December 29, 1972: The Death of East Brunswick's Jay Doyle

December 29, 1972: Jay Doyle dies. The football game program at East Brunswick High School in East Brunswick, Middlesex County, New Jersey notes that the school's stadium is named Jay Doyle Field, in his memory, and says that, "Most of you never had the pleasure of meeting this man."

When he died, my family had just moved to East Brunswick, and I had just passed my 3rd birthday, so I never came close to meeting him. Most people reading this post have never been to East Brunswick (except from maybe passing through it on the New Jersey Turnpike), much less to the campus of EBHS, my Alma Mater, and are unlikely to have ever even heard of him.

James Francis Doyle III was born on February 1, 1931 in Brooklyn. He grew up in Baldwin, Nassau County, New York. Long Island did not have a tradition of playing high school football games on Thanksgiving. As a result, he didn't like it when schools did so, and East Brunswick only ended up doing so once in its 1st 14 seasons of varsity football: In 1963, when their game against Sayreville for November 23 was postponed due to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy the day before.

Doyle served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War, and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in education from Rutgers University in 1956, and a Masters degree from RU in 1957. Several other men for whom nearby high school football stadiums were named were also Rutgers graduates, including Jay Dakelman of Highland Park and Nicholas Priscoe of Woodbridge.

He married Joan Philedius, and they had 2 daughters, Susan and Kathleen; and 2 sons, Michael and James IV. They lived in Farrington Lake Heights, a section of East Brunswick that uses the post office of neighboring Milltown.

Doyle served on Rutgers' football coaching staff in the 1956 and '57 seasons, as a swimming instructor there from 1956 to '58, as the Township of East Brunswick's recreation director from 1956 to '59, and a gym teacher at East Brunswick grammar schools from 1957 to '59.

This made him a natural to be appointed as East Brunswick High School's 1st athletic director when the school opened for the 1958-59 schoolyear, even though he was only 27 years old. He was also named its 1st wrestling head coach in 1960, and its 1st football head coach in 1961. He also served a term as president of the New Jersey Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association.

He hired one of his Rutgers fraternity brothers, John Emery, as the school's 1st head basketball coach in 1960-61, and as one of his assistant coaches in football. Emery would remain head coach in basketball until 1977, and on the football staff into the 21st Century.

After 2 seasons, going 4-4 and 2-7, he left the football position, but remained as A.D. and wrestling coach. He coached a District Champion team in 1969, and 3 individual State Champions: Richie Aiello in 1963, Max Guidoboni in 1965, and Lenny Cassidy in 1966.

Until the late 1970s, the Middlesex County Wrestling Tournament was held on the weekend between Christmas and New Year's Eve. It was eventually moved to the 1st weekend in February. On Thursday, December 28, 1972, Doyle coached 3 of his wrestlers into the Semifinals, to be held on Friday, December 29: Joe Rishar, Mark Morrison and Roger Kissling. (The article in the football team's game program says it was 4 wrestlers, but the account in the local newspaper, then known as The Daily Home News, only mentions 3.)

But he suffered a heart attack on the 29th, and was taken to St. Peter's Hospital in New Brunswick. He died there, only 41 years old.

Jim Rishar, one of Doyle's assistants and older brother of Joe Rishar, had to step in. He told the wrestlers that Doyle would want them to compete anyway, but that he would respect their choices regardless. All 3 of them wrestled, in tribute to their fallen leader. But, being emotionally spent, all 3 of them lost. It didn't matter: The fact that they competed anyway matched the Olympic ideal, and would have pleased their coach.

Jay Doyle Field

EBHS' 4,300-capacity football stadium did not have an official name at the time of Doyle's death. Before the 1973 season began, it was named Jay Doyle Field. When the Greater Middlesex Conference was formed in 1985, taking in nearly every school in the County, the trophy for the overall team wrestling champion was named the Jay Doyle Trophy.

Doyle's monument inside the stadium

Doyle was laid to rest at Holy Cross Burial Park and Mausoleum, on Cranbury Road in East Brunswick, 5 miles down the road from the High School. His widow, Joan, lived on until 2010. Son Michael is a professor of communications at Rutgers. Son James is a lawyer in Hammonton, South Jersey. Daughter Susan Doyle-Lindrud is a doctor, and stayed in East Brunswick. And daughter Kathleen Doyle is a physical therapist in neighboring North Brunswick.

Jay Doyle was succeeded as football coach by Ronald A. Gonier. "Rock" coached the Bears from 1963 to 1967, winning Conference Championships in 1965, 1966 and 1967, and the Central Jersey Group IV Championship in 1966. He continued to teach math at EBHS until his death in 1979, also much too young, a few days away from turning 50.

Gonier's successor was a bit luckier, in every sense of the word. Mel Caseiro, brother of assistant principal John Caseiro, coached from 1968 to 1976, after having been an assistant under Doyle and Gonier. He won Conference Championships in 1968, 1969 and 1970, and both the Middlesex County Athletic Conference and Central Jersey Group IV Championships in 1972. He was fired after 2 losing seasons, and then served on the staff of Rutgers University coaches Frank Burns and Dick Anderson until 1985. He taught chemistry at EBHS until his retirement, and lived until 2012, at 75.

The next EBHS head coach was George Tardiff. He was the 1st to lead the Bears into the State Playoffs after their institution in 1974, doing so in 1980. Despite some success, he ruffled a few feathers, and when he got an offer from an NCAA Division II college after the 1982 season, there was not much effort to convince him to stay. He later returned to New Jersey, coaching at 3 different schools in the Shore Conference, having previously coached at 3 other schools in that league. Like Caseiro, he died in 2012 and was 75.

Marcus Borden coached, and won, more football games at EBHS than any other man, all while teaching foreign languages. He guided us to the Playoffs in 1984, '85, '87, '88, '90, '94, '98, 2004, '09 and '10; won Conference Championships in 1984 (the MCAC, from here on out the Greater Middlesex Conference Red Division), '86, '87, '90 and '94; and, after some gut-wrenching close calls, the Central Jersey Group IV title in 2004 and 2009.

He was succeeded in 2012 by Bob Molarz, who had achieved great success at nearby Carteret, but it just didn't happen at EB. In 7 years, he never had a winning season. In 2019, Andy Steinfeld became the 1st EBHS alumnus to become head coach, and he led us to the Playoffs in 2021.

I'll let Mel Caseiro have the last word on Jay Doyle, from a column that Barry Levine wrote in The Daily Home News, one of the predecessor newspapers of the Home News Tribune, Middlesex County's lone remaining daily paper: "He was a great man, a great educator. If I had to choose a boss to work for, it would have been Jay Doyle. He was very fair, and kept all the coaches working together."

*

December 29, 1972 was a Friday. Actors Jude Law and Leonor Varela were born.

Baseball was out of season. There were 2 college football bowl games played that day:

* North Carolina State upset Number 18 West Virginia, 49-13, at Atlanta Stadium, in the Peach Bowl. The stadium was renamed Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in 1975, and torn down in 1997.

* And the University of Tampa beat Kent State University of Ohio, 21-18, in the Tangerine Bowl, at the stadium then carrying the same name, in Orlando. The game and the stadium later became known as the Citrus Bowl, and the stadium is now named Camping World Stadium. Believing that having an NFL team would cause its attendance to decrease, the University of Tampa dropped its football program after the 1974 season. And yet, since becoming a Football Bowl Subdivision team in 2001, the University of South Florida has had higher attendance than UT ever did.

There were 7 NBA games played that night:

* The New York Knicks beat the Detroit Pistons, 99-94 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. Walt Frazier led the Knicks with 24 points. In defeat, Bob Lanier scored 38 points and had 26 rebounds.

