time she was here.

Holly Pickens (Crescent City volleyball/girls basketball): All those on the Mount Rushmore of female coaches are not just there for all the wins and titles and what legacies they left behind for their players who went on into various careers athletically and non-athletically. They're also there as teachers.

No one has had quite a challenge in making a program great than Holly Pickens at Crescent City Junior-Senior High School in Putnam County. Volleyball is not a club sport anywhere in Putnam County. If a young lady wants to further her career, she would have to go to a travel team either in the Daytona Beach area or up in Gainesville. Crescent City is literally stuck in the middle of nowhere, the closest "city' being Daytona Beach, a good 45 minutes away. Orlando is an hour and a half away, as is Jacksonville.

So in small-town, farm-rich, bumpkinville Crescent City, volleyball is a sport that is taught to young ladies at the middle school level. Pickens has been the teacher of that sport as well as the program's coach since 1983 -- my senior year in high school for perspective. In her fourth year, 1986, the Raiders won district and region titles and played in the state 2A Final Four that season.

My first year with covering the program was 2003. Coach Pickens sure had some great athletes, most notably Lauren Sepulveda, Sarah Yochum and our paper's player of the year, Nicole Cowser. They were very well-disciplined, but were missing some height and lost district titles in back-to-back years to St. Joseph's Academy in St. Augustine. They would lose in opening-round state tournament matchups at St. Johns Country Day in Orange Park.

Over the years, her teams continued to be contenders for district titles, though they couldn't get over the hump. Finally, in 2011, her Raiders had senior leadership from Sepulveda's older sister, Alexis, Vicktoria Williams and all-everything middle blocker-hitter Kayshia Brady and won that elusive district championship, the first for the program in 19 years. But it didn't end there. They would win two more matches, the last against Union County of Lake Butler, to win the Region 4-1A championship and advance to the state 1A Final Four in Kissimmee, 25 years after winning that first region title.

In that match against Mayo Lafayette, the Raiders had the fourth set in hand and were set for a winner-take-all fifth set and a spot in the state championship. But Lafayette stormed back and won that set and the match. Still, the season was a success at 22-7.

Brady, who was named the state 1A Player of the Year for all she did during that senior season, is now having a nice career at Florida Southern College in Lakeland on scholarship, and is the second greatest female athlete I've ever covered in my 30 years.

But nearly five years earlier as a seventh-grader, Brady had a starring role in another sport: Basketball. Pickens had coached the program twice in the 1980s and '90s at Crescent City and it was actually her favorite sport coming out of the University of Florida. But she also wanted to start a family and gave up basketball to help raise her two sons while remaining the Raiders' head volleyball coach.

In 2006, she took over for a third time as the basketball coach. By now, they were a downtrodden team that accumulated numerous losing records. But Holly Pickens changed all that, putting her belief into senior leaders that had known nothing but losing. And those girls were properly taught how this game of basketball works. They became the surprise team of the district. And after splitting the season series with district rival Keystone Heights, a coin flip allowed Crescent City to be the No. 1 seed in the District 6-3A tournament. After dispatching tournament host and new school Palm Coast Matanzas in the first round to automatically advance to their first state tournament in 21 years, the Raiders played third-seeded Union County in the championship.

In a game where points were coming at a premium, the Raiders took the lead late and had to hold on. With time ticking down, Union County guard Ashlii Watson took the ball to the basket to try to tie the game up. Seventh-grader Brady blocked the shot. The buzzer sounded. Crescent City held on for the 35-33 win and first district championship since the 1984-85 season when Pickens was Holly Henderson.

She would give up the basketball team one last time after the 2008-09 season, but she remains the volleyball coach to this day. Her 2013 team won the program's sixth district championship, and in 2014, the team advanced as a district runnerup to the regional final, coming within one victory of going to the state 1A Final Four again before losing for the fourth time that season to a very, very good Pierson Taylor team.

Coach Pickens sits 11 victories away from 400 in her career going into the 2015 season this fall. Now 389 wins in 32 years as a coach doesn't sound overly impressive. But again, remember the dynamics of not having a lot of feeder programs in the sport and that she literally has to teach girls first learning the sport in either the sixth- or seventh-grade.

That deserves lauding along with her Coach of the Season honors from the Palatka Daily News in volleyball (Fall 2006 and '11) and in girls basketball (Winter 2006-07). If you want to understand a down-to-Earth, even-keel, easy-going coach, no coach in that description fits her school and community quite like Holly Pickens does. She's a dream to talk to about her sports and anything Crescent City.

All four coaches -- Becky Miller, Debbie Schwartz, Kathy Snyder and Holly Pickens -- also deserve to be on that Mount Rushmore for one other reason: Their love of the sports they coach. Even in bad and trying times, none of them have ever stated they started to dislike what they were teaching to another generation at all.

Those coaches knew for the circle to continue turning in their sports, their love needed to be transported properly to generations to follow.

Like Mount Rushmore itself, these ladies have been rock-solid examples of exemplary leadership and character.

That memorable night at Lake Highland Prep

My second football season at the Palatka Daily News was looking an awful lot like my first. There was not much hope of watching a postseason game.

By Friday, October 15, 2004, we were in the backside of the season. Palatka was having one of its worst years in a long time at 2-4. Interlachen was a better team, but if better meant winning more than zero games in a season, that they were at 1-4.

And then there was Crescent City, the team I got to see for the first four weeks of the season. For the better part of my existence at the Daily News, the Raiders have been the team I've covered. I know that 22-mile ride on US-17 very well from the office south to Wisnoski Field at Wiltcher Stadium.

The Raiders, though, were coming of a humiliating loss, one of the most humiliating in their history the week before. They traveled to Interlachen to face the county rival. And the Rams picked that night to beat the Raiders, 13-8. Why was it humiliating? Because the Rams won for only the second time since 1997 on the football field, the only other win coming in 2001 against Fort White.

While the Rams were celebrating on their home field (it was the only game I didn't cover that season involving Crescent City, my boss wanting to see both county teams play while I got to see Palatka lose at North Marion), the Raiders were left scratching their heads wondering if there was anything positive left in their season at 1-4.

