High School Football Begins Anew

As the high school football season opens there are two storylines that are as different as night and day yet very much connected. The first finds Warren Wolf leading the Brick Green Dragons on to the Keller Memorial Field tonight against Middletown North…his 50th season opener as the only coach in school history.

Wolf is New Jersey’s winningest coach with a sparkling record of 350 wins, 113 losses and 13 ties. His teams have won or shared 24 divisional titles, the last coming in 2003 and they’ve claimed 6 state crowns with the most recent in 1994. However Brick is just 14-16 over the last three seasons and the 80-year old legend, like his coaching contemporary Joe Paterno at Penn State, knows there are critics who feel its time for him to call it a career. Wolf, whose hobby is coaching football, might be able to answer those critics with victories and led by quarterback Jordan Roshala and a solid defense I expect them to battle Lacey for the Constitution Division title. Coach Wolf is an eternal optimist….after all he’s spent his life rooting for the Chicago Cubs.

One of the other stories to follow this fall is how Manasquan copes with the recent death of Wolf disciple Vic Kubu who coached the Warriors to their tenth state championship just nine months ago. A smooth transition had already taken place this summer when the then ailing Kubu announced that longtime assistant Pete Cahill would be the interim head coach. Now one of New Jersey’s best programs has to continue without its heart and soul and if that’s not enough graduation took away just about all the starters from what might have been the best team in school history. Those who count out Squan will be making a big mistake and the first to find out will be Holmdel, who invades Vic Kubu Field Saturday afternoon.

Manasquan was one of three shore teams to win a state title last season and the other two should also make runs this fall at championships. Middletown South opens the season as the consensus #1 ranked team and they visit Neptune tonight. Lacey, coming off a perfect 12-0 season, travels to Manalapan and the Lions of coach Lou Vircillo should be very good again with quarterback Warren Smith and a host of solid linemen.

We begin our 13th season of broadcasting games with a doubleheader on the Shore Sports Network. Tonight Manchester unveils its new lights with a game against Wall and Saturday night rivals Toms River North and Toms River South collide on the Indians home turf. The games can be heard on 1160AM and also via the web at shoresportsnetwork.com.