St. Joseph’s to bring back football, After five-year hiatus, Blue Jay tradition will returnIn 1994, the administrators at St. Joseph of the Palisades High School made a decision that wasn’t popular. When the numbers on the football team dropped to 27, they decided to drop the sport. For a school with a rich and storied football tradition, it wasn’t an easy decision to make. And for all intents and purposes, it appeared as if the small West New York school would never offer football again. Enrollment numbers were never favorable to reinstating the sport. It was costly, with no promise of prosperity. However, when a new administration took over the school last fall, talk began of bringing the sport back. The students wanted it. Prominent and influential alumni wanted it. And if the school wanted to regain some of its glory and tradition, it needed to field a football team. So last week, the school announced that it will reinstate its football program, beginning with a junior varsity program in the fall. It will remain as a JV program for two years, with the hope of returning to varsity action in 2002. “We hope to have a coach in place by early spring,” St. Joseph athletic director Mike Scerbo said. “The enrollment is up 10 percent and the student body is behind it. So we’re excited to give it another try. “Clearly, this is a school with a rich tradition in football and we would like to continue that again,” Scerbo said. It’s a move that was applauded by some of the school’s most prominent alumni. “It’s a beautiful thing,” said St. Peter’s Prep head football coach and athletic director Rich Hansen, a 1978 graduate of St. Joseph and a standout football player there. “I give all the credit to the administration for making the move. I know that a lot of the alumni are very excited about it. If they’re patient in finding the right coach and bring it along properly, it could be a tremendously viable program.” The return of football at St. Joseph was officially announced at a winter sports rally in the newly-named Marty Seglio Auditorium recently, and apparently, the student body reacted positively. “They went nuts,” Scerbo said. “The students are really excited about this and so are we.” Although St. Joseph has plans to play varsity football again in 2002, it appears right now that it will not do so as a member of the HCIAA. Only Marist has a similar enrollment number (under 250 male students), so it would not make practical sense to have the Blue Jays thrown to the wolves of the HCIAA’s bigger schools right away. It means that St. Joseph will more than likely have to operate as an independent, with no league affiliation, to begin. “We realize that there would have to be some sort of restriction so we can play other teams,” Scerbo said. “But by 2002, no one knows what our enrollment will be. Nothing is final. Everything has to be determined.” But for the many proud alumni who watched the memories of their alma mater’s football teams perish with the program’s demise, the announcement had to be readily accepted. “This is something we’ve wanted to do for a while and we thought the timing was right,” Scerbo said. And it’s a move that deserves credit. While a much larger public Hudson County school like Snyder struggles with the future of its football program, one that has been without varsity action for two years now, a Parochial school like St. Joseph of the Palisades, one with a similar rich grid tradition, is making the move to bring back the sport. And after a decade of making bad decisions regarding its athletic history and programs, it seems as if the administration truly wants to turn back the clock and do what’s right. First, they brought a class act like Marty Seglio back into the fold. Now, the sport of football. There is definitely a reason to be proud for the little school on Broadway in West New York. They’re doing things the right way once again.