Their head coach was a new guy. He was a Georgia boy named Brad Waggoner. Now Waggoner came to the school as a guy who learned the ropes from being a college grad assistant. Heck, he worked under Mike Dubose at Alabama and was friends with him. He had just turned 30 years old that August and getting the Crescent City head coaching gig was pretty important to him.

He was hired by Joe Warren, who was relatively new to the job as Crescent City's principal. I was not in favor of him firing the previous coach, Gordon Roberts, a solid, good all-around man who had coached that team for 10 seasons. They had a bad year in 2003 and a 56-14 loss in the final regular-season game that season at St. Petersburg Catholic was the final straw.

So it was my job to interview Waggoner weekly to talk about the upcoming opponent. And he didn't sound all that positive going into the next game, which, oh by the way, was the biggest District 4-2B game for the Raiders that season.

It was a trip to Orlando to face the district favorite that season, Lake Highland Prep. Now Lake Highland Prep wasn't exactly burning the football landscape either at 2-3, but their blowout loss the same night the Raiders were losing to Interlachen was a little more explainable – the Highlanders were losing to state-power South Sumter of Bushnell, 49-7.

Still, you can explain losing to a state power. You can't explain losing to a doormat like Interlachen.

And in interviewing Waggoner, he did his best to be upbeat in the face of who he was playing.

"Lake Highland Prep dresses only 24 kids, depending on what they bring to the game," he started. "We're probably going to dress 26. Lake Highland is probably going to be the best team we've played this year. They are a sound football team with a good running back (Tony Watts) and a big quarterback (6-foot-5 Robert Kass). The difference is that they seem to be more polished."

And they were senior dominated. These Highlanders looked too tough for the scrappiest of Crescent City teams. Worse, Waggoner was already about to start his fourth quarterback in six games that season ... his fourth! His first quarterback lost the job, then lost a spot on the team. His second quarterback got hurt. His third quarterback wasn't really a starting quarterback ... just filling a void.

Now he was about to start a new guy behind center. And that guy was Louis Haines. You could've pardoned him if he was just a little green because, well, he was! Haines was a freshman.

Yeah, perfect timing to go send a freshman out to play against seniors and juniors. Good luck with that!

On top of that, Waggoner had already shifted every single player on his offensive line around to play every part of the line by now. And he had two more players – talented running back D.J. Johnson and senior wide receiver Cordae Mungin – who weren't going to start for disciplinary reasons.

After this phone call, I started wondering why they were going to Orlando let alone me going. This had every earmark of a bloodbath.

But we were all ready for Friday night football. My boss was staying in town to watch Palatka take on Nease with a talented junior left-handed quarterback that lost in a shootout the year before to Palatka's Panthers. That quarterback's name was Tim Tebow. Our other football writer, a stringer who used to be my boss' assistant, was on his way to Palm Bay to watch Interlachen take on Melbourne Central Christian.

And I was set to make the trip to Orlando. By October of 2004, I had been in Palatka for 14 months. I rarely had the opportunity to go to Orlando unless my girlfriend at the time had the want to go to Downtown Disney. But the way I went was to take US-17 south into San Mateo, then veer off onto State Road-100 for what is a boring, dark, desolate, 24-mile ride into Bunnell. From there, I take US-1 down to Ormond Beach and pick up I-95 for 15 miles until jumping onto I-4 for what would be about a 45 mile trip. These days to go Orlando, I just take US-17 south until getting to SR-472 and then onto I-4. It's longer, but I'm not going away to come back in if you understand what I'm saying.

I had left at about 4:15 p.m., so I knew I'd have plenty of time before the 7:30 p.m. start. By the time I got off at Exit 85 just outside the heart of Orlando and wove my way to the school, I can see the man-made lake out by the entrance and the long, winding road that led me to the athletic fields. My first thought was "Wow, someone has money here."

I would find myself saying that a lot over the years at the prep schools I would go to cover games.

Lake Highland Prep is a school in which not only the student body is enthusiastic, but so are the parents who come to the games. You would think they were one of the kids. I picked up my roster and found my way upstairs to a fairly spacious press box where I scoped my seat. But as I soon found out, where I was sitting wasn't going to be all that comfortable. My boss calls these people "hanger-onners" because they really have no business of being up in a press box other than to hang out with people they know and seem important.

So 15 minutes before kickoff, I wasn't feeling all that comfortable in a suddenly crowded press box.

I was over next to a kid who was going to be doing the public address for the game. Not one of the "hanger-onners" standing behind us. Oh, heck no! This poor kid, who was a junior at the time, got the nod to do the introductions. Not only was he working the PA, but he was also having to do the non-timing part of the scoreboard.

Where the hell was the kid's help!? This was just ridiculous. I even told him so, but he didn't want to hear it. He shrugged it off and he said it was all good and he didn't mind. So I made him a deal: "You get me in next to you and I'll help you with the scoreboard."

Deal! Suddenly, I wasn't so uncomfortable in my spot anymore.

The game started and Lake Highland Prep had the ball first. And they didn't waste time taking the ball down the field. It was four plays in 57 yards and the final play was a beautifully thrown pass by Kass to his favorite receiver, Grant Handley, for a 30-yard score. The extra-point kick was missed, but the Highlanders had the lead at 6-0.

The first possession for Crescent City with freshman Haines in charge didn't go so well and after a three-and-out, the Highlanders had the ball again at the Raider 47. They got to the 21, then Kass handed off to his other running back, Kory Duffy, for a touchdown run to make it 12-0 lead as the 2-point conversion run failed.

Unlike the jitters of the first drive, Haines and the Raiders settled in and got moving this time around. And it was at this point Waggoner decided to unleash a weapon that he had been saving for weeks.

The double handoff. Haines handed off to senior fullback Shantae Hill, but before Hill could plow into the line, he handed the ball off to the wingback, who in this particular case was Hakim Clayton. Clayton got 17 yards on the play and a first down.

At that point, I was starting to wonder if Waggoner had it in him to run that play all night.

