Saturday: Berich To Enter Nanuet Hall of Fame

Nanuet Sports Hall of Fame 10th Annual Dinner is this Saturday and five are being inducted:

• Rob Veltidi 1965
• Dick Berich 1968
• Ray Perez 1968
• John Hassler 1968

DICK BERICH

• Football, Baseball, Wrestling & Basketball
• Class of 1968

Unlike most of his high school teammates, Dick Berich was not privileged to have spent his pre-teen years in Nanuet. His family had moved from Asbury Park, N.J., and settled here in June of 1964, just prior to Dick’s freshman year. But the transplanted Jerseyan had no trouble assimilating into the school’s welcoming culture or placing his stamp on the athletic program. In fact, by the time he graduated in 1968 he had established himself as one of Nanuet’s finest multi-sport athletes of the 1960s and among the first to receive All-County recognition in two sports, football and baseball.

Dick is the third member of the Berich family to earn induction into the Hall of Fame, following his father, Ed, a Distinguished Service Award recipient, and Don, a state champion hurdler from the class of 1975. Only the Conklins – Harvey, Rich and Sean – are as well represented in the Hall of Fame as the Berich clan.

In Dick’s junior year he batted .302, and as a senior his highlight offensive moment was a 400-foot, ninth-inning home run that lifted the Golden Knights to a 3-2 victory over Suffern. The Journal-News raved about his sturdy defense in its All-County story: “He has all the tools as a defensive backstop: arm, experience and confidence to throw to second base on a 1^st-and-3^rd situation.”  He allowed only 11 stolen bases while Nanuet swiped 49 in the ’68 season. Coached by Chuck Holland and led by Dick and fellow All-County mates Peter Bonomolo and Ken Wegman, the Knights won 8 of 14 games to finish third in the Rockland PSAL, the program’s first season above .500.

“I was 3 or 4 yards and a cloud of dust. I enjoyed my high school career, the coaching and I had a lot of friends in Nanuet. I learned about hard work, team work and other life lessons at that time. I went to school with Rich Conklin, he was one year older than me. We were on a lot of teams together and knew each other well. I was 5’10’’ in 7^th grade so they put me at center. I played that position for the rest of my career at Nanuet. I tried to get position on the other big men but I had hands like rocks as far as layups are concerned.”

The memorable incident was a triple play executed by Nanuet during his junior year. He had miscounted the outs after a double play and was “strolling back to the bench” when the opposing player on second base – who was not involved in the double play – rounded third and came steaming home. Dick spun around, stuck his glove out, caught the ball from first baseman Brian Fay and tagged the player out all in one motion. “Later that player told me, ‘I didn’t tell anybody for years,’ ” Dick says sheepishly. “The burden and the stress was just too much for me to live with. As the catcher I’m supposed to remind everyone of the outs and there I was walking to the dugout. I’m just glad I caught it with my glove and not with my face.”

In football Dick was a bruising fullback who made second-team All-County as a junior and first-team All-County as a senior. He held the PSAL rushing lead until the final game of the ’67 season, finishing second with 365 yards on 94 carries for an average of just under 4 yards per rush. Unfortunately, the Little Brown Jug Game against Pearl River was cancelled that season – due to the football-related death of Pearl River player Brian Armstrong – thus depriving Dick of the opportunity to notch the rushing title. 

Dick, who is 61, lives in the Baltimore suburb of Hampstead, Md., with his wife, Janet, to whom he’s been married 29 years. The Berichs have two children: Jonathan, 26, a Penn State graduate and Border Patrol officer in San Diego; and Amy, 20, a junior at College of Notre Dame in Baltimore studying to be a medical technician in radiology. In his spare time, Dick enjoys bass fishing on the Northern Chesapeake Bay and in the Potomac River. He’s a regular in bass-fishing tournaments and is active in the Maryland Bass Federation.

*Biographies Courtesy of Jamie Kempton of the Nanuet Hall of Fame Committee.