Watchung Hills Regional High School accepted students from three school districts in central New Jersey: Watchung Borough, Warren Township and Passaic Township where students from Stirling, Millington, Gillette, and Meyersville all attended. In grammar school in Watchung we had played against the other two townships and were vaguely familiar with their athletes. Several of them were at my level and at least one in each sport was arguably better than me.
Because we were a “regional” high school, the size of our class at least tripled as we freshman matriculated from smaller local schools to the uncharted waters of a new high school with over one thousand students. In was daunting but actually ver exciting to meet hundreds of young people from other schools.
I tried out for the freshman football team. I didn’t doubt that I would make it. I wanted to be the quarterback. I had competition from a Warren resident named Rob Lang. He was an excellent student with a high IQ I knew this because one day I stole a look at the freshman coach’s clipboard where each player’s IQ was listed and while I don’t recall the exact numbers, Rob had an IQ at least ten points higher than anyone else, including me. IQ was a highly valued quantity in those days and it gave Rob an advantage with coaches over all comers, especially for the position of quarterback. The problem was it was more a test of literacy and focus than athletic ability. I believed I was a better athlete than Rob and would get the chance to prove it throughout our high school years, but his intelligence and good character gave him an advantage with the coaches. He won the job and I had to settle for playing safety on defense, which didn’t suit me at all; I wanted to handle the ball on every play, not wait for someone to drop it or throw an errant pass. You rarely touch the ball on defense. I recall very little about that season playing freshman football. I envied Rob, but it didn't turn me against him. In fact, he and I became good friends.
In our sophomore year, Rob was promoted to the varsity in the expectation he would replace a competent senior quarterback named Jim Goulding who would graduate at the end of the school year. I was given the job as the junior varsity quarterback. I played passably well but don’t remember much about it other than I broke my nose in one game. I was starting to feel that the coaching staff including the head varsity coach Don Schneider didn’t know how to judge talent. Several other sophomores had been elevated to the varsity but not me. I viewed my talent as latent and if given a chance would bloom, which it did later.
I was pining to play for the varsity and thought I would get my turn the following year but was disappointed again. Inexplicably, Rob was given the job of quarterback and performed passably well without distinction. The team had a winning record, but that was mostly due to the presence of Jace Ericson, one of the best running backs in the state of New Jersey. He was 6’-1,’ weighed 195 lbs and could run the 100 yard dash in 10.8 seconds. It generally took 3 tacklers to bring him down.
Coach Schneider didn’t approve of me. I had started drinking and partying on weekends with fellow athletes and a group of teenage sophisticates consisting of aspiring bohemians and risk takers, some of whom were athletes and others who were natural comedians, artists or had other talents. I suspect Coach Schneider, who lacked a sense of humor, thought I was a bad influence on his more traditional athletes. And I was a smoker, a habit I got from my parents.
Watchung Hills had not beaten North Plainfield in football in the seven years since our high school had been built in 1957 and students from Watchung migrated from North Plainfield to the new high school. In November of 1964 we played them at their field. As a junior, I was playing cornerback and was the place kicker on the team. I intercepted one pass that year and made my share of tackles. But my heart wasn’t in defense. Jace Ericson revved up his motor for the game and almost single-handedly produced a victory for us. He ran for over 100 yards and was so exhausted after the game from transporting tacklers on his back that he could barely walk. (A few beers and shots of vodka fixed that at the celebration later.) I kicked an extra point and missed another that bounced off the post and yet we hung on to win a close game 13 to 10. Our defense was nearly flawless. Defeating North Plainfield was a major step forward for the WHRHS football program and our fans were jubilant.
