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We Need You!
The iconic U.S. Army poster that debuted in 1917 personified the U.S. in the character of Uncle Sam, who issued an urgent message, if not a command, for young men to join the Army to defend freedom from tyranny around the world. It was certainly a call to arms.
 
Our call to arms is of a very different nature, nevertheless, quite important for the school we all love. And we are figuratively pointing a finger, like Uncle Sam, to emphasize that we, indeed NEED YOU! Yes, YOU. Reading this.
 
We are now 30 days away form the end of our school year, and the bills are coming due. This year, we set a goal of $250,000 for the Annual Fund, which is used to balance our budget. And we all know how important that is for our school.
As of today, we are at 87% of our goal, or $217,779
Something to Think About
Display your Hawk Pride for all to see! Get your name in our forthcoming Annual Report for 2021-2022, which tells everyone that you are a proud Hawk and proud supporter of today’s Hawks!  
BE THE HAWK!  
YOU MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE
The value of a life-changing education is unlocked through the generosity of the Hudson Catholic Community. You help make the student experience accessible and possible. As FY 2021 draws to a close and we reflect on the past year, we are grateful for your continued commitment to student success.
What It Means to be a Hawk
We thought we would dust off our ‘Stay Educated’ video that debuted in late 2020, for the benefit of those who may have missed it the first time, or for those supporters who have reconnected since then. And, because it is a great source of pride for us all.
 
You’ll find it at this YouTube link and among the Advancement pages of the school website. Feel free to share it widely.
Hudson Catholic:
Where You Can Graduate College before High School!
Perhaps the coolest thing about being a Hawk in the SPU-HC Dual Enrollment Program and earning a college level Associates Degree simultaneous with earning your high school diploma is that 16 of them this year get to walk at a college commencement before they walk for high school! And ten of our students graduated Magna Cum Laude!

In fact it has already happened. Hudson Catholic graduates its 55th class on June 4th at St. Aedan’s Church. These honors and honored students attended the St. Peter’s University Baccalaureate Mass at St. Aedan’s on May 22nd, then walked on May 26th at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel in the Commencement Ceremony.

Bravo the D.E. Cohort #2/Class of 2022!
Pictured are 11 of our Dual Enrollment SPU grads: Top Row: Brianna Karioki, Juan Teira, Ethan Sosa, Jason Lallo, Jaylene Santiago. Bottom Row: Christine Brioso, Xochilt Turijan, Fiona Galvin, Sofia Gellada, Naomi Fernandez, and Amanda Derama. Missing from the photo: Bruck Gebre, Rebecca Holder, Andrew Lahotskiy, Leif Urias, Bryan Wierdak.
Keeping Up With the.....
Christian Brothers
The 46th General Chapter of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, held in Rome, recently elected a new Superior General, Brother Armin Luistro of the Philippines. He is the 28th successor of St. John Baptist De La Salle, succeeding Brother Robert Schieler, who is from the District of North East America, or DENA (formerly Baltimore and New York districts), and served in the role since 2014. The Christian Brothers de LaSalle, or FSC (French titling), remain the largest order of religious Brothers in the Church dedicated to education.

Having 34 years of experience in private and public education, Brother Armin served as Visitor of the LaSallian District of East Asia (LEAD) since 2019, President of De La Salle Philippines, 2017-2019, Secretary of the Dept. of Education in the Philippines, 2010-2016, and as President, De La Salle University in the Philippines, 2004-2010. He will be a member of the Bethlehem University Board of Regents.
Proving, again, the Unlimited Value of a Hudson Catholic education
Seniors Cory McCall and Angelina Rivera have been named winners of the O'Toole Scholarship, a full four-year academic scholarship to Villanova.

Awarded annually to two students in the Newark Archdiocese, up to eight students may be nominated from among diocesan high schools. Following a rigorous application process, six students are selected to visit Villanova for interview by a panel of faculty and scholarship advisors. This year, three of those students were Hawks. And our students won both awards! They are pictured below, with Vice Principal, Sarah Degnan-Barbi.

The O'Toole family has endowed this scholarship at Villanova for many years. A previous scholarship winner is Jonathan Marte ‘’20, who is presently a rising Junior on campus.
Hall of Fame Trivia
A walk through the Hudson County Sports Hall of Fame roster yields many direct and some indirect connections to Hudson Catholic. 
 
Can you name 6 Hudson Catholic alumni and 4 coaches who are inducted in the Hudson County Sports Hall of Fame? Answer further down.
1984
That Championship Season
A Prolific Year for Hawk Sports;
Baseball Breaks Through for First County Championship
That Championship Season! Hard to believe, but it took the 1984 baseball team to claim the school’s very first County Championship title. This team finally climbed the mountain after our rather powerhouse teams in the 70s failed at claiming the title thrice before.
 