But it also loosened up Lake Highland Prep's defense. That was for sure. Running the ball was becoming a little easier. And from the Highlanders' 27, Waggoner had Hill fake a double handoff so beautifully that the defense pursued Clayton and Hill had a wide-open right side of the field to run all day for the touchdown.

Haines missed on the 2-point conversion, but Pandora's box was opened. You can see the visibly shaking heads of Lake Highland defenders coming off the field as if they had no idea of what was sprung on them.

It was a new game and I was glad to put those six points up on the scoreboard for the young man doing the P.A.

If the Raider touchdown rattled the Highlanders when they came back out offensively, think again. For the third straight possession, Lake Highland marched down the field and C.J. Weaver finished a 62-yard, 11-play drive with a 3-yard scoring run to make it 20-6 after Kass bounced right and got into the end zone on the 2-point conversion with 8:11 to go before halftime.

But now, Waggoner was about to introduce the Highlanders to the talented D.J. Johnson at running back. Only two weeks earlier, he had been the second quarterback in charge of the offense, but hurt his ankle, then did something that week that forced Waggoner to use discipline on him and sit out the first quarter.

The Raiders marched down to the Highlander 4 on the next drive and decided without a halfway decent kicker to go for it on fourth down. Haines handed off to Hill, but he got stopped at the 1, forcing the ball back to Lake Highland Prep.

It was a crushing blow to say the least and as they headed into the locker room down 20-6, maybe they weren't up to Lake Highland Prep's level after all. The "consolation" of a loss to the Highlanders was that if they won their next two district games against Winter Park Trinity Prep and Pierson Taylor, they'd still more than likely get into the postseason as a district runner-up. That wasn't so bad.

I don't know if it was going through Waggoner's mind at halftime. I never asked him that, but he knew the circumstances of a loss anyway.

After being stopped on their first drive of the third quarter, the Raiders had to punt the ball back to the Highlanders.

Finally, they got a break they were looking for.

Kass was sacked by one of the heart and souls of this team, Lashon Swilley, a player that previous coach Roberts thought the world of as a linebacker. Kass fumbled and Swilley came up with the ball at the Highlanders 25. On the first play from scrimmage, Haines handed off to Hill, going slightly right. Then at the last moment, Johnson, working as a wingback, came from the other end and took the second handoff from Hill. He was off to the races and untouched as he got into the end zone to make it 20-12. The 2-point pass from Haines to wide receiver Chevelle Taylor fell short, but with 3:04 left in the third quarter, the Raiders were suddenly close again.

The Raiders then forced the Highlanders to punt again and started at their own 23 late in the third quarter. They marched down the field 77 yards in eight plays and had the Highlanders playing the guessing game on what they were going to use as a run. Hill, who would finish with 134 yards on 20 carries, gained 14, 17 and 20 yards on runs, while Johnson, who would put up 115 yards on 11 carries, would deliver a 21-yard run.

Then Waggoner gave the Highlanders a new wrinkle to think about: He had Haines spread out wide as a receiver and Johnson, the former quarterback now being used as a halfback-wingback, taking the snap from center. He got to the outside, followed his blockers and was in for the 5-yard score that made it 20-18. They went for the 2-point conversion run, but Haines got stopped and with 7:43 to go.

Still, it was a battle to the finish.

No, I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting the Highlanders to be smart enough to try to defense what was taking place at halftime. Instead, the Raiders were exacerbating the situation further. All the while, I'm looking at the young kid doing PA that I was helping do the scoreboard while keeping my own statistics and I can sense his feeling queasy over what was happening.

"I still think you guys are going to find a way to win this one," I told him.

Five seconds later, though, I said,  "But if I'm you and your fans, I'm not liking what I'm watching, either."

We both got back into our jobs and watched Lake Highland Prep move down the field. But once again, the Highlanders turned the ball over to the Raiders when Kass fumbled and Taylor was there to recover at the Crescent City 26 with 6:58 to go.

Oh, my goodness. They weren't really going to pull this upset off, were they? Not after the Interlachen debacle, were they? Noooooooo! This just couldn't be happening. Suddenly, the Lake Highland parent "hanger-onners" were sounding off, yelling what they could from the press box to get the team up, even if the kids didn't hear them.

On the first play after the fumble, Haines handed straight off to Johnson and the sophomore weaved through and dodged tacklers down the Crescent City sidelines until getting tackled at the Lake Highland 26 for a 48-yard gain. The clock continued to tick away. But two Hill runs netted one yard and two more incompletions gave the Highlanders the ball back at their 25 with 4:20 to go.

It looked as if they may finally take control of this game.

Then the Raiders got another break.

On the first play after the change of possession, linebacker and all-around standout athlete Rudy Davis came from the outside and put a hard hit on Kass. The quarterback fumbled and Davis recovered the ball at the 24 with 4:15 left.

Just like that, Crescent City had the ball back and in Highlander territory.

The Raiders ran the ball, but were stopped. They were content to take as much time off the clock and not call a timeout. On second down, Hill got stopped for a 1-yard gain. The clock still ticked away, now it was under three minutes to go.

Haines, acting as if he was in no hurry, dropped back to pass, but was sacked for a loss of 12 yards.

The clock continued to run. We were nearing the two-minute mark. It was fourth and 20.

I'm not sure at that point if I could even hesitate to guess if there was such a thing as a fourth-and-20 call. Heck, I'm pretty sure Waggoner didn't have one either. But somewhere between the moment Haines got sacked and he got back behind center that the team's other wingback, Cornelius White, had his ear.

With the clock continuing to run, Haines dropped back once more to pass. He got enough protection to let go of the ball. From there, it was a jump ball. And the receiver came down with the ball at the Highlander 2 for a first down and goal.

That receiver was Cornelius White, who used all 6-foot-2 of his torso to out-jump the cornerback to give the Raiders four chances to take the lead.

Down to two timeouts, Lake Highland Prep wasn't using any of their timeouts just yet. Neither was Waggoner, who was feeling awfully good at that point after the 32-yard pass play.

Haines handed off to Hill, who barreled through the line and into the end zone for the go-ahead score with 1:06 left to play. The important 2-point conversion went left, but Hill was stopped short and it remained a four-point lead with 66 seconds to go.

