September 8, 1958: East Brunswick High School Opens

September 8, 1958: East Brunswick High School opens, on a sprawling 69-acre campus on a hilltop overlooking Cranbury Road in East Brunswick, Middlesex County, New Jersey. This might not count as a historic day for you, but it is one for me, as I am a graduate of that school.

From 1891 to 1958, children in East Brunswick in grades 9 through 12 went to South River High School, in South River, one town over to the east. But the tremendous growth in East Brunswick, largely facilitated by the opening of Exit 9 of the New Jersey Turnpike in 1951, meant a building boom in the Township. Up until 1950, the town had just 3 elementary schools. Over the next 20 years, the Township would build a high school, 2 junior high schools, and 8 elementary schools.

EBHS opened to grades 6 through 9. By the time it graduated its first class in June 1962, it held grades 8 to 12. The next schoolyear, it was 9 to 12. It was designed to hold 1,300 students. By 1967, it held 1,700, so the decision was made to keep the 9th graders at the junior high schools. But the growth continued. New wings had been built in 1965 and 1970, but it still wasn't enough: By 1973, there were over 2,600 students at the school.

After that, enrollment declined. By the time I graduated in 1987, it was down to a little over 2,000. It bottomed out in 1997, to around 1,700. It was at that time that our Board of Education decided on a major construction project, including adding a 2nd floor above the administration area, and a renovation of the athletic fields, which was completed in 2001. Now, the school's front entrance looked very little like the one I remembered.

The school has won academic awards since its early days, and its athletic program is the best in Middlesex County, having particularly excelled in soccer and tennis. It was particularly strong in the 1980s, when I got to see the Bears win 2 Conference Championships in football; County Championships in baseball, basketball (both boys and girls) and wrestling; and Central Jersey Group IV (large-enrollment school) Championships in soccer (both boys and girls), boys basketball, wrestling and tennis (both boys and girls).

EBHS has won 4 Central Jersey Group IV football championships: In 1966, 1972, 2004 and 2009. To my regret, however, the school has no ice hockey team (although its field hockey team is usually good); and they didn't have a team in volleyball, the one sport I could sort-of play, until a few years after I graduated. But now, both its boys and girls volleyball teams are usually State Championship contenders.

The school's main rival is adjoining Old Bridge. Nearby Sayreville is also a rival for geographic reasons, but the similarly-named New Brunswick, North Brunswick and South Brunswick really haven't been, due to enrollment issues.

St. Joseph's High School of Metuchen used to be a rival, because they seemed to have so many students from East Brunswick that they were nicknamed "East Brunswick Catholic." They claimed they didn't recruit students from public schools, but when boys (they're still an all-boys school) with Jewish surnames started playing for their teams, we knew they were breaking at least 2 Commandments (the ones against stealing and bearing false witness against thy neighbor).

The EBHS gym, during the 2021-22 boys basketball season opener,

a win over Old Bridge

Notable graduates include Heather O'Reilly '03, Olympic Gold Medalist in soccer and Women's World Cup winner; Josh Miller '88, our only NFL player; Dave Wohl '67, our only NBA player (we've never had a player in Major League Baseball); Matt Pinfield '84, MTV and VH1 host; and Cenk Uygur '88, host of the politically-themed TV show The Young Turks. Actors Jesse Eisenberg and his sister Hallie Eisenberg (a.k.a. "the Little Pepsi Girl"), attended EBHS, but transferred to New York's Professional Performing Arts School.

Today, enrollment is back over 2,000, well within current capacity. However, rising enrollment in the elementary schools has led the Board of Ed to look into designs for a new high school building, to be built on the current site of the soccer practice fields, off Summerhill Road, down the hill from the current building, which would be torn down. It will be a sad day for me when that happens -- probably not until the end of the 2020s, at the earliest -- so whatever they build better live up to the tradition of the old building.

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September 8, 1958 was a Wednesday. Only 1 game in what we would now call Major League Baseball was played on that day: The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Cincinnati Redlegs, 4-1 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. (The Reds were known as the Redlegs from 1954 to 1958, because anti-Communism was frequently as crazy as Communism.) Roberto Clemente had 3 hits, all triples, although only 1 RBI. Frank Robinson went 0-for-3, although he did draw a walk.