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Boston Celtics, 106-99 at the Boston Garden. Bob Love scored 41 points for the Bulls.

* The Buffalo Braves beat the Baltimore Bullets, 118-109 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena). Elvin Hayes scored 35 in defeat for the Bullets.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Houston Rockets, 114-101 at the Hofheinz Pavilion (now the Fertitta Center) in Houston. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had 39 points.

* The Phoenix Suns beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 106-99 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Kansas City-Omaha Kings, 121-92 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Jerry West had 28 points. Gail Goodrich had 27. Wilt Chamberlain, in what turned out to be his last season, had only 10 points, but grabbed 26 rebounds.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 99-91 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.

There were 2 games in the American Basketball Association. The New York Nets lost to the San Diego Conquistadors, 114-104 at the San Diego Sports Arena (now the Pechanga Arena). And the Kentucky Colonels beat the Dallas Chaparrals, 131-104 at Freedom Hall in Louisville.

There were 4 games in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders lost to the California Golden Seals, 5-2 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-0 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Minnesota North Stars, 2-0 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in Bloomington, Minnesota.

* And the Philadelphia Flyers and the Vancouver Canucks played to a tie, 4-4 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

And there were 3 games in the World Hockey Association:

* The Houston Aeros beat the New England Whalers, 4-2 at the Boston Garden.

* The Cleveland Crusaders beat the Quebec Nordiques, 5-3 at the Cleveland Arena.

* And the Los Angeles Sharks beat the Minnesota Fighting Saints, 5-2 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.

November 30, 1951: The New Jersey Turnpike Opens

November 30, 1951: The New Jersey Turnpike opens, mostly. For the moment, it runs from Exit 1 in Penns Grove, near the newly-opened Delaware Memorial Bridge, to Exit 11 in Woodbridge, an interchange with U.S. Route 1, U.S. Route 9, State Route 440, and, by 1956, the Garden State Parkway. (On that road, that interchange will be Exit 129.)

Like the later Garden State Parkway, the Turnpike was the brainchild of Governor Alfred E. Driscoll. He set a November 30, 1951 deadline, and there were delays that suggested they wouldn't make it. They did.

The Turnpike was extended to its full 117-mile length the next year, connecting with New York City via the Lincoln Tunnel (Exit 16) and the George Washington Bridge (Exit 18). One notable problem was the Pulaski Skyway, which has carried Routes 1 and 9 from Newark to Jersey City since 1932. If they built the Turnpike under the Skyway, there might not be enough room for trucks to fit. If they built the Turnpike over the Skyway, there would be room, but construction would take a lot more time and money. They decided to build under, and no truck has ever gotten stuck under it. Just in case, a few years ago, a big construction project was undertaken, and it lowered the roadway.

In 1956, the Newark Bay Extension opened at Exit 14, near Newark International Airport. This includes the Newark Bay Bridge, and 3 new exits in Jersey City: Exit 14A for Bayonne, Exit 14B for downtown, and Exit 14C for the Holland Tunnel into New York.

That same year, an extension was built from Exit 6 to the new Delaware River-Turnpike Toll Bridge, connecting the New Jersey Turnpike with the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It is named the Pearl Harbor Memorial Turnpike Extension. From here on north, the New Jersey Turnpike is bannered as part of Interstate 95.

In 1970, the Western Spur was opened, designed to aid travelers going around New York City to New England (taking the Tappan Zee, now Mario Cuomo, Bridge to the New England Thruway). It was also meant to access the planned Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford. The new exits were labeled 15W, 16W and 18W; while the former Exits 15, 16 and 18 were relabeled 15E, 16E and 18E. In 2005, the newest exit opened: Exit 15X, for the Secaucus Junction Rail Station.

The Turnpike has become not just a great method for getting people from one point in New Jersey to another, or from New York to points south and west (or vice versa) without having to go through Philadelphia, but it's become a cultural icon. Chuck Berry, The Mamas & the Papas, Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen have all written songs mentioning it. And the opening montage of The Sopranos showed James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano, driving out of the Lincoln Tunnel and down the Turnpike.

Of course, for a lot of people not from New Jersey, the Turnpike is all they see of the State: Things like the Meadowlands' stadiums and swamps, the Skyway, the Airport, the big oil refinery in Linden, and vast swaths of not much of anything taking up the space south of Trenton. These people never see the nice parts of New Jersey, and never understand why it's called "The Garden State."

The Turnpike's exit numbers are sequential, not by milepost as the Parkway's will be. As a result, when new exits need to be built, they require letters. Between Exit 7 in Bordentown Township and Exit 8 in East Windsor is Exit 7A in Robbinsville; and between Exit 8 and Exit 9 in East Brunswick is Exit 8A in Monroe.

If the exits were by mileposts, they would be, as follows: 

* Exit 1, Penns Grove, Salem County, connecting with Interstate 295, U.S. Routes 40 and 130, New Jersey Route 49 and the Delaware Memorial Bridge: Exit 0, or Exit 1.

* Exit 2, Woolwich, Gloucester County, U.S. Route 322 and the Commodore Barry Bridge: Exit 13.

* Exit 3, Runnemede, Camden County, N.J. Route 168 and, by extension, the Atlantic City Expressway and the Walt Whitman Bridge to Philadelphia: Exit 26. Oddly, despite the access to the Expressway, this exit, unlike Exits 7A and 11, is not labeled "Shore Points."

* Exit 4, Mount Laurel, Burlington County, N.J. Route 73 and, by extension, the Ben Franklin Bridge to Philadelphia: Exit 34.

* Exit 5, Westampton, Burlington County, County Route 541: Exit 44.

* Exit 6, Mansfield, Burlington County, Interstate 95 and, by extension, Interstate 276 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike: Exit 51.

* Exit 7, Bordentown Township (surrounding Bordentown City), Burlington County, U.S. Route 206: Exit 53.

* Exit 7A, Robbinsville, Mercer County, Interstate 195: Exit 60. This exit can be used for both the State capital of Trenton and the Six Flags Great Adventure theme park. For drivers going north on the Turnpike, this exit is labeled "Shore Points," due to the access to I-195.

* Exit 8, East Windsor, Mercer County, N.J. Routes 33 and 133: Exit 67.

* Exit 8A, Monroe, Middlesex County, N.J. Route 32 for access to U.S. Route 130 and County Route 535: Exit 74. For me, growing up in East Brunswick in the 1970s and '80s, this was the exit we used for southbound points like Philadelphia, Washington and Virginia.

* Exit 9, East Brunswick, Middlesex County, N.J. Route 18 for access to U.S. Route 1: Exit 83. This was the exit we used for North Jersey and New York City. East Brunswick's main bus terminal was here, and, from 1991 to 2020, I lived 1 mile away, for relatively easy access to The City.

* Exit 10, Edison, Middlesex County, Interstate 287 and N.J. Route 440, and, by extension, the Outerbridge Crossing into Staten Island, New York City: Exit 88.

* Exit 11, Woodbridge, Middlesex County, the Garden State Parkway, U.S. Routes 1 and 9: Exit 91. For drivers going south on the Turnpike, this exit is labeled "Shore Points," due to the Parkway access.

* Exit 12, Carteret, Middlesex County, County Route 602: Exit 96.

* Exit 13, Elizabeth, Union County, Interstate 278 and the Goethals Bridge into Staten Island: Exit 99.

* Exit 13A, Elizabeth, Union County, N.J. Route 81 and, by extension, Newark Liberty International Airport and Elizabeth Seaport: Exit 101. It also provides access to the Jersey Gardens Mall and that big IKEA store visible from the road.