The Raiders had problems in kicking all season long. And once again, their kickoff team failed them as the ball went squibbing up the middle of the field and was returned to the Lake Highland Prep 40.

All Kass and his team had to do was go 60 yards to win the game. On the first play of the drive, Kass dropped back and found Handley for a 20-yard strike to the Raider 40.

Uh-oh, this isn't happening, is it?

A run of more than 10 yards was brought back to the Highlander 46 on the next play due to a holding call, the eighth penalty of the night against the Highlanders. Two plays later, the Highlanders gambled.

They darn near won, too.

Kass dropped back and found single coverage between Handley and Taylor. He lofted a pass out there that just eluded Taylor's hand and into Handley's arms. Taylor recovered in time to get Handley out of bounds, but not before setting up the Highlanders on the Raider 5-yard line with 26 seconds to go.

Uh-oh, this isn't really happening, is it?

On the next play, Watts, who quietly had rushed for 109 yards on 19 carries, slithered his way to the right side of the field and into the end zone for the touchdown that gave the Highlanders the lead.

But near where the offensive line was located, I can see a couple of yellow hankies laying there. I turned to my new young friend and he was shell-shocked and borderline angry.

"Oh, come on! That wasn't a hold!" he shouted from his vantage point. I turned to him and said, "I think they're calling this a hold."

And that's what the head official called: Holding against a lineman, negating the touchdown. Worse, another flag was thrown after the call was made. This time, it was for unsportsmanlike conduct against a Highlanders player who spiked the ball in disgust after the touchdown was negated.

Oh my, this really did happen. Lake Highland Prep went from leading 26-24 with 20 seconds to go to being behind by four points again and now backed up to the Raider 29-yard line after the penalties had been accounted for. Suddenly, there were a lot of angry Lake Highland Prep fans in front of me and down below in the bleachers and behind me in "hanger-onner" alley.

It was first and goal from the 29, now. On the first play, Kass dropped back looking for Handley, but Taylor was there to knock the ball away.

Second down and goal from the 29, 13 seconds left. Kass dropped back again, but this time, linebacker Quentin Wilson came on a late blitz up the middle and forced Kass to miss his target in the end zone by a lot.

Third down and goal from the 29, seven seconds left. Kass dropped back again. He looked for Handley once more, but Taylor was there to knock the ball away again. I looked up at the clock figuring that was it.

Nope. There was 0.6 seconds left. This was not the Lake Highland Prep people running the scoreboard ... or me for that matter. This was the clock operator on the other side of me.

Fourth down and goal from the 29, 0.6 seconds left. How many more chances did Kass need to get the job finished?

He had one last chance. He dropped back seven steps, saw the field and looked one last time for Handley in the back of the end zone. This time around, Taylor and D.J. Johnson were both back there to defend. The ball was deflected by both defenders as all three crashed to the turf.

The ball landed harmlessly on the ground.

Crescent City players went nuts. They acted as if they just won the state title. It wasn't, but it was darn near close to one.

They did the obligatory handshakes in the center of the field as Lake Highland Prep fans stood stunned and shocked by the outcome. How could you not? The Highlanders finished with 365 yards of offense compared to 311 for the Raiders. The Raiders frustrated Kass into 4-of-14 passing for 116 yards and a touchdown.

As for Haines, he was just 2-of-8 passing for 34 yards, but when that big throw was needed on the fourth-and-20 situation with under two minutes to go, he delivered that 32-yard pass to White.

And walking away from the field and back to where the Raiders' locker room was, I can hear from the outside a happy and excited group of players and coaches celebrating the win. They had reason to be happy, most importantly no turnovers in the game.

I found a lot of happy players to interview after this one: from Haines to White to Hill to Waggoner, who didn't have to regret taking over this team by any means anymore after one of the most important wins the program had seen.

"I can't say enough how proud I am of the kids," he said. "There are people saying the program is not going in the right way. But we've stayed the path. We've lost about eight kids for one reason or another, and the ones who are left are committed to being here. We got it done making plays."

That they did. I left from the field sometime after 10 p.m., knowing I wasn't going to make it back in time to write my story in the office. So I had planned to go to the Orlando Sentinel and type the story on the Internet there using our email system.

By the time I got to the paper and found my way to the newsroom and was told how the computer system worked and how I could get to the Internet, I called Andy, my boss, to tell him what happened.

"Well I'll be darned," was his reaction as he was also seething over Nease's coach running the score up on Palatka in a 59-7 victory as Nease had a 52-7 lead after three quarters, telling me he had Tebow continue to throw after the game was long decided.

Then he said something I guarantee I will never hear again in my journalism career.

"Go and write all you can on it."

You know when anyone says that to me that it's like giving me a pass to freely write every ... single ... last ... detail. It took over an hour to write the story, but by 11:45 p.m., I was done writing it and doing the boxscore of the game. I called Andy back and he gave me the final count on the story once he copied the story and put it into our QuickWire systems.

Forty inches. Yes ... that's 4-0.

Hey, he said, "Write all you can!"

I had to wait a half hour but once he and our night editor Bob had looked at the story, he gave me the OK to go home. Turns out Interlachen also won that night as well, 41-10, over Melbourne Central Catholic.

And what did the victory do for Crescent City? The next week, I had another road trip, this time to Winter Park to see the Raiders face the Trinity Prep Saints. They won that game and when I found out from my friends at the Leesburg Commercial that Wildwood, which Crescent City had beaten in a district game a month earlier, had beaten Lake Highland Prep as well, the Raiders had won the district regular season title with one game left against Pierson Taylor at home.

I was proud to walk alongside Waggoner in front of Trinity Prep's building near where the Crescent City buses were and tell him about that Wildwood win over Lake Highland Prep. A smile came over his face. He turned around to tell his players who were on the buses already, but had the windows down to tell them about Wildwood's win and that they were district champions.

I smiled. Compared to where the program was two weeks earlier after that humiliating loss against winless-on-the-field-since-2001 Interlachen, they came a long, long way. The next week, with that double handoff still mesmerizing opponents, Crescent City tore into provincial rival Pierson Taylor to finish the district season at 4-0 and improve to 4-4 for the season.

