A Look Back

It’s great to know that the number 99 jersey identified with one Aaron Judge is the leading seller in MLB gear. For the third year in a row. Even if Judge is having a lesser year by his rookie standards, which one Pete Alonso of the Mets has surpassed, he is still the superstar that Yankees fans madly adore and the rest of creation watches in case he uses his strength and athleticism to hit homers or throw our runners. I just have one question—which sells more—the home pinstripes or the away gray?

There are a number of different things to focus in on for this week and the upcoming MLB playoffs. So, too, there was a bevy of interesting college football games on tap (30 in the NY Metro area are being televised) and the usual slate of NFL games minus the Jets (mercifully) and the 49’ers, who have been assigned the first bye week. 

Instead, I want to go back in time, to when I lived in Highland Park, a small town across the Raritan River from New Brunswick, a small city which was home to Rutgers University and the all-women’s Douglass College—the former much smaller and more Ivy League-like in contrast to the behemoth state school it has become. I was a small, roundish Jewish kid who had grown into loving sports and playing them. I never thought anything was amiss about my size when I played—I could throw the ball farther and sometimes harder than others and I could shoot baskets without thought of not getting my shot off, or play any position on the football field. 

I had a Schwinn bike, and it allowed me to go everywhere around the town, which was divided between North and South sides and with the Triangle section (also known as the Irving section after the elementary school of the same name in that area) formed by Woodbridge and Raritan Avenues from where they met at North and South Sixth Avenues. 

One of the first places I went to was at the high school, where, in the summer, the borough had a recreation program. Loosely organized, it was a place for kids to go on a daily basis to interact with their peers. I played dice baseball, Chinese checkers, caroms, ping pong, wiffle ball, softball inside of the fenced in macadam tennis courts, ran football patterns and shot hoops. I was only 5 minutes from home by bike, too. It was a place to go to during the morning and some afternoons, when I wasn’t hosting friends at the in ground pool my father had constructed, which was one of the first of its kind in Middlesex County and the subject of a lengthy article in The Home News.

I met the head of the program, a garrulous individual named Jay Dakelman. Jay was the head coach of the Highland Park High School football team, which was quite a small school powerhouse. He also coached track and field, which produced some exceptional performers. 

I spent 12 years around Jay—from 1956 when we first moved to Highland Park from neighboring Edison, until I left for college. His imprint on my life was incredible. But then again, that’s what great coaches do.

Jay was a tough and demanding football coach. Jay was a rarity—a Jewish coach. He could roar and motivate as well as anyone. This was extraordinary, because he was not a big man. Yet he never once raised his voice to me, no matter what I was doing around HPHS athletics or at “Rec,” as we called it.

When I started going to Rec, I met his counselors—members of some of his early football teams. Tommy York, Jackie Vanacore, Donnie and Jimmie Bell are the players I remember. They treated me as one of them—having fun while teaching me fundamentals in each sport. Probably because I was so enthusiastic, they enjoyed teasing and pushing me to greater heights beyond my small stature. 

As a result, I would spend a lot of my time at the high school in the fall, watching football practice and becoming an unofficial ball boy and mascot. Games weren’t being played at the high school—they were played at Johnson Park, land donated to Middlesex County by the pharmaceutical heirs. I would ride my bike down the hills sloping towards the river, underneath the narrow stone arch on River Road, and over to the temporary stands set up in the smaller Highland Park portion, near the Piscataway border. I would watch my friends play,  led by All-State QB Joe Policastro, winning more than losing and always defeating arch rival Metuchen on Thanksgiving Day in New Brunswick.

There was so much that I was privy to while hanging with Jay. I saw the plans for the new football field and the baseball field adjacent to it. I listened to assessments of rival coaches and players. I learned about play calling and defenses. 

He gave me access to the great State track meets on the cinder at Highland Park. I used my mother’s typing test stop watch to time athletes on the track along with the official ones and my times were taken into account!! I hand-timed Olympian Marty Liquori’s state record-setting mile when he was a student at Essex Catholic.

Because I was so good at baseball, somehow Jay and his players got me into the Midget League at 8 years old, when the starting age was 9, placing me on the Police Department team with some of the better baseball players in town. 

He ran the youth basketball in the schools, so I of course participated with the running clock at Hamilton School and then at the high school, becoming a scorekeeper and timer for the older kids. I started attending varsity games in the cramped old gymnasium, watching my older friends perform for Coach Austin (Bus) Lepine. This ultimately led to my being the scorekeeper and head manager for the varsity basketball team. The training I received from Coaches Bob Kertes and Bob Tirone coupled with the autonomy they gave me was another life lesson I mastered. 