* Exit 14, Newark, Essex County, Interstate 78, U.S. Routes 1, 9 and 22, with access to the Airport and the Newark Bay Extension: Exit 104.

* Exit 15E, Newark, Essex County, U.S. Routes 1 and 9, and thus the Pulaski Skyway toward Jersey City: Exit 107.

* Exit 15W, Kearny, Hudson County, Interstate 280: Exit 108. Theoretically, any of Exits 14, 15E or 15W can be used for downtown Newark and the Prudential Center arena. For Red Bull Arena, Exit 15W is the most convenient.

* Exit 15X, Secaucus, Hudson County, the Secaucus Junction Rail Station: Exit 110.

* Exit 16E, Secaucus, Hudson County, N.J. Routes 3 and 495, accessing the Lincoln Tunnel into Manhattan: Exit 112.

* Exit 16W, East Rutherford, Bergen County, N.J. Route 3 and the Meadowlands Sports Complex: Exit 112.

* Exit 18E and Exit 18W, Carlstadt, Bergen County, Interstates 80 and 95, U.S. Routes 1, 9 and 46: Exit 114.

*

November 30, 1951 was a Friday. Baseball was out of season. There were 3 college football games played that night:

* The University of Richmond beat George Washington University, 20-19 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* The University of Miami beat Nebraska, 19-7 at Burdine Stadium (later renamed the Orange Bowl) in Miami. This would happen a few more times in the decades to come.

* And the University of Houston beat North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas), 20-14 at Eagle Field in Denton, Texas.

There was only 1 game played in the NHL that night, at the Montreal Forum, and the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a 0-0 tie. There were 3 games played in the NBA that night:

* In a rematch and a reverse of the previous season's NBA Finals, the New York Knicks beat the Rochester Royals, 79-74 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Philadelphia Warriors beat the Syracuse Nationals, 81-78 at the Philadelphia Arena. When the Warriors moved to San Francisco in 1962, the Nationals replaced them a year later, as the Philadelphia 76ers.

* And the Washington Capitols beat the Boston Celtics, 85-81 at the Boston Garden. Ironically, the Celtics had just hired a former Capitols coach, who quit because he didn't have the team owner's backing to acquire what he thought were the necessary players. With Walter Brown, owner of the Garden, the Celtics and the Bruins, and making more money on the Ice Capades than on the rest of it combined, paid for the players his new coach wanted.

That new coach was a native of Brooklyn, but went to George Washington University, and seemed at first to be a natural to coach the Caps. And, for the rest of his life, despite being involved with the Celtics in one capacity or another, he kept his home in Washington. He was Arnold Jacob "Red" Auerbach.

November 21, 1877: Thomas Edison Invents the Phonograph

November 21, 1877: Thomas Edison invents the phonograph at his laboratory in the Menlo Park section of Raritan Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey. It is the 1st device capable of recording sound.

It recorded on tinfoil around a grooved cylinder. Into its speaker -- partly because it was the only way it could be done, and partly because he was hard of hearing -- Edison shouted into it, an old nursery rhyme:

Mary had a little lamb!
Its fleece was white as snow!

And everywhere that Mary went

the lamb was sure to go!

Although that recording does not survive, Edison recorded it again for a demonstration years later, and that one does survive.

Edison already had many patents to his name, making him wealthy. But the phonograph was the one that first got him national attention. Over the next few years, other scientists, including telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell, made improvements that made the recording industry possible.

Edison died in 1931. In 1954, to differentiate itself from the other towns in New Jersey named Raritan, the town that included the neighborhood of Menlo Park changed its name to the Township of Edison. It later erected a monument on the site of Edison's laboratory, a "Light Tower" that referenced his invention of the incandescent lamp, the 1st practical light bulb, in 1879.

*

November 21, 1877 was a Wednesday. Traditionally, this is not a day on which football games are played. But one was: On what was then its home field, Hamilton Park in New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University beat Trinity College of Hartford, 7-0.

November 19, 1966: East Brunswick Football's 1st State Championship

From the 1967 EBHS Yearbook

November 19, 1966: East Brunswick High School, in Middlesex County, New Jersey, which would one day be my Alma Mater, beats Sayreville War Memorial High School at home, 33-0. This clinches the school's 1st State Championship in football, in only its 6th season.

EBHS had opened in 1958, due to the growth that the Township of East Brunswick had already had, and was forecast to have in the 1960s, thus taking its students out of next-door South River High School, which was, and has frequently been since, a football powerhouse.

EB's 1st varsity season was 1961, under head coach Jay Doyle. They went 4-4. They went 2-7 in 1962, and Doyle, also the school's 1st athletic director and its 1st head coach in wrestling, handed the head football coaching job over to his assistant, Ron Gonier. "Rock" led the Bears to records of 5-2-2 in 1963, and 6-3 in 1964 and 1965.

EB opened the 1966 season on September 24, home to Madison, a next-door neighbor, and won, 35-6. In 1975, to avoid confusion with Madison Borough in Morris County, Madison Township changed its name to the Township of Old Bridge. But the name of the school was changed from Madison Township to Madison Central. The town had opened a 2nd high school, Cedar Ridge, in 1969. In 1994, the 2 schools were reconsolidated due to declining enrollment, and have been Old Bridge High School ever since.

The next game was away to Woodbridge. I talked to Wayne Beck Jr., an EBHS baseball player in the late 1980s, whose father Wayne Beck Sr. played in the 1966 season. Wayne Jr. said his father told him that it poured that day, and that Woodbridge Stadium (now Nicholas A. Priscoe Stadium) was practically a field of soup. Not surprisingly, the game ended in a 0-0 tie.

The next game, at home on October 8, was against South River, who, naturally, became our 1st arch-rival. EB had Dave Wohl at quarterback, and he would go on to become the first (and still only) EBHS graduate to play in the NBA. South River's quarterback was senior Joe Theismann (then pronounced "THEEZE-man," it was at Notre Dame where it was changed to "THIGHS-man" to rhyme with the Heisman Trophy he ended up not winning), and his top receiver was sophomore Drew Pearson, who succeeded him as SRHS quarterback, and then opposed Theismann in some classic Washington Redskins vs. Dallas Cowboys games. The Rams beat us, 27-0. EB were now 1-1-1, and there was no indication that this would be a special season.

In spite of this rough start, EB won the rest of their games. They went to Edison, and won, 34-12. They went to Perth Amboy, who had beaten them the last 2 years, and won, 13-6. They came home to face Essex Catholic, and won, 32-14. This was the 1st time EB had ever played a religion-affiliated school. Essex Catholic was established in Newark in 1957, moved to East Orange in 1980, and was closed due to declining enrollment in 2003.

On November 5, EB hosted John F. Kennedy Memorial High School of Woodbridge, so named because JFK was assassinated while it was under construction, and won, 26-0. On November 12, they beat New Brunswick at their Memorial Stadium, 31-21.

They closed on November 19, at home, beating Sayreville, 33-0. This gave us the Championship of the Greater Jersey Group IV Conference, Central Division II, our 1st league title. And, due to our 7-1-1 record, it also gave us a share of their 1st Central Jersey Group IV Championship. Our first "State Championship." Plainfield, placed in Central Jersey despite being in Union County, which should have put it in North Jersey Section 2, also had a 7-1-1 record, and so EB shared the title with them.

That November 19 clincher against Sayreville was played the same day as the Michigan State-Notre Dame Number 1 vs. Number 2 tie game that was labeled "The Game of the Century." I have a separate entry for that event.

EB would repeat the story in 1972: We went 7-1-1, with our only loss being to South River, but won the Championship of the Middlesex County Athletic Conference, and a Co-Championship in Central Jersey Group IV. At the end of the year, Jay Doyle died of a heart attack, only 41 years old. The EBHS stadium, not yet named, was named Jay Doyle Field in his memory.