But the happy times ended there. The rematch with St. Petersburg Catholic at home was a disaster as the Barons steamrolled the Raiders, 66-20. The Raiders still had their state tournament game to play, their first in four years, and it was at home against a very good Dixie County High team from Cross City.

Like all the other home games that year, I got to cover this one, too. The teams were tied at 12-all at halftime, but the Bears went on a 19-0 run in the second half and that was the end of their season at 4-6.

Talking with Waggoner after the season, he was satisfied with how the team came around starting with that Lake Highland Prep game. He was looking forward to the 2005 season and all the great things he thought his team would do then.

Sadly, though, there'd be no 2005 season. In December 2004, Waggoner, homesick and wanting to be near family again, got a job at a new football program at the Daughters of Revolution School in Alabama. He would be back in familiar territory.

Fast forward to 2014 and I'm having my first conversation with Brad Waggoner since he left. He said the job at DAR was a disaster and he bounced around from school to school in both Alabama and in Georgia. All along, he said he wanted to be a college coach, just like he was a a grad assistant before he took the job at Crescent City.

In 2014, being persistent paid off for him as he became a quarterbacks coach and offensive recruitment coordinator for coach Paul Johnson and Georgia Tech University in Atlanta, where now at 40 years old, he's married and the father of a 3-year-old.

It was good to have that conversation not that long ago. He told me over the phone he still had regret over leaving Crescent City the way he did for a program that was to bring him closer to home, but instead, never got off the ground, prompting him to leave the school almost immediately. But he did say one thing that put a silver lining over the whole situation

"The best thing happening was that Al Wisnoski took the job because he deserved it," Waggoner said of the longtime assistant who finally got the chance to be the head coach of the program from 2005-09 when illness finally forced him to leave the job. Al Wisnoski passed away on May 31, 2011.

"He put so much time and effort into that place and honestly, I wouldn't have made it through that year without him. He calmed me down and encouraged me. Looking back, it was a blessing in disguise and gave the man who deserved that job the job."

Wisnoski would take the Raiders to three more postseason appearances in 2005, '07 and '09 with the middle year being a 10-0 perfect regular season.

But the resurrection of the program began on a mid-October Friday night in 2004 when a flailing football team was looking for a spark, a direction to go in when they seemed once again lost in a storm.

It was that night in Orlando everything changed. To this day, it is the best football game I have ever covered since I've been at the Daily News. Nothing has matched the drama and intensity of that night at Lake Highland Prep.

Brad Waggoner may have been the coach for one year, but his impact was indelible to turning things around at Crescent City. I was fortunate enough to be there when that turnaround took place.

Yeah ... everyone has First Amendment rights!

I'm watching some people on Facebook puke out their self-serving venom against professional athletes who found it offensive in how officers took care of matters in incidents in Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, N.Y.

The most recent of these "protests" were the "I Can't Breathe" T-shirts worn by two of the greatest players the NBA has seen – LeBron James and Kobe Bryant – during warmups in reference to the Staten Island incident in which an officer used an illegal chokehold on an African-American man who was illegally selling single cigarettes on a street corner.

His life was worth wasting over that? Serioiusly?!

I get it. A majority of people in this country turn five different shades of green, make horrible faces, then make even worst comments about these so-called "spoiled athletes."

"Why doesn't he just play and STFU! He's being paid a lot of money!"

I've got a comment for you back: Have you ever heard of the First Amendment?

I'm sure you have because that's what allows YOU – that's right, yoooooou! – to make heinous and awful comments. Just because an athlete is making a boatload of money doesn't make that athlete just go out there and "play the game." Pure and simple. You may also forget that their upbringing and "where they came from" might not have been the best of situations. I'm betting money, as a matter of fact, that their surroundings were better than yours growing up.

So yeah, let me help you on this – YOU'RE WRONG and maybe YOU should STFU!

Obviously, you have no clue about what happened during the 1960s. Maybe you were sleeping a lot in history class, so as a reminder, I'm going to get you up to speed:

We had racial tensions in this country that seem to be about 100 times worse than now. We had African-Americans shot to death for no reason at all and even after a law was passed to desegregate schools in the South, that still didn't stop white Southerners from wanting to make it loud and clear that minorities (they used the "n" word in many cases) weren't wanted.

Want a sports angle on it? I'll gladly give you one:

African-American baseball players like Bob Gibson, Curt Flood and Bill White of the St. Louis Cardinals were not allowed – not allowed! – to stay in the same hotel in St. Petersburg, Fla., as their white teammates in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Yeah! This stuff happened!!

And so you had Selma. You had Birmingham. You had Albany, Ga., and St. Augustine, Fla. And the protests were peaceful ones for the most part. Only when white people felt threatened that they decided to open up fire hoses on protestors, all hell broke loose and lots and lots of arrests were made.

You had Washington, D.C. on that famous day in August 1963 where in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. made the now famous "I have a dream" speech.

And Mr. King was getting some prominent people of the day to help fight those racial discrimination wars such as Bill Russell, Jim Brown, Jackie Robinson and Flood and then later on Lew Alcindor (now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). And Muhammed Ali, whose stance against the Vietnam War, easily the most polarizing war in our country's history, was made into something racial by saying, "I ain't got no quarrel with the Viet Cong ... no Vieg Cong ever called me 'Nigger.'"

You see, there was plenty of activism among athletes. African-Americans, especially. Who will never forget Tommie Smith and John Carlos putting their fists in the air after taking medals in the 200-meter dash at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, their fists covered in black gloves?

They set the standard that seemed to get lost in the 1990s and 2000s when the divide between black and white seemed to become greater again.

Now, James and Bryant as well as young stars like Kyrie Irving and Derrick Rose are making statements with the "I Can't Breathe" T-shirt, a week after five St. Louis Rams players came out of the tunnel with their hands up after a grand jury failed to indict a white officer for killing an African-American teen, the details still mirky, but the job of putting together the indictment process so poorly done that a first-year law student would laugh out loud if he saw the shoddy job that was done.

I will support police officers throughout this country. They have a terrible job in a lot of cases. They deal with the world's biggest scum and in a lot of cases, they have to make life-and-death decisions that could mean everything.

