Jersey Boys: Bridgemen Football Thanksgiving Homecoming

47, 74, 45, 25, 30, 67, 73, 89, 83, 61, 22, 55, 42, 34, 6, 53, 88, 17, 35, 79.

This was no quarterback calling out plays. Those were the numbers worn on the orange and black jerseys of the Bridgemen football players who came home to Fort Lee to spend Thanksgiving morning with their former teammates. Men who would probably pause to remember the date of their wedding anniversary shouted out their jersey numbers, worn 40 or more years ago, without a moment's hesitation. 

Teams from the 1940s to the 1990s were represented at the second annual reunion of Fort Lee football players held at the VFW on Center Ave. The gathering together of every team was the brainchild of Joe Viola ('70) and Frank Aiello ('72).

Viola, who scored three touchdowns against Leonia his senior year Thanksgiving day game, surveyed the room and said, "I feel like I'm a senior again getting ready for the Thanksgiving game. I have pre-game jitters." He continued, "Just being here with all my idols, the guys I looked up to as a young player, is amazing."  

Traditionally, the former players would meet each year at the Thanksgiving homecoming game, but when Fort Lee stopped playing a Thanksgiving day game, Viola and Aiello decided that they had to do something to continue getting the guys together every year. And what a crowd they draw--the room was packed tighter than any formation.

"You can't stop time," former running back Lou Deangelis ('69) said as he surveyed the room. "But here, we're back on the field again. Right here, right now, we're all 17 years old again on the field together playing our best game."  

Former teammates of Deangelis huddled around him smiling and nodding their heads as he recalled the time he decided to put himself into the game.

"I was tired of sitting on the sidelines so I ran out onto the field and told the running back to get off the field," he recounted to the loud laughter of his former teammates. "It took the coaches about 10 plays to realize that I had put myself on the field."

Louie Sarapochillo, defensive tackle ('69), remembers the Thanksgiving game against Leonia his senior year.

"Somewhere in the middle of the game my arm got broken. I didn't care. It was my last game as a Bridgemen so I played through," he recalled. "We won the game," adding, "that's the way you want to go out."

Leo Volpe ('68) and teammate Michael Casoria ('68), described as "two legendary ends," by most of the men in the room were the ones the younger players looked up to then, and now. Viola recalled that when he was moved from J.V. to varsity, many of the older players resented it.

"Leo was one of my biggest supporters," Viola said. "He was my idol; here he was, a senior looking out for me." 

Marty Leuzzi ('70) wore his original Fort Lee High School football sweatshirt with his number 22 still blazing orange. Leuzzi remembers the game against Tenafly where he tore three ligaments in his knee.

"It killed me to leave that field," he said.

Former tight end and coach, Dr. John Richardson ('64), is remembered by his players as being one of the most inspirational people in their young lives.

"After the quarterback got sick, Mr. Richardson called me to tell me I was going to be the new quarterback," said "Boulevard Tom" Daurizio ('74), a nickname his teammates coined as a play on his idol "Broadway Joe" Namath. "I knew nothing about being a quarterback, so the next day at school Mr. Richardson cancelled my first period class and in one period taught me everything I needed to know about being a quarterback."

His most memorable play was in a game against Dumont.

"Just as I released the ball for a long touchdown pass, I got hit and was buried by a Dumont player," he recalled, lauging. "First I heard the Dumont fans shouting; then the Fort Lee fans, but I couldn't get up. When I finally did I saw Danny Viola had scored a touchdown. The best pass of my life and I missed it."

Representing the classes of '49 and '50 were Al "Jose" Gonzales and Tony Macri. 

"Back then, Cliffside was our main rival," Gonzales said. "And Fort Lee was full of gamblers," he laughs. "Bookies used to come and watch us and Cliffside practice because they were booking the game."

"We were such rivals with Cliffside Park," Macri recalls, "that years later, while I was in a hotel in Florida, the manager came up and asked me to leave." Macri laughed, "Turns out he played against me for Cliffside Park."

Former tight end and defensive end, and current Fort Lee varsity football coach and middle school teacher, Billy Straub ('92), said that coaching at the school where he played is surreal.

"I was head coach at Westwood, but I left to come home," he said.

He added, "I want my team to see this. I want them to understand that there's a long and rich history to Fort Lee football."

Looking around the room and understanding, perhaps for the first time, the deeper meaning of what it means to be a Bridgeman, he said, "I want them to know that this is the team they're a part of."

For these orange and black "jersey boys," walking out onto that field was like going into battle. Almost every former player said that practice was about getting their bodies in sync with their collective skill.

"If we weren't in perfect harmony out on that field on game day, we weren't anything," said Richard DeSimone ('71).

These men were the boys who played football before it was a year-round sport. They played for the sheer love of the game; before there were football camps, before the best players left town to play regional ball for private schools. These are the guys who played together on town teams from Kindergarten through high school. These are the guys who spent the beginning of each season practicing with helmets only--no pads--learning how to manipulate their bodies to take a hit.

"Our bodies were conditioned to take a hit," Daurizio said.   

Steve Spano ('70) still can't believe the Thanksgiving game against Leonia during which he was in line to receive a great pass when along came his teammate, Viola, who snatched the ball out of the air.

"Who intercepts a ball from their own teammate?" Spano said incredulously. "I forgot all about the other team and chased him," he recalled, laughing.  

On their final Thanksgiving day game as Bridgemen, DeSimone and Aiello remember their coach telling them that they would remember the game 40 years later.

"And here we are," Aiello said. "Almost 40 years to the day, and we're all here together remembering."

1949: Al "Jose" Gonzales (17)

1950: Tony Macri (35)

1956: Mike Villano

1960: George Makroulakis (34)

1961: Jack Meserole (73)

1963: Richard Greenberg (61), Harry Gallo (52), Donald Danarotti (87)

1964: Dr. John Richardson (83)

1965: Tom Mancini (88), Tom Ripoli (6)

1966: Santo Pillari (32), Jimmy "Berlingo" Moretti (57)

1967: Matty Pillari (11), Dennis Conway (69)

1968: Leo Volpe, Michael Casoria (89)

1969: Louie Sarapochillo (74), Lou Deangelis (42/37), Pete Mancini

1970: Joe Viola (47), Marty Leuzzi (22), Steve Spano (45), Russ Defilippis (67)

1971: Joe Conway (55), Richard DeSimone

1972: Frank Aiello (73), Dominick Pillari (15)

1973: Frank Capozzi (53), Carl Dogalli (79), Frank LoBuono (30)

1974: Ron Train (61), Tom Daurizio (25)

1992: Billy Straub (88)