In 1974, the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) dropped the best-record method, and came up with a "power points" system based on record and strength of schedule (in other words, the records of the teams that a team beat) to assign Playoff seedings.

East Brunswick would just miss the Central Jersey Group IV Playoffs under the 4-teams-per-section-and-group format in 1977, '78, '81, '86, '92 and '95; reach the Quarterfinals in 1998 after the expansion to 8-teams-per-section-and-group; reach the Semifinals in 1980, '87, '88, '90 and '94; and the Finals in 1984 and '85.

A series of shocking moments, reminiscent of the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago Cubs, the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Rangers before those teams finally ended their World Championship droughts, and the Buffalo Bills and Minnesota Vikings who still have them as of 2022, prevented EB from winning another State Championship. Finally, in 2004, everything fell into place, and we won another, ending a 32-year drought. We won another in 2009, and have made the Playoffs again in 2010, '14 and '21.

*

November 19, 1966 was, of course a Saturday. Other notable college football games played that day, aside from the nationally-televised Michigan-State Notre Dame game:

* In the 2nd half of ABC's nationally-telecast doubleheader, Number 8 UCLA beat Number 7 USC, 14-7 at the Los Angeles Coliseum. This game forced a tie for the Championship in the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU), and, head-to-head, UCLA should have had the tiebreaker. The next week, Notre Dame went into the Coliseum, and walloped USC, 51-0.

But USC still got the Rose Bowl bid, and lost to Purdue. UCLA, hampered by a rule in the league now known as the Pac-12 similar to the Big Ten's, couldn't go to a bowl, despite finishing the regular season 9-1. Wow, if ever a 20th Century college football season needed a playoff, this was it. The next season, USC and UCLA would play a "Game of the Century."

* Number 3 Alabama and Number 4 Nebraska both had the week off. The following week, Nebraska lost to arch-rival Oklahoma. But they still won the Big Eight Conference title. Alabama beat Southern Mississippi and then arch-rival Auburn, and beat Nebraska in the Sugar Bowl.

* Number 10 Purdue crushed arch-rival Indiana, 51-0 at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana.

* Michigan beat Ohio State, 17-3 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus.

* Wisconsin beat Minnesota, 7-6 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin.

* Southern Methodist beat Baylor, 24-22 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, clinching the Southwest Conference title. But they lost the Cotton Bowl to Georgia, who were off this week, and ranked Number 7.

* Harvard beat Yale, 17-0 at Harvard Stadium in Boston.

* Penn State beat Pittsburgh, 48-24 at Pitt Stadium.

* Army and Navy both had the week off. The following week, Army beat Navy, 20-7 at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia.

* In New York City, Columbia beat Brown, 40-38 at Baker Field.

* In New Jersey, Princeton beat Cornell, 7-0 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton.

* And Rutgers lost to Colgate, 26-7 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway.

One more football score I want to mention, but not in college, nor in the pros. The school that would one day become my high school, East Brunswick in Middlesex County, New Jersey, beat Sayreville 33-0. This enabled them to win both the Greater Jersey Group IV Conference, Central Division II Championship, and, due to their record, winning a share of their 1st Central Jersey Group IV Championship. Our first "State Championship."

There were 5 games played in the NBA that day:

* The New York Knicks beat the expansion Chicago Bulls, 116-104 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Cincinnati Royals, 134-110 at the Philadelphia Civic Center.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Baltimore Bullets, 147-125 at the Baltimore Civic Center. (The building still stands, under the name of the CFG Bank Arena.)

* The St. Louis Hawks beat the Detroit Pistons, 105-87 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.

* And the San Francisco Warriors beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 144-109 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. For the Warriors, Rick Barry scored 45, and Nate Thurmond had 24 points and 27 rebounds.

And the entire NHL -- all of the "Original Six" teams -- were in action:

* The New York Rangers played the Boston Bruins to a tie, 3-3 at the Boston Garden.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Montreal Canadiens, 5-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Detroit Pistons, 7-2 at the Chicago Stadium.

Also on this day, Gail Devers, an American sprinter who won Olympic Gold Medals, was born. So was celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito. So was actor and martial artist Jason Scott Lee. Although not related to Bruce Lee, he played Bruce in a film biography. 

November 18, 1972: East Brunswick Football's 2nd State Championship

November 18, 1972: East Brunswick High School, in Middlesex County, New Jersey, which would one day be my Alma Mater, beats Sayreville War Memorial High School, 41-14 at War Memorial Stadium in Sayreville. This clinches the school's 2nd State Championship in football.

EBHS had opened in 1958, due to the growth that the Township of East Brunswick had already had, and was forecast to have in the 1960s, thus taking its students out of next-door South River High School, which was, and has frequently been since, a football powerhouse.

EB's 1st varsity season was 1961, under head coach Jay Doyle. They went 4-4. They went 2-7 in 1962, and Doyle, also the school's 1st athletic director and its 1st head coach in wrestling, handed the head football coaching job over to his assistant, Ron Gonier. "Rock" led the Bears to records of 5-2-2 in 1963, and 6-3 in 1964 and 1965.

In 1966, he led EB to a 7-1-1 season, winning the school's 1st Conference Championship, in the Greater Jersey Group IV Conference, Central Division II. It was also enough to earn a share of the Central Jersey Group IV Championship, winning us our 1st "State Championship," in only our 6th season. He coached 1 more season, leading us to 6-3 and another Conference Championship.

His assistant Mel Caseiro took over from there, and led EB to Conference Championships in 1968, '69 and '70, going 6-3, 6-3 and 6-2-1, respectively. The 1971 season was the 1st in the new Middlesex County Athletic Conference, and EB slipped a little, going 5-3-1.

EB opened the 1972 season on September 23, wearing a block EB logo on our helmets for the 1st time. The opener was home to Madison, a next-door neighbor, and we won, 37-6. In 1975, to avoid confusion with Madison Borough in Morris County, Madison Township changed its name to the Township of Old Bridge. But the name of the school was changed from Madison Township to Madison Central. The town had opened a 2nd high school, Cedar Ridge, in 1969. In 1994, the 2 schools were reconsolidated due to declining enrollment, and have been Old Bridge High School ever since.

The next game was away to Woodbridge, and we won, 19-13. This was followed by a home game against Cedar Ridge, and we won, 27-11. Threeroad games followed, beating Edison school J.P. Stevens, 27-7 (we did not play Edison High School that season); Carteret, 46-6; and Thomas Jefferson High School, forerunner of the current Elizabeth High School, 20-6, proving that our win over them the season before, while a big upset, was no fluke.

The next game, at home on November 11, was against South River, who, naturally, became our 1st arch-rival. In 1966, South River had dealt us our only loss of the season. History repeated itself, as they beat us, 35-14.

And the next game, home to New Brunswick, ended in a 0-0 tie, putting our hopes for any title in doubt. Especially since our season finale would be away to Sayreville, who had beaten us at home the season before. This turned out to be Sayreville's only football win over EB between our 1st season of 1961 and 1990. Since then, they have been considerably better at the sport, and have dominated us.

But on November 18, we went into Sayreville's War Memorial Stadium, and, led by quarterback Dave Cole, put up a dominating performance, winning, 41-14, advancing us to 7-1-1, and clinching the MCAC title. When the results were in from the other games in the section, we found out that we were tied for the best record, and thus Central Jersey Group IV Co-Champions. Hamilton, of Hamilton Township in Mercer County, often called "Hamilton West," also finished 7-1-1, and thus we shared the title with them.

On December 29, 1972, Jay Doyle died of a heart attack, only 41 years old. The EBHS stadium, not yet named, was named Jay Doyle Field in his memory.