I am blessed that some of my friends that I grew up with are cops, sadly many of which are retiring after putting in 25 years or more. These cops I know are good men. Very, very good men. They deserve every bit of praise. And it's not just them. It's a lot of cops ... thousands throughout the country who deserve our praise, love and thank yous for all they do.

You see, my cop friends don't have egos. They checked theirs at the door. They're humble human beings who only want to make it through the day and go home to their families. We, as a society, should laud those cops.

Unfortunately, it's the rogue ones that ruin it for the all-too-good and by-the-book officers. They are out there and quite honestly, those cops shouldn't even be allowed to have a badge or a gun. There, I said it!

When I left Toms River, N.J. in 1999, I got to see how other communities lived. Other than a smattering of towns I grew up around, I never lived in a town that had quite as many African-Americans as I did in both Key West and then Palatka, both in Florida. In the south, it's a bit different. And I've heard it on both sides of the spectrum.

The cops I've come across in my years in Florida have been fantastic. They tell me about their day and they don't want to go into too much detail over certain things, but they have respect for the citizens they protect. And then I hear the minority side of the fence and though some just go about their business, they also are aware that because of their skin color – yes, they said it to me – they have been stopped by white officers. One even said to me, "I keep my head low and just abide by what the cops say. I'm doing nothing illegal and when they're done, they tell me, 'You're good. Have a nice day.'"

Soberingly, this stuff happens here. This same African-American male, who said he's been stopped three times by officers as an adult (he's 26), told me, "This sh*t just happens. You learn to deal with it. I tell them, 'Search the car all you want. I have nothing.'"

Race relations is a problem in this country. Let's get that straight. Sad thing is no one of my color wants to get into a discussion over it.

Why? Well, that would mean being "inconvenienced." No one of my color wants to have a frank discussion over that. They feel as if "Well, if you're not breaking the law, then all should be OK in life."

Folks, it ain't all black and white, figuratively speaking, I'm sorry to say. There are those one or two cops in a police force who are not above harassing the citizens and doing it in such a way that it's not apparent on the surface. Like the guy who got stopped three times by officers even if he was minding his own business.

And no one is above harassment, black or white, for any reason. Heck, it happened to me.

It was Friday night, August 21, 1987. I was at the Ocean County Mall in my hometown of Toms River, N.J. I was 20 years old at the time and I was going through the mall minding my own business and looking at different stores and at kiosks. I came to one kiosk in the center area of the mall where a young lady, about 17 years old and from Bayonne, was working it. She had something there that I was interested in buying for my mother, but I didn't have the money for it. However, she was nice enough to say she'd put it on hold for me.

She had a friend who was working at a kiosk next to hers. That girl was about the same age and she was from Lacey Township. Class of 1989, I remember very well. We began talking and somewhere along the line, it got a little flirtatious, but nothing overt to the point where I felt they were being violated in any way. I had a lot more class than that.

I left the mall, but I came back with my sister. I told her to wait in the car since this was my first stop and that we were going to go somewhere else to pick something up for dinner and take it home. She wanted to get out of the house and I had my Dodge Aspen at the time.

When I got back to the mall, I came back to the same girl from Bayonne and paid for what I asked her to hold for me. I was appreciative of it and I hoped to see her again.

Well no more than about three seconds after the transaction was over – and I'm guessing this was something that was set up in advance so I wouldn't say no and walk away from the purchase – this 5-foot-6, blonde-haired asshole with a Napoleonic complex comes walking over to me, probably not much older than me.

"Excuse me! These girls say you were harassing them. Were you harassing them?"

"No. I may have been a little flirty, but I wasn't harassing them."

"Well, they say you were harassing them!"

"I wasn't, sir."

At first, I thought this was a joke. Little did I know this asshole was a Dover Township cop who was doing security at the mall and didn't have to dress up in uniform.

"Just leave now!" He then barked.

Then this jerkoff put his hands on me to push me back.

"I don't want you to be anywhere near these girls again! Do you hear that?!"

Then he pushed me backward again.

"Fine! Whatever you say." And I walked away.

I walked back to the car humiliated ... and violated by this douchebag.

My sister asked me what was wrong and I told her what happened.

"I didn't even do anything," I told her.

One thing you find out about family is that if you mess with one of us, you get parts of the clan after that. I don't know what was said, but I'm pretty sure those two girls got an earful from my sister.

One of them, I find out moments after she returned, had told my sister there, "Well, he was gyrating his hips in a sexual manner."

"Oh, really?" I said. I'm glad she was such an expert in that kind of thing.

I knew I had a possible police harassment report I could've filled out, but I never did. The reason: I always felt the Dover Township cops would believe his side of the story and would never believe mine.

Sad but true, but I lost quite a bit of trust in police officers that day. It's hard for me to trust a cop that I don't know. If it's my friends, they'll tell me everything I want to know. I'm blessed with them because, again, they have done a tremendous job for the people and towns they serve.

And sadly, I got stopped by the 5-foot-6 Napoleonic complex dude again in January 1992 in the parking lot of the 7-Eleven on Route 37 coming home from work. He didn't remember me, but I sure recognized him that night. And like that time in August 1987, he gave me a bit of an attitude. After I showed him my license, registration and insurance and he held me there in the parking lot for nearly 10 minutes, he let me go.

I've only told this story to two people and that was 2 1/2 years ago – two of the best people I've ever known in Officers Yannacone and Gannon, while we were sitting there at Tiffany's in Toms River and they were talking about police work.

But that incident in 1987 is mainly why I will never be allowed to serve on a jury. Twice, once in Key West in 2001, the other in Palatka in 2009, I was asked to come in to be part of a jury. I was there both days for a significant amount of time. Then they bring you into the court where you must answer questions from both lawyers on the case as well as the judge.

Both times, they asked the question, "Have any of you ever had trouble with the police?''

I put my hand up both times. And I explained the incident in 1987, but I always used the caveat "Other than that, I've never had any trouble with cops, especially in Florida."

Let's say I've never made the final cut. In my opinion, I will never do my civic duty because of that incident.

