Local football coaching legend Stephans dies

When I was about 12 or so, I remember going to Jersey City State College football games at the old Jersey City Roosevelt Stadium with my friends to watch the great Gothic Knight teams of the early 1970s, teams that featured All-American players like current Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo at quarterback and Bruce Naszimento at running back. Later in life, Bruce became a dear close friend who I cherish. Anyway, the head coach of those great JCSC teams was a man by the name of Jack Stephans, a Hoboken native who was schooled at the University of South Carolina and Boston University, a man who had an incredible coaching career with stops at places like Fordham University, William Paterson as well as JCSC. It was with the Gothic Knights that Stephans had his best success. He led the Gothic Knights to two New Jersey Athletic Conference championships in an undefeated season in 1966 and then that fantastic year in 1972 with DiVincenzo and Naszimento. In his eight seasons at JCSC, Stephans posted an incredible 48-15 record. His last season at JCSC was his best, posting a 9-1 record, before heading off to William Paterson for three years (1975 through 1977), posting a 10-16-1 record with the Pioneers. Incredibly during the days that he was at Jersey City State, he was also the head coach at St. Joseph’s Regional in Montvale. Yes, Jack did double duty, coaching the high school kids right after school, then racing to Jersey City to coach the college guys at night. There’s a famous tale that said that Jack had to drive in a rental car from Montvale after a Green Knights’ game on Friday night to Buffalo in a snowstorm no less in order to coach the Gothic Knights the next morning at the famed War Memorial Stadium against Canisius. Jack didn’t particularly like to fly, so he drove up to Buffalo with two student/managers in an attempt to get there before kickoff. Now that’s dedication. In 1979, Stephans made the bold step to take over the famed head coaching position at Fordham, the same place that produced Vince Lombardi and the famed “Seven Blocks of Granite.” One of those famed linemen of college football folklore was Ed Franco, a Jersey City legend who I had the pleasure of working with at P.S. 27 School in the Heights during my days coaching Biddy basketball for the Jersey City Department of Recreation. There I was every day with a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, talking about his days at Fordham. It was a joy to be around Ed Franco every day. Stephans stayed at Fordham for two forgettable seasons and then bounced around New Jersey as an assistant football coach. In the late 1990s, Stephans then took on one of the biggest challenges of his coaching career, deciding to become the defensive coordinator at Weehawken High School under head coach Mike Guasconi. It was a program that was floundering severely, but Stephans wanted to be involved. In 2000, the unthinkable happened. The grandfather figure helped to lead Weehawken to a school-record eight wins, including a thrilling last-second win over New Milford in the opening round of the NJSIAA North Jersey Section 1, Group I state playoffs. It remains to this day as Weehawken’s lone victory in the state playoffs. At that time, I remember approaching Jack to introduce myself and tell him how much I admired him and those great days watching the Gothic Knights. But Jack already knew who I was and he told me that he admired me. It was the beginning of a good friendship.

Jack was soon inducted into the Hudson County Sports Hall of Fame as deservedly so, for his days as both an athletes and a coach. We lost Jack last week. He was 82 years old. His son, Jason, reported to me that his Dad passed on “peacefully and on his own terms.” The Stephans family, wife Judy and children, were by his side as he left us. Jack Stephans is just another legend that we’ve lost in 2020. It’s just too sad for words. I’ll remember that gruff exterior that had a real soft heart deep inside. I’ll remember the gigantic mitts he had for hands and that a handshake could be crippling if one wasn’t paying attention. And I’ll remember the way he talked about football, like it was the love of his life, the way Shakespeare and Hemingway wrote about love and nature. It was a joy to be around Jack and he will be missed by the hundreds of young men he touched, mentored and molded on the gridiron. The late Jack Stephans will be waked Monday, Oct. 5 at the Becker Funeral Home in Westwood from 2-4 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. The funeral Mass will be held Tuesday, Oct. 6 at the Our Lady of the Mother in Woodcliff Lake. Both locations are in Bergen County. God bless Jack Stephans, a truly great man with great football mind and the ability to coach the sport he loved.

Prep grieves for the losses of Terry and Patt

Believe it or not, the greatest decision I ever made in my life came when I was perhaps five years old. Thanksgiving morning was a special time in my home in Jersey City, filled with the early smells of the turkey filled with my father’s special recipe for stuffing that I still follow to the last morsel of black pepper to this very day. And after the turkey was safely placed in the oven, my father would say to me, “C’mon James, we’re going for the rolls and rye bread.” That meant a ride to Pechter’s Bakery in Harrison, where we would stand in line together and procure dinner rolls, rye bread for leftover sandwiches and perhaps a cheesecake for dessert. And on the way home, we would stop at the old Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City to watch the St. Peter’s Prep-Dickinson traditional rivalry football game. My father, who worked for the Jersey City Department of Public Works, had a friend who would allow us to come in through a back door and stand on the sidelines. While I was standing there, clutching my father’s hand like my young life depended upon it, I uttered the words that remained with me forever. “Daddy, I’m going to go to St. Peter’s Prep,” I said. That was more than 55 years ago. I remained steadfast to that promise, after my father’s death in 1971, through our family’s incredibly tough financial crises, through my grade school days at St. Paul’s of Greenville, where I started to wear suit jackets to school to prepare for wearing one at Prep, through all my closest St. Paul’s buddies going to other schools. I wanted St. Peter’s Prep. I needed St. Peter’s Prep. Sure enough, I graduated from Prep in 1979. I made close friends at Grand and Warren, many of whom I still remain very close to today (although I’m also fortunately close to many of my St. Paul’s comrades as well). I am a man for others, as Prep professes. I have so much pride in my association with that school. It’s a huge part of who I am, in what I believe in, in what I’ve been taught to be. My association with St. Peter’s Prep is endless and steadfast and unwavering (well, most of the time) and rock solid. So today, I am one of those men for others who has an immense sense of sadness and loss for two incredible women with whom I became very friendly with through my association with the Prep. We lost Terry LaBruno two weeks ago at the way too young age of 63. Terry LaBruno was an amazing energetic and beautiful woman with a smile that could light up the sky. She was filled with this infectious energy that was just so admirable and endearing. She had an amazing life, the wife of Joe, the mother of three incredibly beautiful daughters, one of whom is expecting their first grandchild. She was a former Hoboken Councilwoman, but more importantly, she was a teacher and a coach. Terry taught math at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Hoboken and St. Mary’s in downtown Jersey City, two schools that are now defunct. Terry was also a basketball coach and carried that intense energy to the court. I had the pleasure to coach against Terry on three occasions and each ended with a hug instead of a handshake. I also had the pleasure to write about Terry’s players on several occasions with each interview ending with so much thanks that you would have thought I gave Terry two million dollars.