Wayne Witkowski ’71 was a sports reporter par excellence for The Commentator, who went on to write for the Jersey Journal, covering the County sports scene. In June 1984, Wayne chronicled a year of firsts for the Hudson Catholic athletic program, and called it perhaps the school’s “finest year in athletics since it opened its doors 20 years ago.” He went on to write “It was just part of a winning attitude that characterized the Hawks throughout the year, as they nested atop the competition in many of the 11 sports.”
 
The highlights of that year included our first County Baseball Championship under Hall of Fame Coach Rocky Pope, Soccer netting the North Jersey Parochial A title under Hall of Fame Coach John Cruitt, and Track & Field, under Wall of Honor member Paul Lenczuk, sweeping the Jersey City Indoor and Outdoor Championships for the first time and taking second in the HCIAA and Hudson County Track Coaches Association meets, our best finishes ever to that point.
 
Hockey, guided by Ken Such ’80, also had its best season ever to that point, with a second place finish in its division of the NJ Interscholastic Hockey League with a 14-6 record, highlighted, of course, by recent Wall of Honor Inductee Bruno (’84) Bisiacchi’s state record performance of 66 goals and 110 points.
 
Under Wall of Honor member Coach Frank Becht, Bowling rolled to the South Hudson title behind Pat Dillon ‘84, who took the County triple crown of high game, high average, and total pins.
 
By 1984, Hudson Catholic had already amassed a long and rich history in its Varsity Baseball program. Right from the outset in the 70s, the Hawks put competitive teams on the diamond, year after year. Three times in a five-year span, they captured the very competitive South Hudson Baseball Championship - 1974, 1975, and 1977 - only to suffer disappointment in each of the County Title tilts.
 
In 1974 at the old UC Roosevelt Stadium, North Bergen’s Steve Baum bested our Jim Spanarkel ‘75, 1-0, the Hawks being 1-hit. In 1975 at Bayonne Veterans Stadium and 1977 at the old JC Roosevelt Stadium, the Hawks, respectively, bowed to Memorial, 3-0 (WP Mike Arecchi; LP Ralph Nazarro ’75) and 3-2 (WP: Willie Lopez; LP: Hank Weidmuller ’78). Weidmuller is considered by many to be the best pitcher in Hawk history, pitching not one, but two no-hitters in the ’78 campaign. The lefty pitched the ’77 championship game on one day of rest after hurling a complete game victory against Marist, yet gave up no earned runs to Memorial.
The team in 1984 was THE breakthrough team. Led by Wall of Honor member John Furch, Pat Rey, Richie Flynn, John Bean, and John Curry, the Hawks amassed 20 wins in the campaign, highlighted with a victory over Philadelphia power and rival Christian Brothers school, West Catholic.
 
An account of how the Hawks came to nab that first title. The championship game was scheduled for June 14th at Caven Point, and indeed was played….but it did not decide the championship. A second game was needed because the first one ended 1-1 after 7 innings, called due to lightning and thunderstorms. (Steve Novello recalls how harrowing conditions became so quickly, having to run off the Hawk bus to save his mother and grandmother from peril in the stands and help them to their car) A ‘makeup’ game, not extra innings for the first game, ensued two days later at WNY Miller Stadium. Rocky tried to delay the second game for one day more because he ‘burned’ his ace, Pat Rey, in the first game, and Memorial had their ace available for the makeup.
 
All signs pointed to Rocky’s squad going down to their fourth consecutive defeat in the County title game. But they defied the odds! Memorial was in its fourth straight County Championship, with Luis Cedeno, a Detroit Tigers draft choice on the hill for the third time in title games. The Hawks countered with sophomore John Bean, making only his fourth start of the season. Bean tossed a two-hitter, with the first hit coming in the 6th inning. By then, the Hawks were cruising to their 6-1 victory.

Coach Rocky would win 7 HCIAA South titles in 19 seasons, four of those coming between 1984 and 1990, with the North-South alignment ending in 1990 due to realignment by enrollment. The 1984 County Title would be his finest hour. In the 1990 title game, the Hawks lost 3-0 to Hoboken. Rocky would pass away 6 months later in January 1991. According to Witkowski in his Jersey Journal article of June 11th, 1990, “clothes don’t make the man.” He was referring to the fact that Rocky was the only Hudson County Varsity Baseball Coach not to don his team’s uniform for games, opting for street clothes instead, a tradition he started from his first day coaching.
Answer to Trivia Question
Alumni: Tommy Downes ’78, Al Long ’73, John Nagel ’77 (as a Coach), Mike O’Koren ‘76, Jim Spanarkel ’75, Wayne Witkowski ‘71 (Sports Writer).
 