I'm proud to do what I do daily and have been professionally for 30 years. I've seen a lot. I've heard a lot. There's things out there I've still yet to see and hear.

But I'm grateful for my First Amendment rights. We don't use those rights enough in this country. Some sit quietly and never say what's on their mind. And then there are those who say waaaay more than they deserve to.

I've known those people, too.

And I'm grateful we have great law enforcement out there throughout this country and that I am honored to know quite a few of them.

They don't represent the rogue, bad one. I know both sides very well.

So when an athlete who is paid a lot of money wants to exercise his First Amendment rights, no matter what color, race or genre, they should be allowed to have it, plain and simple.

And to those who think those "spoiled athletes" should just STFU, you simply just don't want to have a clear and honest conversation.

That's too bad.

CZ's underdog soccer-playin' Toms River East Raiders

The weekend after Thanksgiving, 1985 meant state high school football playoff games. Toms River South and Central Regional were playing away at Pennsauken and Willingboro, respectively.

And as much as I wanted to be at a high school football game, the boss didn't think me worthy of covering either game, giving those games off to our big guns, Chris getting the Central-Willingboro game and Greg, our assistant sports editor, doing the South-Pennsauken game.

However, my boss did think me worthy to send this just-turned 19-year-old out to the other side of the state for something that wasn't football.

State tournament soccer.

Yeah, I know -- it's not high school football. I'd rather have been up in the press box of a football game, but at 19 years old, I was a trooper who said yes to almost anything handed to me.

And it was the state tournament. I'm not going to resist it. I had finished up my first spring of covering high school girls soccer at the Observer, so I was somewhat well-versed on the sport. At that time, my whole idea of surviving the coverage was paying close attention to small details and recording how each goal was scored. Honestly, I wasn't well-versed in the true nuances of the sport, but I felt like I could get by.

Oh, and the team that was playing was Toms River East, and that gave me some advantages. One, it was my alma mater, two, some of the players on the team I knew from growing up in my neighborhood or having siblings that I knew when I went to the school, and three, the head coach was the loquacious Rob Czarniewski, the gentleman most everyone knew as "CZ."

CZ was the coolest coach going. I met CZ as coach Ed Polhemus' assistant coach during the girls soccer season the previous spring that saw East lose just two games and win the first-ever Shore Conference Tournament championship against Freehold Township. He was outspoken, but not to an overbearing point. And anything I needed, he could deliver for me. He was honest when it came to his team. He also walked into a terrific situation. CZ became the head coach of this East team after the team's previous coach, the very likeable Chuck Potter (also my junior year history teacher at East and one of my all-time favorite teachers at the school) left New Jersey to work at an Air Force base 75 miles outside of Kansas City.

Still, though, when the postseason began for East, they were a lower seed who would have to advance through the tournament with one road game after another. And three of the four wins to capture the NJSIAA South Jersey Group IV came via overtime shootout, the last one against standout goalie Chris Gillis and Jackson Memorial in the SJ IV championship at the school I was going to at the time, Ocean County College. (Years later, Jackson coach Mike Costa wondered aloud to me if anyone had gone into the woods to collect the two soccer balls he punted in there after his team lost.) Talk about pressure!

But after getting through all that, the next obstacle in the way would be a huge one. Central Jersey Group IV champion Hightstown was the No. 1 team in the state, according to the Star-Ledger and were 20-1-2, loaded with a ton of talent, including scoring machines Jim Barlow and John Klena. And goalkeepers Al Meyers and Rob Radigan were very, very good. Hightstown didn't get to this point of the season by just being lucky.

East had its hands full. There was no question about it. Even with a talented team that included forwards Brenden McKibbin, Rich Albers and Joe Perselli, a defense anchored by the steady Teddy Gillen, Mike Ruhnke and John Brown in the back along with goalkeeper Joe Flaherty, I still felt like I was going to be watching the final game of the Raider season, even if East had compiled an 17-5-1 record. Not a chance, I told myself.

But I'm a trooper. I'm going to see this game out in western New Jersey regardless.

Now the site of this game, I was told, was Rider College in Lawrenceville. And I left early enough on this Saturday afternoon, November 23, 1985, to head that way for what was a 1 p.m. game. Back in that time, getting to the Trenton area meant having to deal with detours as the highways were still being worked upon to connect I-195 with I-95 and I-295 properly. It meant having to get off at the Hamilton Township exit, drive a couple of miles, then hook up with the I-295 loop. Finding the exit was not a big problem and by about 12:20 p.m., I was at Rider College for the big soccer match.

One problem, though: No matter how much I walked around the campus at the college, I saw no inkling of soccer players or fans. I found the student center with a pay phone and one person inside to answer any questions I had.

"Is there a high school soccer game today here?" I asked.

"None that I know of," the young man answered back.

Greeeeeeeat. Just what I needed to hear. It's 12:35 p.m., 25 minutes from the game starting and no idea where this game was being played. Then the young man who had some familiarity with Lawrenceville suggested a couple of places.

One of those places was Mercer County Park. That's nice, but I had no idea where it was located.

"It's actually right near the college if you go down this road," he said, telling me which side of the road it was.

I thanked him and said that I had nothing to lose. He didn't really know where else they could be playing soccer. So back to the 1973 Chevy Chevelle I drove to weave my way out of Rider and back on the main highway and down the road to find the sign that pointed me toward Mercer County Park. I drove into the park, parked and began to walk around to see if I can find any idea or thought of a soccer match.

It was probably about 1,000 feet, but in the distance, I could see teams warming up. And I recognized East's black and silver colors. And as I got closer, I could see the very tall, beard-wearing sight of CZ.

Yeah, I was in the right place at long last. The teams were mere minutes from kicking it off. It took me mere minutes to jot down rosters for both teams thanks to East's managers, said my hellos to CZ and assistant coach John Crowley and then settled in to walk up and down the sidelines for the game between the Raiders and Rams.

And just as I suspected, Hightstown was really good. The Rams tested East's defense early and put as much pressure as they could on Flaherty, whose brother John I graduated with at TRHSE. But Flaherty was there to make the stops before the situation escalated out of trouble. And McKibbin had a golden opportunity in the second quarter, but his head ball was stopped by Meyers, who made 10 saves in the first half. Albers and Perselli also had golden chances, but Meyers put an end to those threats.

