Members of Joe Cervino’s 1973 Eagles freshman baseball team, along with the bat girls and stat keepers, came to visit the longtime coach on Monday afternoon at .
Lou Lanzalotto and Tom Grebelja organized the celebration, in which Cervino was presented with a trophy and framed pictures of the ’73 squad.
The mini ceremony was held in the PHS gym in front of the freshman, junior varsity, and varsity players as well as coaches.
Find out what's happening in Paramusfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
“We were all friends,” Lanzalotto said. “All the guys on the teams were all friends. We’re all buddies. There’s like 15 of us from that group of 24 that are still here. That was a great thing to get everybody together. We all wanted to see each other.”
Along with Lanzalotto and Grebelja, their teammates Brian Rickert, Russ Mensch, Steve Grant, Doug Belleshine, Bill Leicht and assistant coach Anthony Pieroni were in attendance. Grant flew up from South Carolina to honor Cervino. Batgirls/stat keepers Lynda Scatteregia, Barbara Alidad, and Lee Ann Brock were also present.
Find out what's happening in Paramusfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
On seeing Cervino after all these years, Lanzalotto quipped, “He’s gotten shorter.”
“A lot of us are still together all the time,” Rickert said. “My father taught coach Cervino in high school, he [Cervino] taught me in junior high school, and my sister taught his kids in Ridge Ranch, so we have a following way back.
“I played softball and baseball with Joe,” Rickert added. “That was more fun because you could bust his chops more so than when you played for him. We’re like a family here, it’s great.”
Bob Kingsley, the high school’s first varsity baseball coach and the man Cervino succeeded, came to honor the current skipper.
“It’s really nice, I’m really hoping for Joe to get the county championship. That’s really important,” said Kingsley, who won the school’s only varsity-level Bergen County title in 1964.
He added that it was sad to see the end of an era, but “we’re just looking forward for someone else to come along and coach another 30 years, we hope.”
“It makes you feel young again,” Pieroni said. “This was a great team. They had determination, commitment, and they had Joe, which helped lead them to a championship.
“I didn’t think Joe would ever give it up,” Pieroni said on Cervino’s impending retirement.
“It’s a feather in the cap, a tribute to Paramus High School baseball, and what baseball has meant over the past 60 years ever since Bob Kingsley started,” Cervino said.
