Gene Mancino Jr. has lasting, vivid memories about being with his late father, Gene Sr., who was a football legend at Memorial High School in the 1940s. The elder Mancino, one half of the famed “Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside” with Eddie Lombardi, participated in some of the greatest high school football games ever played in Hudson County history. “Some of my best memories come from being a little boy, about 10 or 11 years old, going to the Memorial-Hoboken football game on Thanksgiving,” Gene Mancino Jr. recalled. “I would be so proud, being with my Dad, hearing people greet my Dad, saying how they remembered him as a player and how they wished me well. Those were rich, long-lasting memories and I miss that.” Later in life, Mancino Jr. treasured the moments he spent with his father, who was a long-time councilman in Guttenberg. They attended the Super Bowl every year together for about seven years. “We traveled all over together,” Mancino Jr. said. “It began when the Giants won in 1986 and continued on every year. We really enjoyed being together.” There were countless times that the elder Mancino would travel across the nation to watch his son participate in track and field meets, first for North Bergen High School, then later for Princeton University. “My Dad was always there,” Mancino Jr. said. “I enjoyed the camaraderie I had with my father then. He was a real interested father and a fan. And he was a critic, although he really didn’t know what he was talking about. They were special times.” The bond between the elder Mancino and his son was definitely strong. Last Thursday night, at the 10th annual Hudson County Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, the association between father and son grew even stronger, when Mancino Jr. joined his father for the only father-son combination to be recognized by the Hudson County Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, Mancino Sr. passed away in 1992, but Mancino Jr. said if his father had been able to join the induction ceremonies, he would have been very proud. “To be the first father-son to ever get inducted, well, my father would have been beaming,” Mancino Jr. said. “My Dad was not a boastful man and didn’t like to brag. But he was a football legend who left a strong legacy, from a special time in the 1940s, when time stood still for the Memorial football games. A lot of what my father did wore off on me and enabled me to succeed. It’s really a special honor and distinction.” Mancino Jr. is proud to remind people that he was born and raised in Guttenberg, where his mother, Louise, still serves as a teacher’s aide at Anna L. Klein School, which he attended. Mancino Jr. was one of 17 people to earn the induction into the Hudson County Sports Hall of Fame last week. Another Guttenberg native, Maria Nolan, the famed volleyball coach at Secaucus High School, was also inducted. Mancino Jr. said that he felt a lot of pride in following in the footsteps of his father, who was a legend. “Those were very big shoes to fill,” he said. “But my father and mother were both very supportive during my athletic career. Sure, there was pressure to be a running back like my Dad, but I just couldn’t do it. So a coach then pointed me to the line and I was a lineman.” Mancino Jr. became a very good lineman for North Bergen High School, earning the distinction of Hudson County Lineman of the Year in 1974. “I know my Dad wanted me to be like him and was a little disappointed I couldn’t be a running back like him, but when the time came, I think I represented myself pretty well.” Mancino Jr. also got involved with track and field, participating in the throwing events, where he earned his highest acclaim. Under the guidance of fellow Hall-of-Famer Ira Wolfe, who remains the athletic trainer at the high school, Mancino Jr. became the premier high school hammer thrower in the nation. During the 1973-74 campaign, he was named as a High School All-American in the hammer throw by Track and Field News. He won the 16-pound junior national championship in 1973 and placed third in the Russian-American international junior meet in Austin, Texas that year. Making decisions Mancino Jr. was also a three-time Hudson County champion in the shot put and discus and won the NJSIAA Group IV State championship in the discus. At the time, the hammer throw was a relatively new event to the United States track and field scene. Wolfe introduced Mancino Jr. to the event and he instantly took to it, despite not being the biggest kid in the world. “I was never a really large athlete, like some of the people I competed with and against,” Mancino Jr. said of his 5-foot-11, 235-pound frame. “I was of average size, but I did well for my size. I had enough athletic ability and Ira was able to mold me.” Mancino Jr. is proud to do well by his country and excel in a sport where Eastern European athletes were in the lead. “It was fortunate that I came along at the time,” he said. “I had the interest and Ira had the time to teach me. The hammer throw was a special event, a unique event. We spent several summers together training and we were constantly seeking out other training methods. The Russians, the Czechs, they were the ones who were far superior to the Americans. We were way behind. That’s why it was very special for me to do so well in the Russian meet. We were blazing a trail for others to follow.” After high school, in 1975, Mancino Jr. was accepted at Princeton University. He had to make the difficult decision to either continue with his blossoming track and field career, or play football. He knew he couldn’t do both with the academic demands placed on an Ivy League student and athlete. “I was 18 years old and forced to make a tough decision,” he said. “I remember sitting down with my Dad and I told him that I was choosing track and field over football and he never flinched a bit. He didn’t give me an ounce of flack and I respected him for that. I took the path where I could go the furthest. And he understood.” Mancino Jr. continued his track and field brilliance into the collegiate ranks, where he became the captain of the Princeton track team for two years. He placed in the top five in the NCAA Championships, the Penn Relays and the U.S. Olympic Trials in the hammer throw and was named All-Ivy League for three seasons. “It was a good, solid, pleasant environment and there were people who were respectful of what we were doing at the time,” Mancino Jr. said. “I learned a lot about competition and a lot about life during that time.” Throughout his collegiate career and to this day, Mancino Jr. has remained close with Wolfe. “I would do anything for Ira Wolfe,” he said. “He’s everything in the world and more. He’s given thousands of hours to help kids and never looked for anything in return. He’s a throwback type of guy who always thinks of others first. He is still a very strong and loyal friend.” After graduation from Princeton in 1978, Mancino went to work for an executive search-consulting firm that places candidates in the health care industry, specializing in life science and pharmaceuticals. After 20 years, Mancino Jr. now owns the Princeton-based firm, Blau-Mancino Associates, and acts as the company’s president. Mancino Jr. currently lives in Belle Mead with his family. His wife, Maryann, was his childhood sweetheart and a fellow North Bergen graduate. In fact, another new Hall of Fame inductee, Linda Vollkommer-Lynch, who was a standout fencer at Jersey City State and fencing coach at Stevens Tech, was the cheerleading coach at North Bergen High School, when Gene and Maryann Mancino were students. “Linda indirectly helped to get us together,” Mancino Jr. said. “That’s pretty amazing. But being from Guttenberg, from Hudson County, is always a part of my life. I benefited greatly from being from here. The roots and traditions of Hudson County, I think about all the time. I travel all the time and they recognize where I came from.” Mancino Jr. said that the induction dinner gave him a chance to pause and reflect on what was a brilliant athletic career. “I think when you’re involved in it, you can’t see the forest for the trees and you don’t understand the achievements,” he said. “Until it’s years later, when you dust off the memories and you’re in room with others who are there to praise you and your accomplishments. Friends who I haven’t seen in a while. Family members. It’s a bit overwhelming.” Mancino Jr. continued, “They made an announcement at my mother’s school about me getting into the Hall of Fame and she was so proud. My two sisters have always been so supportive as well. They had to live with all this Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside, then the Gene Mancino Jr. stuff, yet they were always supportive. It’s special to have that kind of support in the family. I became reflective and thankful. It was a fun evening and it was very humbling.” There is a sense of pride for the special distinction of being the first father-son combination in the Hudson County Hall of Fame. “You know, I was looking at all the names in the Hall of Fame and there are some pretty serious athletes who come from here,” Mancino Jr. said. “And there are some others who haven’t been honored yet. I think you would be hard-pressed to find another county in the state with the group that we have. And it’s really special to have that distinction with my Dad. It’s something I’m going to have for the rest of my life.”
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