Coaches: George Blaney, William Gargiulo, Rocky Pope, Mike Zadroga

Extra credit: Also enshrined are Pam Cerruti, sister of Keith ’71, and Peggy Canning, wife of Gerry Keller ’73!
'Where is This'? Answered
It is ‘The Tunnel’. The underground connection between the former Brothers’ Residence into the school. If you come down the middle stairway from the Courtyard, a door on your right, indiscriminately marked ‘Authorized Personnel Only’, would be where you could catch a Christian Brother arriving for class on a very wintery day!
 
Mr. Jim Gannon, Former Faculty, was first into the inbox with the answer, which was joined by numerous others.
 
All the way from Dalkey, Ireland, Mark Bulwicz '73 had this to say.
"I had forgotten about the tunnel until the photo. I first became aware of the existence of the tunnel during my high school days on the indoor track team in late 1969. We would do warmup stretching in the open space outside the weight room below the first floor courtyard entrance, before beginning our runs outside in the neighborhood. Classes were just finished, so various Christian Brothers would leave their offices and classrooms to pass by, say hello, then disappear into the Furnace Utility Room. The talk was of a tunnel connecting the school to the brothers house. I never travelled through the tunnel as a student and had forgotten all this until I saw the photo. My first experience traversing the tunnel was on a freezing winter night during my first attendance to an Alumni board meeting sometime in 1983 during the second year of the newly founded Association. Brother Patrick King was moderator and he invited us to the Brothers' House for apres meeting refreshment and suggested keeping warm by using the tunnel. We popped out just inside the House basement near the TV and Social rooms. I don't think I ever saw Principal Brother Luke Maher, at 6 foot 6, use that tunnel exit. Now that it has been exposed, maybe this tunnel will feature in the next Lou Manzo ('73) mystery book."
Alumni Spotlight



On Board. John Zazzera ’83 has been elected to the Board of Directors of Axiom Bank N.A., in Maitland, FL, at which he is Chief Operating Officer and Corporate Executive Vice President. John has 30+ years experience in banking, operations, technology and finance, and has served on boards for the Federal Reserve System, General Electric, and a number of community boards, including Vice Chair for Ronald McDonald House of South Jersey.


Coming Back and Giving Back. Dave Beni ‘72 of Best Way Electric in Maplewood, completed an electrical installation on the Hudson Catholic stage that only now enables us to have full access to all of the power that's been there for close to 60 years. As a result, this will give us the opportunity for many different types of use for the stage and the gym for activities and events
On Track. John Nagel ’77 is a “legendary track and field/cross country coach" according to NJ.com in a recent article that quoted him in citing the return of a Marathon race to Jersey City in April 2023, the first since the Olympic Trials in 1988. The same source has, at other times, credited John with training and coaching runners in 131 seasons over 44 years at St. Dominic Academy to capture 108 Jersey City championships, 52 Hudson County titles, and 80 HCIAA championships. Hudson County has honored John by naming the cross country course at Lincoln Park as the John E. Nagel Running Path.



World Class. Rich Ranalli ’74 has been named as a volunteer umpire to call the plays at this year’s Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA. The selection process to become a World Series umpire is lengthy and rigorous, and appointment as a member of the umpiring crew for a World Series is the highest honor that Little League can bestow on a volunteer umpire. Rich has a day job too. He is Managing Director and Broker of Record at Rivermayn Realty Advisors in Jersey City.




Once & Future Representative, Ruben Ramos ’92 is running for election to the Hoboken City Council

Hawk Meet Ups

That's Wall of Honor member Ed Nierstedt '81 and Mike Pietronico '82, meeting up at their old stomping grounds, the St. Joe's Courts, during Ed's recent trip back to Jersey from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Looks like they got a quick game of hoops in.
Korrection Korner
Having been notified that Mr. Joseph Pace is pictured on page 85 in the staff section of the 1989 yearbook, we again stand corrected on his first year at Hudson Catholic - 1988.
“Hudson Catholic gave me so much, gave us all so much.” - Dr. Larry Ambrose ‘73
The Office of Advancement ~ Gary, Jill & Jenine
201-332-5970 x118
BTL Sponsors
Please check out our long-running and recently added sponsors
Mike Pecklers '71
Mike Dunne '77
Chris Johnston, HC Director - Technologies & Football Coach
Mike Silva '04