Because everyone else wanted to play freshman football, then so did this 5’2”, 150 pounder. I thought I could play QB because of my arm. In reality, I was a slower third string running back, fourth string QB and a third team linebacker, whose only playing time came with a cameo on the kickoff return team and one carry against John Adams Junior High at the Edison HS field which gained 3 yards. That and the one brutal hit from a junior 100 pounds heavier than me which rung my bell (concussion protocol?) taught me that I would be safer on the sidelines. It was fun hanging out with some of the players from the 1964 squad—QB Richie Policastro, a future Rutgers QB,  would throw hard at me to test my hands and WR Glenn Meltzer, who led the nation in receptions one year at Wichita State would laugh at my ineptitude and show me how to cradle the throws. Another notable was the flamboyant Wayne Donaldson, who one time ran his car into a garage on Lincoln Avenue, leaving the owner’s car teetering over the brook far below. Gary Beno was the tough fullback, who would clear the way for the runners. These were my guys—they knew me and I somewhat idolized them. 

Jay saw my dilemma and introduced me to Donny Berkman, who did his football statistics. When the varsity played on Saturdays, I would follow Donny and learn how to keep stats and what information was needed to provide the newspapers and radio stations with, receiving some nice pocket change in the process. 

By the time he had left, I was the main stat man for the varsity football and basketball teams. Every Saturday night I would be in my room, breaking down the figures, providing the coaches with everything they needed to know about the game and providing cumulative statistics for the season. Then I would hang with my friends, go get a hot salt bagel and bring home the early Sunday papers ensconced in my bicycle’s baskets. Who knew from girls? It was such an innocent time. 

This earned me a place at the coaches meeting on Sunday mornings when I would deliver my sheets to Jay and sit in when they started to break down the next week’s opponent from their scout, setting up the plan of attack for a team which would go undefeated. I also could have any doughnut I wanted. This, to me, was pretty heady stuff. 

I enjoyed the bus rides, hanging with my classmates and the younger players. Never was I demeaned for my not being a player. I was treated as part of the team. I endured the tirade Jay blistered the dejected group who trailed Carteret 20-7 at the half and saw their season imperiled. (on the day, when I gave Jay the halftime stats, I could see that he was absolutely seething but he still managed to say thank you before walking away in a huff).

My passion for football stats continued at F&M, when I was the freshman statistician and then for two years, the varsity stat guy. Every Sunday I would have the stats ready for Coach Dave Pooley or his successor, Coach Bob Curtis. I made the mistake of going with a couple of the players to a frat party my sophomore year and getting drunk; Coach Pooley came angrily to my door demanding the stats as I was ready to puke—never again did I get drunk after a football game!!

Once more, the players treated me as one of them. The coaches allowed me to eat with the team before the games. I rode on the bus. I went into the locker room. I consoled them when they were injured. I sat in the press box, through heat, cold, rain. The home games were catered, so the staff learned that I liked turkey sandwiches and they were there for me. As a stringer for the newspapers, radio and TV, I earned more pocket change.  

I had a blast. The toughest decision I faced at F&M was when I went to the Washington Semester Honors Program in Government at American University. Either I was giving up baseball my senior year or I would go for the Fall Semester. When I landed a summer Congressional internship which I could keep during the fall, the die was cast. My football stats career had come to an end. 

So when I see that another fall is upon us, I reminisce about my childhood and what football has meant to me. With much thanks to Jay Dakelman, who presented me with the greatest opportunities to understand and appreciate the game from the time I was so young and into college. His imprint is still there—I look for the stats on the big scoreboards at Jets games, keeping track of things in my head. I identify coverages and and anticipate play calls. 

It is easy for me to think how lucky I was having received the football education I absorbed.  My fabric is made up of many events which made me into who I am today. None were more important than the ones I was most fortunate to have received from the generosity of Jay Dakelman, beginning as little boy at the Rec in the summer of 1956.

Thus, it was an absolute travesty that the recent NJ.Com ranking of all-time coaches in all sports omitted Jay Dakelman. Jay was a pioneer and member of the first class of the NJ High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He coached at a small school so he could never measure up to those who were in the legendary programs at larger schools and at the Catholic high schools who recruited their talent.

With no apologies to the great Bob Hurley and his outstanding St. Anthony’s basketball teams—Bob being a Naismith Hall of Fame inductee—while Coach Hurley was listed as the top coach in the aforementioned rankings, Jay Dakelman will always be number one in mine. I wish I could have told him that.