A week or two later I was thrown off the team. The owner of the school bus concession who drove the bus that picked up students on our road, had seen me smoking a cigarette at the bus stop one morning and reported me to Coach Schneider, who informed me I was not going to be allowed to play our final game on Thanksgiving morning against Manville. I was shocked, but not so shocked I couldn’t conceive a way to conceal my banishment from my parents, who would not have been pleased. i told them I had injured my groin again (as I had just before the first game of the season) and would be unable to play. I asked Coach Schneider to allow me to run the chains that measured first downs so that I could be near the team. He agreed. My father never learned of my banishment. I think I wanted to conceal it from him more because of embarrassment and shame than anything else. After all, he smoked a pack of Camels a day. Regardless, I am still angry that I was betrayed by a prissy tattletale whose name was George Dealaman. That was the year that the Surgeon General's report on smoking came out. Professional athletes were still featured in advertisements in magazines, on radio and television endorsing their favorite brands of cigarettes. That was not banned until 1971. There really was no good reason to throw me off the team.
The following year, our senior year in the fall of 1965,I was again assigned as backup quarterback to Rob Lang. The season did not go well. We won our first game but began to lose to a series of undefeated teams or teams with only one loss. We lost to South Plainfield and Governor Livingston (Berkeley Heights) who ended up undefeated. We lost to Bound Brook, Somerville, and North Plainfield who all ended up losing only 1 or 2 games (out of nine). The Governor Livingston team under Coach Jack Bicknell according to Wikipedia, “went undefeated, untied and nearly unscored on.” Looking back there is some solace in knowing we scored on them in a 20-6 loss. Jack Bicknell later went on to coach Boston College and Doug Flutie in his Heisman Trophy season.
1965 was a sad football season at WHRHS. Two of our easiest opponents, Ridge High School (Basking Ridge) and Bernardsville High School (where actress Meryl Streep attended and was a member of the cheerleading squad) had decided they didn’t want to play us any more. Two very competitive teams replaced them: Southside Newark and South Plainfield.
Our school had built an addition with new locker room facilities for the football team but construction was behind schedule. We had water for showers but it was cold. We spent the entire season either taking a cold shower after practice or waiting until we got home to shower. I contracted impetigo, apparently due to skipping cold showers. In the game against Franklin Township, I was forced to dress at home and avoid contact with my fellow players. Of course, as a defensive back and part-time wide receiver I couldn’t avoid contact with their players, so I don’t know how they justified it. It’s a very infectious disease. After treatment it disappeared the following week.
We beat Franklin Township and played a scoreless tie against South Side Newark, a team which consisted entirely of black players. Our team was entirely white. They were visiting our field and I remember them warming up on an adjacent practice field. They were singing ominously something that resembled an African war chant. As game-time approached it got increasingly loud, more freewheeling and spirited. They weren’t in a frenzy, but were ready for action. To my surprise, we held them to a scoreless tie. I was playing wide receiver in that game and took a sledge-hammer blow from a Southside defensive back to my rear end after a catch on what was then called a button-hook pattern. Three days later my entire left buttock gluteus maximus bloomed black and blue. Seven years later Southside High School was renamed Malcolm X Shabazz High School. Malcolm X was assassinated in February,1965, eight months before we played them.
With the game against North Plainfield approaching and given that in five of our six games we had been shut out twice and held to one touchdown in three others, the coaches decided to make some changes. I was moved to quarterback and Rob Lang was moved to defensive safety. There were other changes. That week I ran the offense against North Plainfield who had lost only one game. We lost 21-0, suffering our third shut out in five games. North Plainfield would play undefeated South Plainfield on Thanksgiving that year in a battle that produced one of the most memorable games in Central New Jersey in the decade of the 1960s. They lost a close game to a South Plainfield team quarterbacked by Wally Cirafesi, the second best quarterback in the state that year. The best? Joe Theissman, a junior from South River. That would be the Joe Theissman who later quarterbacked the Washington Redskins to a victory in the Super Bowl. South Plainfield was down 20 to 6 at the end of the third quarter but rallied to defeat North Plainfield 26-20. (I used to tell people I got beaten out for All-State quarterback honors by Joe Theissman, which was technically true. He beat out me and hundreds of others for the honor.)
