By Andy Loigu

(Ed. Note: While the NBA is scheduled to complete its season this summer, the Hackettstown Tigers basketball team won’t have that opportunity)

After all these years, Hackettstown finally won a North 2 Group 2 sectional title in boys hoops, and an opportunity to shock the world in the state semis and finals, when the pandemic forced organized sports and just about everything else, to shut down.

A listing of the 2019-20 Tigers roster is in order, to show appreciation to a group of young men who were scrappers in the truest sense of the word, totally dedicated to being the best they could be, doing what it takes to win within the rules.

Seniors Tyler Gorczyka, Ryan O’Melia,Tyler Kirkpatrick, Jalen Baptiste and PJ O’Hara; juniors Shawn Morgan, Sean Magnotta, Dylan Steurer and Michael D’Aconti and sophomores Divine McNeil and Jonny Macaulay all were part of something special, which was several years in the making, as head coach Mike McDonagh established a structured system and discipline. He dared to implement an expectation of winning. 

True dedication and discipline are at the heart of every team that gets this far. Dedication means to set out to accomplish a goal and you have to love the game to actually get it done.

In the “old days,” when I was fortunate enough to have been a letterwinner on back to back Central Group 3 champions in ’66 and ’67, we were treated like Royalty in our appreciative town of Lakewood. We were hosted for dinner at the Elks Lodge after both seasons and the high school gave us a special banquet to celebrate the state title, hosted by the mayor and Chamber of Commerce, in addition to the usual winter sports festivities. Lots of VIP types were saying really nice things about us.

On March 18, 1967, when we came home from Atlantic City Convention Hall with a state title in hand, a big parade and roaring fire engines greeted us.

We practiced 105 days for a total of 315 hours in that 1966-67 season.. Nobody complained, we did everything the coaches asked, but I did keep track of the hours. It was worth it, because I was in the best shape of my life and got to enjoy being part of something special which is still celebrated over a half-century later.

Another thing it takes to win a championship is a good scouting report from the freshman and jayvee coaches, going on the road and studying your next likely opponent.

In ’68 we won the Shore Conference championship playoff, after our school had finished second the previous seven years. I’m as happy about that one as the state title in my junior year. Our opponent was Ocean Township.

The scouting report said they play man to man, but don’t help on the weakside. That assured us we did not need to come up with any magic formula to beat  them, even though they had an awesome 6-8 center, because they had a fundamental flaw. We simply played basic give and go basketball and shocked the Shore with a 61-55 win.

I had lots of fun in the last practice before that game. The coaches gave me a metal tennis racket for each hand and I pretended I was Bill Russell, rejecting shot after shot. “Don’t bring that stuff into MY house,” I kept saying. It helped us make adjustments for the next night.

Hackettstown could have done the same thing against Manasquan or Camden, but sadly, we’ll never know. Hackettstown would not have gone out quietly. Tigers don’t do that.  Based on what I saw in that team, I can write that most assuredly.

They deserve all the kindness the community can muster up for them.

Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building.