In 1974, the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) dropped the best-record method, and came up with a "power points" system based on record and strength of schedule (in other words, the records of the teams that a team beat) to assign Playoff seedings.

East Brunswick would just miss the Central Jersey Group IV Playoffs under the 4-teams-per-section-and-group format in 1977, '78, '81, '86, '92 and '95; reach the Quarterfinals in 1998 after the expansion to 8-teams-per-section-and-group; reach the Semifinals in 1980, '87, '88, '90 and '94; and the Finals in 1984 and '85.

A series of shocking moments, reminiscent of the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago Cubs, the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Rangers before those teams finally ended their World Championship droughts, and the Buffalo Bills and Minnesota Vikings who still have them as of 2022, prevented EB from winning another State Championship.

It would be a long, agonizing, gut-wrenching wait for another. Students and graduates of schools that won "State Championships" from 1974 onward would remind EB people that, "You've never won a State Championship." What they meant was, we'd never won a State Championship under the Playoff format.

Finally, in 2004, everything fell into place, and we won another, ending a 32-year drought. We won another in 2009, and have made the Playoffs again in 2010, '14 and '21.

*

November 18, 1972 was, of course a Saturday. Baseball season was over. Among the college football games played that day were these:

* Number 1 University of Southern California beat their crosstown arch-rivals, the University of California at Los Angeles, 24-7 at the Los Angeles Memorial Stadium, in what was officially a home game for UCLA, though both teams then played their home games there. USC won the Pacific-Eight Conference title.

* Number 2 Alabama beat Virginia Tech, 52-13 at Denny Stadium (now Bryant-Denny Stadium) in Tuscaloosa. Alabama won the Southeastern Conference title, but lost to Auburn the next week, in the famed "Punt, 'Bama, Punt!" game. For the 1st time since the 1948 season, the Sugar Bowl did not invite the SEC Champions.

* Number 3 Michigan beat Purdue, 9-6 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. Losing to Ohio State meant that Michigan only got a share of the Big Ten Conference title, and cost them a bowl bid due to the head-to-head tiebreaker and the Big Ten's awful "Rose Bowl only" rule that held until 1975.

* Number 4 Oklahoma beat Kansas, 31-7 at Memorial Stadium in Lawrence, Kansas. Oklahoma beat Nebraska to win the Big Eight Conference title, and advanced to Number 2 in the country. Unable to face Number 1 USC in the Rose Bowl, they turned down a bid to the Orange Bowl to face a higher-ranking team in the Sugar Bowl, in the hope of a better shot at the National Championship.

* Number 5 Nebraska beat Kansas State, 59-7 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln. Losing to Oklahoma meant that the 2-time defending National Champions, in their last season before Bob Devaney handed off the head coaching job to his offensive coordinator, Tom Osborne, only got a share of the Big Eight Conference title. But they still got the league's Orange Bowl bid.

* Number 6 Penn State beat Boston College, 45-26 at Alumni Stadium, just outside Boston in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Penn State were invited to the Sugar Bowl, but lost it to Oklahoma, 14-0. Oklahoma's win did not impress the voters enough to put them ahead of USC, who were awarded the National Championship by both polls, the Associated Press (AP, the college football writers) and United Press International (UPI, the head coaches).

* Number 7 Texas beat Texas Christian (TCU), 27-0 at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas. Texas won the Southwest Conference title, then beat Alabama in the Cotton Bowl.

* Number 8 Louisiana State beat Mississippi State, 28-14 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge.

* Number 9 Ohio State beat Northwestern, 20-17 at Dyche Stadium (now Ryan Field) in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois. This avenged Northwestern's win at Ohio Stadium the year before. Ohio State beat Michigan to win the Big Ten title, but lost the Rose Bowl to USC, who thus won the National Championship. Had Ohio State won the Rose Bowl, they might have won the National Championship.

* Number 10 Notre Dame beat the University of Miami, 20-17 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. Notre Dame were invited to the Orange Bowl, where they were beaten by Nebraska in Bob Devaney's last game.

* Number 12 Iowa State were upset by Number 19 Missouri, 6-5 at Faurot Field in Columbia, Missouri. Yes, 6-5. That's in football, not baseball.

* Number 16 North Carolina beat arch-rival Duke, 14-0 at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill.

* Number 17 Washington were upset by their arch-rivals, Number 20 Washington State, for the Apple Cup, 27-10 to close the 1st season of Wazzu's new Martin Stadium in Pullman, Washington.

* In an intra-State rivalry game, the University of Richmond beat the College of William & Mary, 20-3 at City Stadium in Richmond, Virginia.

* Miami University of Ohio beat the University of Cincinnati for the Keg of Nails, 23-0 at Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati.

* Brigham Young beat arch-rival Utah in "the Holy War," 16-7 at Rice Stadium (now Rice-Eccles Stadium) in Salt Lake City.

* The University of California beat arch-rival Stanford in "the Big Game," 24-21 at the old California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley.

* Oregon beat Oregon State in "the Civil War," 30-3 at Parker Stadium (now Reser Stadium) in Corvallis, Oregon.

* Among the service academies, Army beat Holy Cross, 15-13 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York; Navy lost to Georgia Tech, 30-7 at Grant Field in Atlanta; and Air Force lost to Number 15 Colorado, 38-7 at Falcon Stadium in Colorado Springs.

* The closest thing New York City had to a major college football team, Columbia, lost to the University of Pennsylvania, 20-14 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

* And among New Jersey's teams, Rutgers beat Morgan State, 37-14 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway; while Princeton lost to Yale, 31-7 at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut.

There were 6 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 87-86 at Madison Square Garden. In a losing effort for the Bucks, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored 32 points and grabbed 20 rebounds -- and that wasn't the best performance of the day.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Phoenix Suns, 126-122 at The Omni in Atlanta, in its 1st season. "Pistol Pete" Maravich scored 45 points -- and that wasn't the best performance of the day.

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Baltimore Bullets, 95-79 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Kansas City-Omaha Kings, 127-117 at the Civic Auditorium in Omaha, Nebraska. Nate "Tiny" Archibald scored 51 points, and that was the best performance of the day.

* The Golden State Warriors beat the Buffalo Braves, 120-92 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat their arch-rivals, the Portland Trail Blazers, 102-100 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland.

There were 2 games in the American Basketball Association. The San Diego Conquistadors beat the Kentucky Colonels, 112-104 at Freedom Hall in Louisville. And the Denver Rockets beat the Dallas Chaparrals, 111-103 at the Auditorium Arena in Denver. Ralph Simpson -- not to be confused with later Houston Rocket star Ralph Sampson -- scored 44 points, but, as we've seen, that was not the best performance of the day.

There were 6 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the St. Louis Blues, 3-1 at the St. Louis Arena.

* The New York Islanders lost to the Boston Bruins, 7-3 at the Nassau Coliseum. Phil Esposito and Wayne Cashman both scored 2 goals, Bobby Orr just 1.

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Montreal Canadiens, 5-3 at the Montreal Forum. 

* The Minnesota North Stars and the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a tie, 4-4 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Atlanta Flames, 6-1 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh. Al McDonough scored a hat trick for the Pens.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Detroit Red Wings, 8-3 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Mike Corrigan and Ralph Backstrom each scored 2 goals for the Kings.

* And the Philadelphia Flyers, the California Golden Seals, the Buffalo Sabres and the Vancouver Canucks were not scheduled.