North Plainfield had a fullback/linebacker named Pete Johnson. I had played against him in Small Fry League baseball when he was tall but skinny boy. Six years later he was 3 inches taller and 30 lbs heavier than me. The following year in 1966 he went on to play for Penn State under Joe Paterno in Paterno's first year as head coach. In our loss to North Plainfield I was crunched several times by Pete Johnson and others on rollouts, drop backs, and quarterback options. We couldn’t put the ball in the end zone. He did, however, and scored two rushing touchdowns if I recall correctly.
To be fair, our woe-begotten team ended up having played against three teams that were undefeated when we played them and three others, like North Plainfield that had lost only one game. We had serious injuries to some key players including Dick Schneider, the coach’s son, who was the fastest running back in New Jersey before he broke his leg in our first game. How do I know he was the fastest? He won the state championship in the 100 yard dash that spring in 9.8 seconds. He would have made our team a lot better.
Coach Schneider’s saving grace at that point was that he had approved the hiring of an assistant coach named John David Yohn that year. Yohn had played outside linebacker for the New York Jets in 1963. In 1962 he had signed with and played briefly for the Baltimore Colts. He quickly turned our defense into a menacing, stingy crew and had most of us convinced he should be the head coach. Unfortunately, they didn't get much help from the offense which was often guilt of three plays and a punt.
The week following the North Plainfield loss we played better against once-defeated Bound Brook but still lost 7-0 in the mud and rain. I remember running roll out after roll out and passing a wet ball to no avail. We gained a lot of yards in that game but couldn't score. The end zone for us was a no-fly zone.
We were a dismal 2-5-1 and scheduled to play our final game against rival Manville on Thanksgiving morning at their field. In the same game the year before (the game I worked the chains because I had been removed from the team for smoking) we lost a close contest at home. We were pining for revenge. Manville was undefeated with one tie. They had racked up 202 points while allowing only 36 in eight games played.
Our coaches introduced more changes in our lineup. We were searching for solutions. Because I had been running the ball somewhat successfully on roll outs and scrambles, it was decided to put me at running back and give the quarterback position to one of our talented running backs named Bill MacLeod who had been out for three weeks with broken ribs and was tentatively judged ready to play. Before the game he was taped up with extra foam padding that made him look like a fat man. Three weeks before on the evening he had returned home from the hospital with his broken ribs, I was one of three teammates who visited him. It was only a few hours after his injury. He soon begged us to leave early because in an attempt to cheer him up we couldn’t help but make him laugh, which shot spasms of level 9 pain through his rib cage.
We practiced all week at our new positions. We felt the changes might work. If nothing else it would confuse Manville’s defense. We worked in a couple of halfback option passes for me. Bill was at best 80% and one hard hit might have disabled him, but he was intent on playing. (Bill's older brother Ernie had been a stalwart running back on the 1964 team.) Coach Yohn worked up a defensive scheme that the defense could believe in. It proved to be effective.
The game was scheduled to start at 10:30 AM so as not to interfere with Thanksgiving dinner. The first play of the game we had a surprise for them. I was to take the ball on a sweep and throw a halfback option pass to our tight end. The play worked perfectly except that our tight end, who had gotten well beyond their defenders, began to slow down thinking he was out of my range. This caused me to overthrow him. I expressed my disappointment to him in colorful language.
In the first half, neither team could score. We kept running student-body-right (or left) sweeps and they kept stopping us. Our musical chairs-offense was still predictable. We were probably telegraphing our plays. Our defense on the other hand was more than a match for their offense run by a capable quarterback named Bernie Schulz.
In the second half we continued futilely running end sweeps and their defense kept meeting us out there where they knew the play was going. Power plays off tackle didn’t work either. Our passing game wasn’t fooling anyone; at game’s end we had one completion in six attempts for a measly 2 yards.) Their linebackers and defensive backs spent most of the day rushing toward one sideline or the other or ganging up on our receivers.
Deep into the third quarter on my way out to sweep the left end for what was likely to be no gain, I saw daylight created by our pulling guard and their defensive tackle who had cut and run laterally to stop the end sweep. I cut back inside, broke through up the middle and then veered right toward the opposite sideline. I juked out one defensive back and was on my way. Fifty-one yards later I was in the end zone. I missed the extra point kick but we were up 6-0.
