Vince Ascolese, who guided the North Bergen High School football team for almost 40 years, leading the Bruins to seven NJSIAA championships and 14 Hudson County titles, died Wednesday morning after a long battle with cancer. Ascolese recently celebrated his 77th birthday.
Ascolese, a member of the Hudson County Board of Freeholders for more than a decade, served as an assistant superintendent of schools in North Bergen for more than 30 years.
Ascolese retired after the 2011 season, one that saw the Bruins win their final NJSIAA North Jersey Section 1, Group IV state title. However, the NJSIAA vacated the title, stating that there was illegal recruitment of players.
Ascolese came to North Bergen in 1973, after an 11-year stint as the successful head coach of Demarest High School, which later became Hoboken High.
Ascolese was brought into North Bergen to replace the legendary Joe Coviello, who became the high school principal.
Ascolese quickly turned North Bergen into a perennial football powerhouse. The Bruins won the state championship in 1978 and earned the distinction of being the No. 1 ranked team in the entire state of New Jersey.
Powerhouse
The Bruins won NJSIAA state titles in 1977, 1978, 1984, 1988, 1990, 1997 and finally in 2011, when they pulled out a thrilling win over Montclair on the game’s final play.
It was Ascolese’s last game as a coach. On that team, the elder Ascolese coached his grandson, Vin Ascolese III, to that state championship. The younger Ascolese was the New Jersey Defensive Player of the Year and an Army All-American honoree that season.
Ascolese left the game with a stellar record of 356-127-7. When he retired, Ascolese ranked No.3 all time in coaching victories for a New Jersey high school coach. The township of North Bergen honored Ascolese by renaming their home field as the Vincent Ascolese Field at Bruins Stadium.
Throughout the course of his illustrious career, Ascolese won several honors and awards.
“What we lost today was a legend.” – Nicholas Sacco
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He also earned induction into the Hudson County Sports Hall of Fame, the New Jersey Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame, was recognized by the Heisman Trophy organization as one of the legends of high school football and earned the Frank McGuire Foundation Achievement Award.
A native of the Jersey City Marion section, Ascolese attended St. Michael’s High School in Union City and was the captain of the St. Michael’s football team that captured the NJSIAA Parochial A state title in 1954.
Ascolese then went to Upsala College and played football there, earning his degree and becoming a teacher and coach. He spent one year as a coach at Upsala, then was hired as the 24-year-old head coach at Hoboken High School in 1962.
One of Ascolese’s first students was Ed Stinson, the legendary coach at Hoboken High School who is now at St. Anthony.
“I knew him longer than I knew my own parents,” Stinson said Wednesday. “In my lifetime, no one was more influential, to me and thousands of other kids. He spent five decades coaching, surviving the temperature of the general public in our country. He built championship football teams and championship people. He was Hoboken football. He was North Bergen football. He was all that is good about high school football.”
‘A legend’
North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco was a friend to Ascolese for more than 35 years.
“What we lost today was a legend,” Sacco said. “He was the best motivator in football that I ever saw. He was a good man. A lot of parents trusted our children with him.”
Nick Sacco Jr. was one of the thousands of North Bergen kids who played football for Vince Ascolese.
“You never had to worry about North Bergen kids if they were coached by him,” Sacco said. “He was a good, firm man, a good role model.”
Ascolese is survived by his wife, Pat, and their six children, Michael, Susan, Vincent, Jr., Janine, Jennifer and Gregg, as well as several grandchildren.
The services for Ascolese were still pending, but it is believed that viewing will take place at the Vanieri Funeral Home on Kennedy Blvd. in North Bergen Sunday and Monday, with the funeral services out of Our Lady of Fatima R.C. Church on Tuesday.