And there were 3 games played in the World Hockey Association:

* The New York Raiders beat the Quebec Nordiques, 7-1 at Madison Square Garden. But with the established Rangers and the expansion Islanders having the NHL's backing, if the New York Tri-State Area could only support 2 pro hockey teams at the time, in this era before the New Jersey Devils arrived, then the Raiders were the likeliest odd team out, and only lasted the season.

* The New England Whalers beat the Ottawa Nationals, 3-2 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Minnesota Fighting Saints beat the Philadelphia Blazers, 5-4 in overtime at the Philadelphia Arena in West Philly.

November 11, 1916: Rutgers Stands By Paul Robeson

November 11, 1916: The football team at Rutgers College stands up for their best player -- a month after cowardly refusing to do so.

On October 14, Rutgers were hosting Washington & Lee University at Neilson Field in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Washington & Lee is in Lexington, Virginia, and is named for George Washington and Robert E. Lee. Lee was the leading General of the Confederate States of America. Virginia was still a Southern State. And it had only been 51 years since the end of the American Civil War.

Neilson Field

And Paul Robeson was a sophomore offensive lineman, tackle and guard, for Rutgers. And he was really good. And he was black. And the Washington & Lee players refused to play against him, because of his race.

So Rutgers head coach George Sanford benched Robeson. A friend of him called it "a wound that never healed." The game ended in a 13-13 tie.

A month later, West Virginia University sent its team to play Rutgers. West Virginia had seceded from Virginia and rejoined the Union in 1863. And their campus is further north than one-quarter of Rutgers' home State of New Jersey. Nevertheless, the Mountaineer players also insisted that Robeson not play.

This time, Sanford stood up for Robeson, saying that if the Mountaineers didn't want to play against a black man, they could go home. They didn't want to forfeit either the game, or the money their school would make by playing, so they played, and Robeson made a game-saving tackle near the goal line to preserve a 0-0 tie. Afterward, the WVU players lined up to shake his hand.

In 1917 and 1918, Robeson was considered by many observers to be the best player in the country. In 1920, making his all-time All-American team, Walter Camp, the legendary Yale player and coach who invented the "All-American team" concept, named Robeson the best defensive end he'd ever seen.

Robeson's pro career was brief, but he did play for the 1st champions of the league that became the NFL, the Akron Pros, led by black coach and back Fritz Pollard. Robeson went on to bigger things in the law, music, acting and social activism.

Rutgers' original name, in use from 1766 to 1825, was Queens College. Their administration building, opening in 1825, it still known as Old Queens. And so, when they began intercollegiate sports, their teams became known as the Queensmen.

In 1925, the name was changed to the Chanticleers. A chanticleer is a rooster, a fighting cock. There was precedent: The University of South Carolina calls their teams the Gamecocks -- although calling them the Cocks for short is a bit problematic. New Brunswick's radio station, and the carrier for Rutgers' football games, at 1450 on the AM dial, named their call letters after the ChanTiCleers: WCTC.

But too many people associated "Chanticleer" with "chicken," and thus with cowardice. So, in 1955, a student vote was held, and the name chosen the most was "Scarlet Knights." And so they have been ever since.

*

November 11, 1916 was a Saturday. These other noteworthy college football games were played that day:

* Harvard beat Princeton, 3-0 at Harvard Stadium in Boston.

* Army beat Maine, 17-3 on The Plain in West Point, New York.

* Cornell beat Michigan, 23-20 at Schoellkopf Field in Ithaca, New York.

* Dartmouth and Pennsylvania played to a 7-7 tie at the original Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

* Navy beat North Carolina State, 50-0 at Worden Field in Annapolis, Maryland.

* Georgia Tech, 5 weeks after beating Cumberland College 222-0, took it relatively easy on Alabama, beating them 16-0 at Grant Field in Atlanta. Tech went 8-0-1, and were retroactively named National Champions by the Billingsley Report in 1996.

* Rivalry: Tennessee beat Vanderbilt, 10-6 at Waite Field in Knoxville, Tennessee.

* The University of Pittsburgh made Washington & Jefferson continue to pay for their racism, beating them, 37-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Pitt went 8-0, and were retroactively named National Champions by most sources other than Billingsley.

* Notre Dame beat South Dakota, 21-0 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

November 6, 1869: The 1st American Football Game

The First Game, painted in 1968 by Arnold Friberg,

commissioned for the 1969 College Football Centennial

November 6, 1869: What is generally recognized as the 1st college football game -- and the 1st game of what is usually, outside the United States, called "American football" -- is played. Rutgers College plays the College of New Jersey, on Rutgers' campus in New Brunswick.

Legend has it that the impetus for the game was Rutgers wanting to redeem its honor after losing the 1st-ever baseball game between the schools, on May 2, 1866, 42-0 on CNJ's campus in Princeton, 18 miles down the road that would become the Lincoln Highway and then New Jersey Route 27 -- known as Albany Street, French Street and Somerset Street in New Brunswick, and Nassau Street in Princeton.

The game is essentially a very large soccer game, with a round leather ball, and 25 men on a side. As agreed upon before the game, by Captains William Leggett of Rutgers and William Gummere of CNJ, there was no clock, and the 1st team to 6 goals would win.

The Rutgers men, finding the color inexpensive to obtain, wrap scarlet red cloth around their heads like turbans, so that they can tell each other apart on the field. Thus did they invent school colors and, in a way, the football helmet.

The men of Old Queens must have had less trouble telling team from team than did the men of Old Nassau, as Rutgers won, 6-4 -- that's 6 goals to 4, or 42-28 under today's scoring system.

The next week, the CNJ men returned the favor in Princeton. As before, the home team set the rules, with 8 goals to win. They also wanted "fair catches," which Rutgers had denied them the week before. This played to the Nassau men's strength, and they won, 8-0. There was supposed to be a 3rd game, but the colleges' presidents got together,  and decided that too much emphasis was being placed on athletics, and forbade it.

The field where "the first football game" was played is now the parking lot for Rutgers' College Avenue Gym. Rutgers played at College Field until 1891, then opened Neilson Field across the street, playing there until 1938, when Rutgers Stadium opened across the River in Piscataway. The Alexander Library, the school's main library, was built on the site of Neilson Field in 1953. Rutgers Stadium was replaced on the same site by what's now named SHI Stadium in 1994, while they played their 1993 home games, and many others from 1976 to 2009, at Giants Stadium.

The site of College Field today. In the background,

College Avenue Gym (left) and the Rutgers Student Center.

George Large of Rutgers was the last surviving player from this game, living until August 15, 1939, age 88. The native of Readington, Hunterdon County played on the Rutgers side, and in 1888 served as President of the State Senate, making him the Acting Governor on a few occasions.

Plaque inside the Gym

In 1874, Harvard University would accept a challenge from McGill University in Montreal, and discover on the McGill men's arrival that by "football," McGill meant "rugby," not "soccer." Adjustments were made, Harvard liked the results, and convinced the other "football"-playing schools to join them in this adaptation of "football." In 1906, the forward pass was legalized and hashmarks prevented dangerous scrimmages close to the sideline. "Football" as America knows it now was on its way.

In 1896, the College of New Jersey changed its name to Princeton University, while a nearby school would later be founded as Trenton State College, and change its name to The College of New Jersey. Rutgers College would become, and remains, the centerpiece of the larger system of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

Princeton's nickname, the Tigers, would inspire 2 professional team names: Baseball's Detroit Tigers and the Canadian Rugby Union's Hamilton Tigers, now the Canadian Football League's Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

Rutgers was known as "The Queensmen" until 1925, when they became the Chanticleers, after a fighting rooster. The school's literary magazine was already called The Chanticleer. But this carried the connotation of "chicken" -- and, as the University of South Carolina has found out with their similarly-named Gamecocks, they can be called "Cocks." In 1955, head coach Harvey Harman recommended the change to the Scarlet Knights, and such they have been ever since.