A few minutes later in the fourth quarter after another uneventful possession that ended up in their territory, we punted. Their punt returner fumbled the ball and we recovered on their 7 yard line. We ran up the middle on two plays. On the second one, I ran through the gap between the guard and tackle and planted my face mask into the chest of an All-Area line backer named Ken Koharki. It didn't move him very far but it straightened him up a little, which allowed our fullback Fred Ahlers to slip through for a score. I kicked the extra point and we were up 13-0.
Late in the fourth quarter Manville scored on a 25 yard drive after we shanked a punt from deep in our territory. But time was running out. With two minutes left, they tried an onside kick which we recovered. After three plays we had to punt again, but this time we pinned them back on their own 15 yard line. Rob Lang ended their chances by intercepting a pass. The game ended shortly thereafter with the score 13-7. A embarrassing season of deep disappointment and frustration had ended with one glorious victory.
Decades later people would come up to me and reminisce about that game which, because it was Thanksgiving, always had the largest crowds in attendance. A lot of college students who were alumni of ours and our opponents would come home for vacation and watch it. My recollection is that there were 7000 people in attendance that day. Most of them were Manville fans hoping to see the team go undefeated.
The Monday after the Thanksgiving weekend, I had to report immediately for varsity basketball practice which had been going on for several weeks. (I had been a starting guard on the team the year before.) That meant I didn’t get to view the film of the Manville game with my teammates that afternoon. I later heard from one of them that in watching the replay of my 51 yd. run, everyone cheered and Coach Yohn said, “That’s just good runnin’.” Because it was a compliment from a professional football player, it has stayed with me ever since.
The Courier News of Plainfield was the paper of record in those days in central New Jersey. They had detailed coverage with photos of all the important games played on Thanksgiving. I happen to have a copy the article on our game because my father some forty years later sent me all my clippings he had collected in those years. The article, which covered nearly half a page with two photos, immediately prompted outrage among the Watchung Hills faithful. The reporter, Dave Hardy, based the entire column on the emotional breakdown of one Mike Galida,a senior guard and defensive tackle for Manville:
There sitting in the middle of the field at the Manville 37-yard line, tears rolling down his mud-spattered face as he wept unashamed, was no. 78— Mike Galida.
They weren’t tears caused much by the physical beating you took Mike, but rather the aftermath of utter frustration anyone might feel after having done his very best and more only to find it wasn’t enough. . .
Like the rest of your teammates you came into this game proud of your 6-0-1 record and were entranced by the possibility of winning the first state championship title if you beat Watchung Hills.
For sixty minutes without let up, number 78, you’re in there in your guard position. And for sixty minutes you played football with flawless execution, blocking and tackling with the tenacity of a tiger. . . .
But it wasn’t enough. No, it wasn’t enough to prevent Watchung Hills halfback Doug Eaton from taking a handoff and threading his ways through tacklers 50 yards for the first touchdown of the game.
It wasn’t your fault that Eaton scored, you and the rest of those hard-nosed Manville linemen held your ground. But somehow— through a quirk of fate or just plain luck— Eaton found daylight and was gone.
And so on, ad nauseam. "Luck" had nothing to do with it. It was execution.
The column sounded like Hardy was Galida’s father comforting him after their catastrophic loss. Adding insult to injury, the two photos in the article were similarly indifferent to our efforts. One was of our two mascots, two pretty girls dressed up like Indian princesses (we were the Warriors and our emblem was an Indian head not unlike the one on a Indian head nickel.). The other photo was of a Manville receiver catching a pass.
Our fans were indignant. Scores of letters were written to The Courier News complaining about the blatantly one-sided coverage that utterly ignored the magnitude of our accomplishment. As I recall, it produced something resembling a letter of apology from the paper and the reporter himself. The reporter was likely sitting in the stands on the Manville side of the field in anticipation of a convincing victory where he might recorded the ecstasy of the fans over their undefeated season. Or maybe he was standing on Manville’s sideline. It is clear that he was more affected by their momentous loss than our glorious victory.
