They have barely reached their teenage years, and will likely go on to accomplish much more both on and off the football field. But as far as Wyckoff Raider football coach Pat O’Hagan is concerned, the group he coached this past season will walk together forever.
The Raiders’ A1 Senior team, made up of 13 and 14 year olds, capped an unbeaten season with a Super Bowl championship in the inaugural season of the Bergen Passaic Youth Football League.
With its 27-6 victory of the Wayne PAL on November 12, the Raiders not only secured the top prize, but also a special place in the rich history football in Wyckoff — teams have been hitting the fields here for 50 years.
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“This team was remarkable in the way they went about attaining this goal,” said O’Hagan, in his eleventh year as head coach. “They were all business, all the time, and very workmanlike. We felt good about this team coming into the season, but such drive, dedication and focus is hard to come by when you’re talking about 13 and 14 year olds. They really put their stamp on the program.”
They were deadlocked in a 6-6 halftime struggle with Wayne, until Michael Gutjahr sparked a second-half surge with a 79-yard touchdown run.
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As vividly as O’Hagan remembers the play, he’ll remember this team for taking nothing for granted and leaving nothing to chance.
“It was after our semi-final win when I told the team I was going to give them Monday and Tuesday night off from practice in order to get ready for the following Sunday’s game,” said O’Hagan. “And the kids stood up and said ‘Coach, we’ve been practicing every night of the week all season, let’s finish what we started.’ To me, that was a defining moment.”
Last year, the Raiders competed in the NJJFL, a league that had been around for half a century and of which Wyckoff was a founding member. That league disbanded and gave way to the eight-team BPYFL, which includes Wyckoff, Ridgewood, Wayne PAL, Wayne Boys Club, Paramus, Dumont, Garfield and Westwood.
This Raiders’ team went undefeated in winning a seventh grade Super Bowl last year in the NJJFL, and proceeded to repeat that feat in the 7–8 grade division the new league formed. Thus, many of these players never lost a single game as Senior football players. Raider teams have won such consecutive titles before, but not since the 1990s.
“Wyckoff has had a great tradition in football,” said O’Hagan, assisted by Defensive Coordinator Jim Gallagher and Offensive Coordinator Tom Bunting for his entire 11 years. “This program has produced some top-notch high school and college players—and even some who’ve gone on to the NFL. We simply had a great group who were supported by great parents and coaches. In our program we don’t teach or do anything fancy, it’s just old-school, hard-nosed football.”
San Francisco 49er Blake Costanzo, and former NFLers Greg Toal and Andrew Pickens are some of the Wyckoff players who've made it to the bigs.
As rough and tumble as they were on the gridiron, this group also had their hearts in the right place. The team dedicated its Super Bowl performance to teammate John Pakosinski, a teammate who was recently hospitalized with a rare intestinal disorder.
When the dust cleared on their championship, .
It’s no wonder they are a tight-knit group — most of these Raiders have been playing together since the third grade. And now many of them graduate together to take a crack at the freshmen, junior varsity and varsity levels, which means a terrific influx of new talent for , and perhaps other local high schools.
One of the keys to the team’s success this season was its dominant offensive and defensive lines, which featured many of the familiar faces.
Among them were: Brendan Brown, Steven Knight, Ryan Soodsma, Chris Gordon, Steven White, Brian Rageuso, Jack Scofield and Alan Fall. Other key cogs were QB and LB Keith Woetzel, Joseph O’Hagan at FB and MLB, and Gutjahr at RB, TB and LB.
The Raider Football program currently has over 200 kids playing on 12 teams run by roughly 40 coaches. For further information of the Wyckoff Raiders, access www.wyckoff-football.org.