The West Stand of what's now named SHI Stadium

Rutgers continues to bill itself as "The Birthplace of College Football," or simply "The Birthplace." You know the joke: Rutgers invented football in 1869, and they haven't done a damn thing since. It's not completely true -- they had undefeated seasons in 1961 and 1976, won 6 bowl games between 2006 and 2014, and shared the Big East Conference Championship in 2012 -- but it sure feels like it at times.

Statue outside the stadium's North End

After that 1st game, Rutgers did not beat Princeton again until the dedication game for the original Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway, in 1938, going 0-33 in between. But, starting in 1958, Rutgers won 4 straight, before Princeton then won 6 straight.

Rutgers began to dominate the rivalry in 1968. They wanted "bigger-time football" in the 1970s, and started recruiting better, to the point where Princeton, wanting to stay in the Ivy League, couldn't keep up. Rutgers won the last 5 games before Princeton decided to stop playing them, including the finale, on September 27, 1980, a 44-13 win in Piscataway. Nevertheless, Princeton still leads the all-time rivalry, 53-17-1, despite Rutgers going 9-3-1 from 1968 onward.

The rivalry remains intense in other sports, including basketball.

*

November 6, 1869 was a Saturday. You might think that there were no other scores on this historic day. But you'd be wrong. The 1st openly professional baseball team wrapped up its season that day: The Cincinnati Red Stockings beat the Mutual Base Ball Club of New York, 17-8 at the Union Grounds in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.   

November 5, 1938: Rutgers Stadium Opens

Program from the dedication game

November 5, 1938: Rutgers Stadium opens in Piscataway, Middlesex County, New Jersey, across the Raritan River from the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers College, now called Rutgers University.

For the 1st time since they played each other in the 1st college football game in 1869 -- 69 years minus 1 day earlier -- Rutgers beat Princeton, 20-18.

Rutgers had begun the season playing home games in New Brunswick, at Neilson Field, where they had been playing since 1892. They finished the 1938 season 7-1, their only loss coming at Neilson Field, to New York University (NYU), 25-6.

Before 1892, including that 1869 game, they had played at College Field. In 1931, the College Avenue Gym and its parking lot were built on the site.

In 1953, the Alexander Library, the hub of RU's University Library system, was built on the site of Neilson Field. As far as I know, Rutgers is the only school that tore down a football stadium and built a library on the site. Can you imagine that happening at another school that's now in the Big Ten? Or in the South?

The 1938 Rutgers Stadium, late in its tenure

RU would continue to play home games in football, and sometimes soccer and lacrosse, at the 23,000-seat Rutgers Stadium until 1992. By the time of their undefeated season in 1976, when they committed to playing what they called "bigger time" football, the stadium was hopelessly outdated, and they had begun playing games at Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands.

It was far larger, but well off campus, and visiting teams sometimes drew in bigger crowds, making it seem like a home game. Example: Army's Michie Stadium is 82 miles from Piscataway, but only 48 miles from the Meadowlands.

While RU played their 1993 home games at Giants Stadium, the old stadium was demolished, and replaced with a 41,000-seat modern Rutgers Stadium that opened in 1994. It was renamed High Point Solutions Stadium in 2011, HighPoint.com Stadium in 2017, and SHI Stadium in 2019. It now seats 52,454.

The current Rutgers stadium

*

November 5, 1938 was a Saturday. These other notable college football games were played:

* The University of Pittsburgh, then ranked Number 1, were by their neighbors, Number 19 Carnegie Tech, 20-10 at Pitt Stadium. This ended a 22-game unbeaten streak for the Panthers (20-0-2). Both teams used Pitt Stadium as their home field, and Carnegie Tech became Carnegie Mellon University in 1967.

* The Number 3 team in the country also lost: California lost to Number 13 USC, 13-7 at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

* The Number 2 team, Texas Christian University, a.k.a. TCU of Fort Worth, beat the University of Tulsa, 21-0 at Skelly Field in Tulsa. TCU jumped to Number 1, won the Southwest Conference title, and beat Carnegie Tech, then ranked Number 6, in the Sugar Bowl to finish 11-0. Their quarterback, a lefthander named Davey O'Brien, was awarded the Heisman Trophy.

* Number 4 Notre Dame beat Navy, 15-0, in a game moved from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland to Municipal Stadium in Baltimore, to take advantage of the much higher seating capacity. Memorial Stadium would be built on the site in 1954. Notre Dame would blow its shot at the National Championship by losing to USC.

* Number 6 Tennessee beat the University of Chattanooga, 45-0 at Shields-Watkins Field in Knoxville, Tennessee. (It was later renamed for Tennessee's head coach, Bob Neyland.) Tennessee rose to Number 2, and then beat Number 4 Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl to finish 11-0. The polls split the National Championship between TCU and Tennessee.

* Number 12 Minnesota beat Iowa, 28-0 at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. They went on to win the Big Ten.

And 2 games were played in the NHL. The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2 at the Montreal Forum; and the Boston Bruins beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. 

Also, Arsenal lost to Leeds United, 3-2 at Highbury in North London.

And César Luis Menotti, who managed Argentina to win the 1978 World Cup on home soil, was born on this day.

October 30, 1938: Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds"

October 30, 1938: The CBS radio show The Mercury Theater of the Air airs an adaptation of H.G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds. (In New York, it went over the network's flagship station, WCBS, 880 on the AM dial.)

Wells' story first appeared in London-based Pearson's Magazine in 1897. That same year, in America, Cosmopolitan serialized it. (It was a literary magazine until 1965, when Helen Gurley Brown was named editor, and turned it into a women's magazine.) It appeared in hardcover in 1898.

To make a long story short, with a spoiler: Creatures from the planet Mars invade Earth by attacking the greatest city of the age, late-Victorian London, and terrorize humanity, but soon die due to having no immunity to Earth germs.

It's been filmed in 1953 by George Pal, starring Gene Barry and moving the location to Southern California -- in other words, Hollywood itself -- and in 2005 by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Cruise and set in New York. In each case, the film was set in what was then the present day.

The 1938 radio version was also set in its present. Howard E. Koch adapted the story for the broadcast, and lead actor Orson Welles (not related to H.G. Wells, note the different spelling), just 23 years old, tells of creatures from Mars landing in Grover's Mill, in the Township of West Windsor, Mercer County, New Jersey. The site is about a mile east of where the Princeton Junction train station now stands, about halfway between Midtown Manhattan and Center City Philadelphia, and 17 miles from East Brunswick, where I grew up.

The story is told as if it were a live news broadcast. While it ends with the Martians dying -- after having devastated New York -- it also ends with Welles, as the surviving Professor Pierson, interviewing a man in Newark, who holds fascist ideals, and wanting to use the Martian weaponry to take over what's left of Earth. It's worth noting that it had been one month since Britain and France caved in to Nazi Germany's demand for Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. I have listened to the broadcast on YouTube. It clocks in at a little under an hour.

Legend has it that people heard that the alien invaders were killing people and advancing toward New York, panicked, grabbed their shotguns and pitchforks, and evacuated. However, Welles said at the end of every commercial break that it was just a show, not actually happening, and repeated this at the end.

Furthermore, it would have been very easy for people to turn to another radio station -- say, their local NBC affiliate -- and hear regularly-scheduled programming, and not any "special report" of a Martian invasion and attack, and know that everything was as it was before. Welles publicly apologized the next day -- Halloween. But it made him a legend.

In 1941, Welles co-wrote, produced, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane, one of the greatest movies ever made. But because Charles Foster Kane was, despite all denials, an obvious sendup of newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, Hearst told his media empire, now including film newsreels and radio stations, to blast the film.

