St. Anthony senior quarterback Alex Vidal knew exactly how much last Saturday’s game meant to his head coach Ed Stinson.
Therefore, the game against Hoboken took on a greater importance for Vidal and his Friar teammates.
“It meant a lot to us,” Vidal said. “We never beat Hoboken in my previous three years. But we knew it was going to be a little tough for Coach Stinson, playing the team he coached, his family, his organization. We came in wanting to win for him.”
Stinson returned to Hoboken last year with his new team, St. Anthony, and came up on the short end of a 24-13 decision.
It was an emotional night for the man who helped put Hoboken football on the map, creating the mystique of “Friday Night Lights” in the Mile Square City.
Stinson was the one who orchestrated six NJSIAA state championships during his coaching tenure at Hoboken and at one stretch over a seven-year span won an unfathomable 67 out of 68 games, a stretch that will never be duplicated in Hudson County annals – or perhaps even New Jersey history – ever again.
“I spent 22 years coaching there,” Stinson explained. “I lived there. My kids grew up there. I lived through the hard times and then had a tremendous amount of success there. There’s an old cliché that says, ‘You can take the boy out of Hoboken, but you can’t take Hoboken out of the boy. I grew up on the streets of Hoboken. I went to Hoboken High and played for a legendary coach [Vince Ascolese].”
Stinson also mentioned that many of the current Hoboken coaches either played for him there or coached with him there – or both.
“John Peluso was my assistant coach for many years,” Stinson said of the long-time assistant. “Marty Shannon played for me. So did Keeon Walker. Vinnie Johnson was once my quarterback. Even Louie [Taglieri, the current Hoboken head coach and former Stinson assistant] played for me in 1977. I had to try to block all of that out in preparing for them. It all goes into it.”
Stinson also realized that the offense Taglieri runs at Hoboken is the same one that Stinson used to collect his 260-plus career victories over his Hall of Fame career.
“It’s the same scheme, the same system,” Stinson said. “That makes it even more difficult to remove it all from the picture.”
Stinson knew that his former team entered the game against his current team on a roll. The Red Wings won their first three games, including impressive wins against Essex County powers Shabazz and Cedar Grove.
“They’re a good football team,” Stinson said. “And we were a little banged up.”
The Friars lost four key starters to injury during their season-opening win over St. Luke’s of Connecticut, including versatile do-everything lineman Devin Terry, who has earned All-Hudson Reporter honors in each of the last two seasons.
Terry was battling a hip injury. Torrence Williams, the talented halfback who transferred to St. Anthony from Marist, was sidelined, along with linemen Rahquan Small and Jermaine Speaks.
“We came out of a nice win, but we were devastated,” Stinson said. “We came out in bad shape.”
So Stinson didn’t know what to expect when the Friars faced Hoboken last Saturday at Caven Point Cochrane Stadium in the Ed “Faa” Ford Memorial Athletic Complex.
The Friars were coming off consecutive losses to Newark Central and North Bergen, making the game against the Red Wings almost critical. Most high school teams don’t recover from 1-3 starts. It takes a lot of effort just to get back to the .500 mark.
But the Friars were undaunted and ready to play inspired football for their coach. They scored first on a 5-yard run by Williams in the first quarter, set up by a 40-yard pass from Vidal to Devonte McLaurin.
The Friars then pushed the lead to 13-0 on a 30-yard run by another versatile performer Eli Terry (Devin’s brother), giving the team a little breathing room.
Hoboken did manage to score in the fourth quarter, but the Friars earned a hard-fought 13-7 victory, giving Stinson the win against his former team.
“It meant a lot to us, because we couldn’t beat them for him last year,” Vidal said. “Everyone was expecting us to lose again, but we didn’t give up on each other. We wanted to win the game for Coach.”
Now, the Friars are 2-2 and they have another challenge ahead this weekend, facing a high-powered Lincoln team.
“It was a great win on a lot of levels,” Stinson said.
First and foremost, it was a win against his alma mater, against the program he helped become recognized nationally as a grid power.
After the game was over, former players and current coaches Taglieri and Johnson presented Stinson with a jacket that had all nine of Hoboken’s state championship teams featured on the sleeves.
“That got me right in the throat,” Stinson said. “Before the game, Vinnie said that he had something for me. I thought it was a cigar or something. But he came over with that jacket and all the state championships on it. I didn’t have anything to do with three of them, but they said that it was all because of me. That really got me.
Added Stinson, “Hoboken is a place I’ve loved my whole life. I grew up there. So did my wife and four kids. They’ll never take that out of my heart.”
Stinson didn’t even try on the jacket before thinking of his next challenge.
“We went right back into the fire,” Stinson said. “We put all of that in its place and started to get ready for the next one. Sunday morning, we were preparing for Lincoln. It’s back to the grind. We have a lot more football to go.”
And even at the tender age of 67, there’s still a lot more football left in Ed Stinson.
Jim Hague can be reached at OGSMAR@aol.com. You can also read Jim’s blog at www.jimhaguesports.blogspot.com with his take this week on the Sayreville football scandal.