Hoboken gets dropped to Group I, will face Secaucus, Weehawken from now on
A little more than a decade ago, in 1990, the Hoboken Red Wings faced the Bruins of North Bergen for the North Jersey Section 1, Group IV football state championship, an epic game won in overtime by North Bergen, 3-0, in a battle considered by many onlookers as one of the finest high school football games of all-time.
Now, some 13 years later, Hoboken High School has come completely full circle. The NJSIAA announced his realignments for the 2003-04 state football and wrestling playoffs, and Hoboken is now considered a Group I in enrollment (500 students and less) in the eyes of the state.
The NJSIAA shuffled the existing format to enable comparable balance among similar-sized schools throughout the state and to create a better geographic distribution of the schools.
It’s a plan that has been bantered about, reshaped and retooled, debated and belabored over for years, and now results in the new alignments, strictly for the football and wrestling playoffs.
Sure enough, the team that gets shuffled about once again is Hoboken, which had just dropped from Group III to Group II two years ago. In fact, the Red Wings played for the Group II state title last fall. Now, the Red Wings are a Group I in the eyes of the state.
Needless to say, Hoboken head coach Ed Stinson was a little flabbergasted when he received word of the shift.
"My first reaction was ‘Holy s—!’ " Stinson said after hearing the news. "Is that printable?"
Well, no, coach, it’s not.
"I wondered what was in the future," Stinson said. "I mean, we played for the Group IV state championship just a few years ago and now we’re playing in Group I. It’s absolutely unheard of. To be in all four [enrollment] groups in that short time is amazing. That’s not a fall. That’s a free fall."
Hoboken will be part of the new North Jersey Section 2, Group I bracket with such schools as Becton [the state Group I finalist last year], Bogota, Hasbrouck Heights, Leonia, Lyndhurst, Palisades Park, Wallington, Wood-Ridge, Ridgefield, Ridgefield Park, North Arlington and two familiar names, Secaucus and Weehawken.
That’s right – if Secaucus or Weehawken now wants to win a state championship, then the road goes through the Mile Square City.
Although Weehawken and Hoboken border each other – and Secaucus is in very close proximity – it’s safe to say that those teams have never faced each other in football.
While Secaucus and Weehawken reside in the humble confines of the Bergen County Scholastic League, facing teams of comparatively equal size, Hoboken is forced to play in the HCIAA, facing nothing but Group IV and Group III schools.
"North Bergen has 500 kids in their freshman class," Stinson said. "We have barely 500 kids in our whole school. When you consider the other schools we play, like St. Peter’s Prep, Memorial, Bayonne, Dickinson, Emerson, those schools are all huge schools and numbers become a factor. In fact, the number differential could become insurmountable. It’s very tough for us to deal with. We’re in a league with no other Group II schools and now we’re Group I. If the single criteria of having the realignment is equity, then what we have is inequitable to an extreme."
Stinson, the former principal at Hoboken, made another valid point.
"In every other school in Hudson County, the enrollment numbers are bursting at the seams," Stinson said. "Overcrowding is a problem everywhere, except Hoboken. Honestly, it’s not a shock to us. It’s just continuing a pattern."
As well as perpetuating a problem that Hoboken faces every fall, being a small school in a big school county and league. Now, when the Red Wings beat up on the larger schools in the fall, teams like Weehawken and Secaucus, the friendly neighbors, will eventually pay the price in the postseason.
Also in the new realignment, Bayonne, Dickinson and Ferris will move to North Jersey Section 2, Group IV, away from familiar county foes like North Bergen, Emerson and Memorial.
It will definitely lead to a new look in the 2003 football state playoffs. Whether it is an improved look remains to be seen. But you can be rest assured that several Group I schools in the BCSL aren’t too happy to see the perennial playoff power Red Wings come calling in November and December.