Through 40 minutes of soccer, it was scoreless. Maybe these Raiders had a chance after all. Maybe I was underestimating them on this beautiful Saturday afternoon with temperatures hovering near 60 degrees. The more this game went on, the more confidence they were gaining against the so-called best team in the state.

I can still see the Raiders breaking the huddle after the halftime talk with their coach and CZ looking at me with an "OK, let's see how this goes" look to him. CZ admitted to me that he had been preparing for this season since the summer and that his Raiders were as prepared as they were going to be. Maybe he had this laissez-faire attitude about him, but that told me he had confidence in his club regardless and that they had confidence in him back.

But mere minutes into the second half, things got a bit dicey for the Raiders. Barlow got free of East defenders and had a strong shot from about 15 yards away. The ball went over Flaherty's head and for one moment, it looked as if the Rams had taken the lead.

However, to show you what kind of a day it was at this park, the ball banged off the crossbar and got cleared away by Gillen.

Wow! That was all I could think at that moment. East really dodged that first serious bullet on this afternoon. Still, there was no threat in sight for the Raiders as the third quarter (games back in that time were played in four 20-minute quarters) was winding down in this scoreless battle.

Then the Raiders put a little pressure on Hightstown's defense. And it was near the end of the third quarter that the entire mood of the game changed. One of Hightstown's defenders was able to get to the ball and tap a short pass back to the second-half goalie, Radigan.

This would prove to be a mistake for the defender had no idea that McKibbin, who was a pest to the Rams' defense all day, was hanging around near the net. McKibbin pounced on the delicate pass to Radigan and intercepted it. Once gaining control, he put a shot past the outstretched Radigan that just found the inside of the outside post at the 16:47 mark of the third quarter.

East players on the bench jumped up jubilantly, while CZ and Crowley remained relatively calm. They knew there was still 3:13 left in the quarter and a whole 20 minutes after that and these Rams would be there to make things tough.

What the coaches didn't know was once that goal was scored, the entire team felt confident enough to protect a 1-0 lead. Mere moments after that goal, McKibbin had ideas of another goal, but his shot was just wide of the net.

With 20 minutes left, the Raiders were nursing the 1-0 lead. Then nearly five minutes into the last quarter, East struck again. McKibbin made a kick toward the net that was heading for a Raider teammate. Radigan made the decision to come out toward the player and was able to get a hand on the ball.

But as if bad luck was following Radigan and the Rams, there was Mike Browne trailing the play. Without a defender nearby and Radigan out of position, Browne pounded his shot past the goalie and into the net to make it 2-0.

The stunning turn of events in the last 10 minutes had East players, coaches, families and friends who were there to cheer the Raiders on believing that another trip to the state Group IV final at nearby Trenton State College was in the immediate plans.

After all, at 1-0, the game is still in the balance. At 2-0 and with the Raiders' defense hitting on all cylinders, there was no way I believed Hightstown was crawling back into this game. Klena, who scored 29 goals that season, had very little impact against Ruhnke, John Brown and Gillen, easily one of the best defending midfielders I've ever covered in the sport and who would go on to perform nationally in soccer.

With under a minute left, the outcome was obvious. But the Rams were making things interesting. They put enough pressure on East to make the Raiders commit a tripping penalty within East's scoring box. That meant a penalty shot and Barlow was called upon to deliver the kick. He was true with a shot to the left of Flaherty -- the only thing that did get by the senior keeper -- to make it 2-1. And with 40 seconds left, anything could happen.

Naaaaaah! Once East kicked off after the goal, the Raiders efficiently ran the clock out and were celebrating the 2-1 win with an unusually calm demeanor. But that was the confidence this team had -- maybe they were the only ones who thought they would win that game that sunny afternoon in Lawrenceville. And maybe it was the quiet, even-keeled demeanor of their confident coach that had something to do with it, too.

"We just come to the games to have fun," he said.

Yeah ... fun! Imagine that?

"It's a lot easier when you're the underdog," CZ continued after the game. "You can just go out there and play. We've been the underdog in every game of this tournament and most likely, we'll be the underdog for the state final."

He may have felt that way, but the way they played against the so-called No. 1 team in the state, these Raiders could have played Pele, Giorgio Chinaglia, Franz Beckenbauer and the 1970s North American Soccer League New York Cosmos.

They would find out later that it would be Westfield they would play for the state final  on TSC's Astro-turf field on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, November 27, 1985. And as if they didn't miss a beat from the Hightstown win, the Raiders captured the state Group IV championship, 3-1, over Westfield as Albers scored twice and assisted on a goal by Ruhnke. Flaherty made seven saves to preserve East's first state overall state title in any sport since the school was born in 1979.

It was a nice going-away present for CZ.

Going away present?? Yeah, as I found out first-hand after the win over Hightstown that afternoon and he had told no other media person, this was a one-and-done year for him. CZ was never comfortable being a head coach of a program and he was gladly giving up the head coaching duties to Crowley.

"I told the boys this just today," he told me on that November 23, 1985. "In the beginning of the season, my assistant coach, John Crowley, and I made an agreement to switch the head coaching position. So next year, I'll be John's assistant coach."

That's when I knew I had gotten the trust of someone that I got to cover for them to allow me to break news, even on the high school sports level.

I made my way back to Toms River to type in the story that late afternoon and gladly told Chris, who was also our boys soccer guy, "It's yours now ... but if you need someone to go out there for the state final."

That was to light a fire under his behind. It did. He got to cover East's state title win over Westfield, while I was glad to recover from working another Tuesday all-nighter at the Viking News to put out another weekly edition of the paper.

I would get to see my share of state championships over the years, so trust me, I wasn't discouraged. But this state semifinal game was something special. Though not enthused to cover the game at first, it turned out to be a memory that still lasts in my mind to this day.

Then again, a calm and collected coach like Rob Czarniewski, whose style made his players play calm, cool and collected, made it easy to want to watch the game and be there to report on it.

Thanks, CZ!