The late Terry LaBruno A decade ago, Terry brought her energy to Grand and Warren, continued to teach there and instantly became a favorite of the students. She was also a fixture at sporting events, especially football games, where she was clearly the loudest cheerer at Caven Point. You could hear Terry’s hoots and hollers all the way to Nutley. I know, because I’ve spent a lot of those games doing the public address announcing at the games. Terry was louder than me on the mike. Terry and Joe were also very generous of their time and efforts in regards to Father Anthony Azzarto, S.J., who remains today 45 years after we first met as the single best gift I’ve ever attained from my association with St. Peter’s Prep, far more important than my diploma. Terry and Joe would go pick up Father A at his new home at the Murry-Weigel Residence at Fordham University to bring him to events at the Prep or even places like Rutgers, when the Marauders played there. Terry and Joe became attached at the hip to Father A and I always knew that Father A was in impeccable care. About a month ago, Terry suffered an aneurysm and fell into a coma. Before she passed, some of her organs were harvested and donated, showing for one last time how incredibly generous she was. There’s no way to describe Terry’s passing other than an incredible tragedy. God didn’t need to call her home now, with the grandchild coming, with a new football season dawning. It’s beyond heart wrenching. I ache for her great family. The other loss the Prep family is enduring this week is the loss of Patt Kachel. Patt died after a courageous battle with cancer in her recent home in Raleigh, North Carolina, but she was a Jersey City girl at heart.

The late Patt Kachel (center) with son Brian (left) and daughter-in-law Shelby (right), on Brian and Shelby's wedding day I became close friends with Patt and her late husband Butch in the late 1980s, when their son Jeff was a budding baseball star, playing for the Jersey City Recreation Stars of Tomorrow team run by the great Harvey Zucker and the incomparable Ed “Faa” Ford. Jeff was a sweet swinging, slick fielding left-handed hitting first baseman who also pitched a little. He was full of life and an absolute joy to watch perform. Jeff then made the decision to attend St. Peter’s Prep and play baseball for Joe Urbanovich, a move that I wholeheartedly applauded. Soon after Jeff arrived at Prep, he was diagnosed with leukemia. It was a long, tedious, often painful battle for the courageous teenager. There were days at Sloan Kettering where Jeff had to endure painful needles of medication that plunged his body temperature and caused him to shiver. I cried for hours after visits with Jeff. But Jeff trudged on, wanting so much to return to the baseball fields that he loved. Sure enough, Jeff did. He made it back to the field, much to the joy of Patt, Butchie and their younger son Brian. But Jeff was not the same player he once was after being zapped of his strength by cancer. I tried to tell him that it was so remarkable that he even made it back to play, but Jeff was frustrated. He wanted to hit the way he once did. I spent a good hour trying to encourage Jeff and tell him how important it was to other cancer survivors to read about his struggles in my column, that others had to see how great it was that he was playing baseball again. Jeff was in and out of the hospital for the rest of his young life and died tragically at the age of 19, a year after graduating from the Prep. I ached for Butchie and Patt and Brian. Jeff was such a wonderful kid with so much to offer. I loved talking to him and I certainly loved writing about him. I wrote a special Thanksgiving column about Jeff in 1988 and it hung over his bed in the hospital. He told Faa while touching the column, “This is my guy right here. He’s a Prep guy.” I would stop into Butchie’s bar on Summit Avenue, the old Pete and Helen’s, which ironically was just torn down within the last few months, from time to time to say hello and have a beer. We would try to smile to talk about Jeff. We had some laughs. And I remained close to Patt, seeing her at special events, especially after Urbanovich retired Jeff’s No. 11 and at the times where Prep would honor a student with the Jeffrey Kachel Memorial Award. Every single year, Pat wished me a Happy Birthday on Facebook, even after she moved to North Carolina to be close to Brian and his wife Shelby after Butchie’s passing 10 years ago. Faa would always say that Patt Kachel looked like Carol Burnett and that drew laughs. But Patt was far more beautiful that the funny comedienne. Patt also had an electric smile that caught everyone’s attention. She was statuesque, standing close to 5-foot-10. She was such a tough Jersey City broad for enduring the death of her beloved son and her cherished husband. And now, she’s gone, leaving Brian and Shelby all alone. Patt Kachel had a good life, but it ended way too soon, much like her son and husband, much like Terry LaBruno, much like so many other people that I’ve grown to know through my incredible endless association with the edifice that stands so proud at Grand and Warren. I am a man for others. And like those others, I grieve tremendously for two of our own. God bless Terry and Patt.