* * * * *
I always wondered what happened to Coach John David Yohn. He didn’t last long at Watchung Hills serving under Coach Schneider who was being blamed by many of our fans for our losing season. Schneider stayed on for three more years because he had two sons, Dick and Don who became great running backs for WHRHS and helped him to winning seasons. I don’t have access to the team’s records, but i heard they did well. After Dick ran the 100 yard dash in the spring of 1965 in 9.8 seconds, his brother Don ran it in 9.4 two years later, if I remember correctly. Dick was our best running back and might have led us to a winning season that fall, but his broken leg in the first game ended his season and negatively impacted ours.
As players, we loved Coach Yohn. I re-visited my high school yearbook to see what I could find about him. He was pictured among photos of Physical Education instructors and coaches. They were all dressed in the uniform of the time, which was side-striped grey slacks and a blue polo shirt with Watchung Hills Physical Education embroidered on it. The photo of Coach Yohn is of a 28 yr old man in his prime, which is to be expected since he been playing linebacker for the New York Jets only two years before and largely retained his professional condition. On the Jets roster, he was listed 6’-0” and 225 lbs and may have gained a couple of pounds, but he is so powerful looking in the photo it appears he is wearing shoulder pads under his shirt. His neck is wider at its base than it is where it meets his jawline. He is listed as the head track coach and assistant football coach. As track coach he had several state champions that year in the spring of 1966: Ray Siegrist in the 880, Lou Falzarano in the high and low hurdles and Ed Nicholas in the shotput. Tony Maglione medalled in the javelin. Tony, Ed and Lou played on our football team. Ed won an athletic scholarship to North Carolina State. Lou was our tight end Tony was a linebacker and became a successful high school football coach at several schools in Central New Jersey.
Coach John David Yohn
After a Grok search I found Coach Yohn’s obituary. He died in 2002 of cancer after a very successful career as a coach:
John D. "Coach" Yohn, 65, of 12 Riverview Drive, Middletown, died Monday in the Community General Osteopathic Hospital.
He retired as Principal of Dauphin County Vo-Tech.
He was a member of Evangelical United Methodist Church, Middletown; a graduate of Palmyra High School, where he excelled in football, track, and basketball. He received a full scholarship to Gettysburg College and graduated with a B.S. in Physical Education. He was a Commissioned Officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he played two seasons of football and was selected as the "Most Valuable Player" as a center and linebacker. In 1962, he played as a linebacker for the Baltimore Colts and in 1963, started as a middle linebacker for the New York Jets. He was Assistant Football Coach at Boiling Springs; Assistant Football and Track Coach at Watchung Hills High School; Assistant Football Coach at Cumberland Valley High School. From 1968-1975, he was Head Football Coach at Middletown Area High School, with a career record of 71-13-2, three undefeated seasons, five CAC Championships, five time CAC "Coach of the Year", 37 games without a league loss and won three consecutive championships. He was Assistant Coach of the Big 33 in 1974 and Head Coach in 1976; and inducted into the PA Sports Hall of Fame in 1982.
No surprise there. He had all the tools to be a great and inspirational leader. I searched YouTube for videos of him playing with the Colts and the Jets. He is listed on the Colts roster as number 51, but as he played in only four games I could find no video of him. He must have been thrilled, however briefly, to play with Johnny Unitas, Lenny Moore, Raymond Berry, Gino Marchetti, Big Daddy Lipscomb and others on the great Colt team of that era.
But there are numerous videos of him playing for the Jets the following season in 1963 where he wore number 57 and started as an outside linebacker in 14 games. My honest appraisal is that he was over-matched by the larger players he was competing against but he showed a lot of hustle and abandon in stopping runners and pass receivers. When the play ended, he was usually in on the tackle or close by. That he played an entire season as an AFL linebacker on a team that would win the Super Bowl six years later is impressive. Like John Tierney, he lived a life that mattered to a lot of people. In 1965-66, he certainly mattered to Watchung Hills Regional High School.
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