My Emotional Excellent Farrell High School Football Reunion.

This summer I re connected with my High School Football team.

Staten Island Advance Article

YouTube Invite to Whole Team

My YouTube Invite From Coach B.

I went to Monsignor Farrell HS in Staten Island NY. I graduated in 1976 and still have the bicentennial themed tie that I wore at graduation. While at Farrell, I played football all four years. Farrell Football when I was growing up and learning the sport was the Gold standard of Staten Island football. I started playing Pee Wee football when I was 8 years old and gradually got in to the Pro teams, I was a Raiders and Chargers fan mainly because their games were on at 4 PM after we had come inside from playing outside all day. College was Ohio State, cool helmets and Penn State when Joe Paterno did not have a nick name.

But the best team I got to see was Farrell HS. I went to their games in grammar school and diligently tore up or hole punched giant bags of confetti, hoarded it, brought it to the games to toss at bee hive hairdos whenever the Lions did anything good.

After graduating from Grammar School, I took a test that all kids have to take in order to get in to NYC Catholic High Schools and scored high enough to have the opportunity to go to Farrell High School. It was a big deal. Staten Island was 90%+++ Catholic. Getting in to Farrell was probably scoring somewhere in the 80% plus in the standard tests that were the 8th grade version of the SATs. A lot of boys (it was an all boys school) were disappointed when they got their letters saying their test scores were not high enough to be admitted. Parents were proud of their boys acceptance. The boys were proud to be admitted. The school let them know that they were a privileged group that had the golden opportunity to even go to the school.

We thought we were hot stuff even before we walked in the door.

Entering Farrell, I was a football Pee Wee All Star, a very good swimmer and probably not nearly as good as I thought I was in baseball and basketball but I at least played them a lot.

Farrell HS football’s goal at that time was to win every game - period.

When I tried out and made the team I had a sense of accomplishment that was probably about as profound and satisfying as any 13 year old can have.

During my 4 years, we lost one game as freshmen (the sophomores mainly were the starters on the team) we won all our games as sophomores, lost one game as juniors (the seniors mainly were the starters on the team) and went undefeated with one tie our senior year. Our record for the four years was something like 30-2-1 and our senior year our team was ranked #1 in New York City by The Daily News and probably would have been ranked #1 by USA Today if it existed. The class of 77 never lost a single game in the four years they played. I confess I do not know where they ranked in the NYC polls but that is really an amazing statistic.

Physically we were an unimposing bunch. We were shorter, lighter, slower and weaker than most of the teams we played. Our big guys were about 6’2” and 220 and we had 2 of them. The rest of us were much smaller. Our offensive line probably averaged 5’10” and 180.

But we were well coached, disciplined, smart and believed with every fiber of our testosterone filled hearts that we should win every game, and we did.

Late in the spring of 2009, I was about 6 months in to a move that had taken our family from the North Shore of Oahu where we had lived for about 7 years to San Diego, California where I had lived since 1984. I got a phone call from Mike G. who was one of my Farrell Football team mates and he asked my permission for him to stay in touch with me and let me know of upcoming events. I really enjoyed hearing from him, the last time I had seen him was a random meeting on the Staten Island Ferry about 26 years ago.

Farrell HS started an alumni football game in 2005 as a fund raiser and to bring alumni back together to reconnect with the school. Living in Hawaii, I really did not pay much attention to what was going on more than 6,000 miles and an 11 hour non stop flight away.

Mike G and Mike M soon after that conversation that confirmed my email, phone, address et al, started sending out emails to everyone on the class of 76 Football team asking them to dig in to their address books and find everyone on the team and try and get them to come back to Farrell HS for the Alumni Game. They spent months tracking people down, phoning, emailing, guilt tripping, cajoling, to get the whole team back for the game.

They succeeded.

Every guy I graduated with came back, showed up at the game, reconnected and hopefully had as much of an emotional, uplifting, positive experience as I did.