Welles never fully recovered, despite making some more good films (The Magnificent Ambersons, The Third Man, Touch of Evil), reduced to a punchline due to his fall from grace, his "slumming" with things like commercials for Paul Masson wine, his wasted genius, and his, uh, geniused waist. He died in 1985, having been mostly irrelevant from ages 26 to 70.

While many sports teams, professional and collegiate alike, have given themselves nicknames of various kinds of warriors, none has ever named itself "The Martians" or "The Aliens." Although the Las Vegas 51s, named for the nearby U.S. Air Force base nicknamed "Area 51," use "the Roswell Alien" as their logo.

*

October 30, 1938 was a Sunday. Baseball season was over. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season wouldn't start for another 4 days. But there were 3 NFL games played that day:

* The football version of the Brooklyn Dodgers played the Washington Redskins to a 6-6 tie at Ebbets Field.

* The Green Bay Packers beat the Cleveland Rams, 28-7 at League Park in Cleveland. The Rams moved to Los Angeles in 1946.

* And the Detroit Lions beat the Chicago Bears, 13-7 at Wrigley Field.

Despite it being a Sunday, there was one notable college football game played: Southern Methodist University (SMU) beat the University of Texas, 7-6 at Ownby Stadium in Dallas.

October 22, 1977: Stuff Yer Face Opens

The original location, 43 Easton Avenue, 1977-82

October 22, 1977: Stuff Yer Face opens at 43 Easton Avenue in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Five years later, in 1982, it moves into larger quarters at 49 Easton Avenue, where it remains.

The current location, 49 Easton Avenue

The restaurant is known for its stromboli, named for a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the coasts of the Italian mainland and Sicily, pronounced "STRAHM-buh-lee." The food, usually pronounced "Strahm-BOH-lee," is a type of turnover, made of Italian bread dough, and filled with pretty much anything you want, but usually cheese, vegetables like onions and peppers, and Italian cold cuts such as salami. But the menu allows you to pick your own fillings, if none of the dozens of varieties fit you well at that moment,

Unlike the similar calzone, which are always stuffed and folded into a crescent shape, the stromboli is folded into a cylinder. Like the cheesesteak, it's believed to have been invented by Italian-American bakers in South Philadelphia, about 60 miles southwest of New Brunswick.

New Brunswick is the seat of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and Stuff Yer Face not only caters to the Rutgers crowd, but is festooned with Scarlet Knights memorabilia -- and, to a lesser extent, that of other local teams, including the Yankees, the Mets, the Giants, the Jets, and the New Jersey Devils.

SYF (the initials are occasionally used, but no one calls it "Stuff's," "Stuffy's" or "Face's") is also known for its "beer library," an extensive array of beers from around the world, including small breweries in the Northeastern U.S. The slogan is, "Enjoy a boli and a beer!" They are also known for their "potachos," potato chips cooked like nachos.

They have become an institution in New Brunswick. They are one of those places that likes to say, "We were here before you were born." For pretty much any visiting Rutgers student from the Class of 1996 onward, that has been true.

*

October 22, 1977 was a Saturday. And how did Rutgers do on this momentous day in the history of its hometown? Actually, they weren't even scheduled to play. The team that were then RU's arch-rivals, Princeton, beat Harvard, 20-7 at Harvard Stadium in Boston.

* Number 1 Michigan lost to Minnesota, 16-0 at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis, a rare win for Minnesota in the battle for the Little Brown Jug. But Michigan rebounded to win the Big Ten Conference title.

* Number 2 Texas, with the eventual Heisman Trophy winner, running back Earl Campbell, beat Southern Methodist (SMU), 30-14 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Texas won the Southwest Conference title, and would return to the Cotton Bowl stadium for the game of the same name.

* Number 3 Alabama beat Louisville, 55-6 at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa. Alabama won the Southeastern Conference title.

* Number 4 Ohio State beat Northwestern, 35-15 at Dyche Stadium (now Ryan Field) in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois. Ohio State blew its chance at the Big 10 title by losing to Michigan, and lost the Sugar Bowl to Alabama.

* Number 5 Southern California were upset by Number 11 Notre Dame, 49-19 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. Or maybe it wasn't such an upset: Notre Dame, with sophomore quarterback Joe Montana, went undefeated, and beat Texas in the Cotton Bowl, deciding the National Championship.

* Number 6 Oklahoma beat Number 16 Iowa State, 35-16 at Owen Field in Norman. Oklahoma won the Big Eight title, and went into the Orange Bowl ranked Number 2 behind Texas, who lost.

* Number 7 Colorado were upset by Number 18 Nebraska, 33-15 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln. Nebraska could have won the Big 8 by beating Oklahoma, but they didn't, and ended up beating North Carolina in the Liberty Bowl.

* Number 8 Kentucky beat Georgia, 33-0 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia. Kentucky went 10-1 on the season, but were on probation, and thus ineligible for the SEC title or a bowl game.

* Number 9 Arkansas beat the University of Houston, 34-0 at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock. But, as in their famous 1969 "Game of the Century," Arkansas lost its chance at the SWC and national titles by losing to Texas. But they did ruin Oklahoma's shot at the National Championship by beating them in the Orange Bowl.

* Number 10 Penn State beat West Virginia, 49-28 at Beaver Stadium in State College, Pennsylvania. Penn State, whose only loss was to Kentucky, beat Arizona State on their own field in the Fiesta Bowl on Christmas Day.

* Number 15 University of California (usually called "Cal" for sports purposes, and "Berkeley" for everything else) were upset by unranked University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), 21-19 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* The University of Washington, then unranked, beat Oregon State, 14-6 at Husky Stadium in Seattle. Washington won the Pacific-Eight Conference title, and beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

* Among the service academies, Army beat Lafayette, 42-6 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York; Navy beat William & Mary, 42-17 at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland; and Baylor beat Air Force, 38-7 at Floyd Casey Stadium in Waco, Texas.

The baseball season had ended 4 days earlier, when the New York Yankees beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 6 of the World Series, thanks to 3 home runs from Reggie Jackson and a complete game by Mike Torrez.

There were 11 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Washington Bullets, 141-115 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New Jersey Nets, in their 1st month as a New Jersey team after playing on Long Island, lost to the Buffalo Braves, 101-96 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

* The New Orleans Jazz beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 104-103 in overtime at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 107-101 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Boston Celtics, 110-98 at The Summit in Houston. (The arena has since been converted into the Central Campus of the Lakewood Church, Dr. Joel Osteen's "megachurch.")

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Denver Nuggets, 126-106 at Cobo Hall (now the Huntington Center) in Detroit.

* The Indiana Pacers beat the Kansas City Kings, 106-101 at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Bulls, 113-95 at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the San Antonio Spurs, 130-115 at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland. Lionel Hollins led all scorers on the night with 36 points.

There were 6 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders beat their arch-rivals, the New York Rangers, 7-2 at the Nassau Coliseum. Michel Bergeron and Bobby Nystrom each scored 2 goals.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 6-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toront.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Atlanta Flames, 5-2 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Minnesota North Stars, 4-2 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* And the Boston Bruins beat the Los Angeles Kings, 4-3 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

And there was 1 game in the World Hockey Association: The Quebec Nordiques beat the Birmingham Bulls, 8-5 at the Colisée de Québec.

In New Jersey high school football, the school that would become my Alma Mater, East Brunswick, played John F. Kennedy High School of Woodbridge to a 6-6 tie at Louis M. Bartha Field in Woodbridge.

And in English soccer, the North London team I would one day begin to support, Arsenal, traveled to the West Country, and beat Bristol City, 1-0 at Ashton Gate in Bristol.