My Itinerary was Friday June 12 (flight delayed of course) arrive Newark 2 AM drive through rain down pour (it does not rain in Southern California) to Don M’s house for a 2:30 arrival. Wake up at 6 AM for golf game with Dupton, borrowed clubs, played in sneakers, walk 18 in 110 % humidity @ 80 degrees, won ½ of an Aloha Press, couple of beers, pizza, drive to Joe Y’s house (an hour) JY had recently gone through leukemia treatment and looked like Uncle Fester, dinner, longest walk he’d take since chemo – 5 blocks or so, dinner, sleep, back to Don M’s to meet him to drive to Staten Island on Saturday morning, have mind blowing reunion game (I got an interception), get in town car back to Don’s house for 1 AM arrival on Sunday AM, wake up early, drive to CT to see my brother George, wife Julia and nephew I’ve never met James who just turned 1, play 18 at Noon, dinner, wake up early on Monday, go for walk, get in car from central CT, drive to JFK, meet Lenny and Julie for lunch, get to airport 6 hour delay, get to San Diego at Midnight and go to work at a new job in the AM on June 15.

My single biggest regret is not getting to Joe M’s house. He has been so gracious in offering me and family to stay there on multiple occasions, but it has not worked out and I feel terribly guilty about it. Joe, I’m sorry, I really am and the next time I’m back East, I’d really like to have me and the family stay with you, G and V. Donnie M thanks to you for saving me a bunch of money on this trip at a time when I really needed to be frugal.

As far as the game, dinner/party went. I had a transcendentally good time. Most of the guys on the team, I had met when I was competing against or had played on the same team with from 3rd grade and beyond. Some of us who played for Farrell did not like each other when we got to school because we had spent years trying to crush each other in sports.

When we got to Farrell and had the kind of success we did, the ecstatic feelings we had from winning were the same as winning the Super Bowl, World Series, World Cup or Olympics. We were winning at a level that was the pinnacle of what we were capable of trying to achieve. Emotionally, when you win your championship, it is the best that you can do at the time under those circumstances. Emotionally, a bunch of 16,17 and 18 year olds winning their games feels the same to them as the Super Bowl champs. Historically, of course, it does not measure up, but the feeling the players have is the same at any level of sports. You don't save your celebrations for Game 7 of the World Series. Athletes as they progress and keep winning might get to experience more significant accomplishments at higher levels, but the feeling is a common bond back to when they were kids.

So, the team is getting back together this coming weekend August 28 on Staten Island to celebrate our achievements.

God Bless each and every one of them.

I can’t make it. My kids, my budget, my time, my distance, my commitments, yada, yada, yada will keep me in San Diego.

But gosh darn it, I wish I could be there.

I have a saying that nobody knows you like the people who you grew up with. They know your insecurities (most justified). They know what a jerk you have been and are capable of being. They know how you hurt and they know how much you were emotionally committed to anything you did in your teens. At the same time, we were amazingly clueless about what was happening in our lives back then. In 2009, I found out that one of my team mates Peter T’s Dad had had a heart attack, just before we were to go to football camp to earn our spots on the team. Pete went, when he did not know if his Dad was going to make it. His Dad wound up OK. I did not realize all this until 60 days ago at the Reunion.

Most of my team mates probably don’t know what happened to me at that same camp. I thought I was pretty good. I wanted to play defensive back, return kicks, return punts, punt the ball and if anything happened, jump in a play QB. While running 4th team offense, they needed someone to step in a run some routes as a receiver. I jumped in and started goofing off with Sean H, miss stepped and severely hyper extended my knee. At the time, there were no MRI’s or other technology. It was not until 2006 when I had surgery to repair my ACL that I found out I had completely ruptured my ACL during the summer of my evolution to senior year.

I was athletically toast.

I remember lying on the cot in 90 degree heat and throwing a knife that I had brought with me over and over in to the wall because I knew I had blown my chance to be a star on the team and maybe get a scholarship to some school, some where, for football. During those agonizing mental and physically painful days, I came to the conclusion that I would never again put 100% of my heart and soul in to sports (I was also a varsity swimmer and club baseball and basketball player). I decided that I’d play sports, not bleed sports. I’ve played lots since then, enjoyed a bunch, still enjoy a good golf bet but made the right decisions as far as College, job and life went based on education, not sports.

If my team mates are anywhere as clueless as I was about what was going on in their lives, I have to believe they thought Johnny D hurt himself and just did not get better.

Farrell Football was a life shaping experience for me. Coming up short on what I felt were was my potential playing football was a life shaping experience for me.

Pete F I’m sure you have the same “what ifs” regarding your knee and how if affected your life. All I know is that I really liked what I saw at the Alumni Bowl – great guys, great families, great fun and a great opportunity for someone to sell us all diet programs.

PS, Joe, I am really sorry. Please offer again.

To the rest of the gang, be healthy.