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I am beginning my 50th year of covering high school sports for various newspapers in New Jersey. On Oct. 2, 1975, my first article appeared in a local newspaper. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of covering an incredible amount of athletic competitions, and met some great student-athletes, as well as their coaches and parents. I wanted to take this time to start looking back at a ton of memories. God-willing, I’ll be able to share a lot of these blogs, over the next 365 days.
Today, a look at one of Belleville High’s greatest wins on the varsity wrestling mat.
Nearly 50 years have passed, and yet, there’s still little doubt as to the significance of the high school wrestling match between Belleville and Pascack Hills, in early February, 1976.
Belleville head coach Jim Silvestri’s squad had reached a new pinnacle in 1976, when the Bellboys finished 13-1 in the regular season. But that Saturday afternoon match, at Belleville High, against a true North Jersey powerhouse in Pascack Hills, was just different.
The legend of the Pascack Hills Cowboys was well known. The team, coached by the legendary Bucky Rehain, hadn’t lost a dual match in close to five years. A season earlier, when Belleville traveled to Hills for the first-ever meeting between the schools, Pascack had won handily, 28-21. Silvestri later commented after the 1975 match that Hills was the gold standard, that he had hoped his team would be able to replicate one day.
Belleville and Pascack Hills had agreed on a 2-year arrangement to wrestle, with each school hosting a match. Heading into the 1976 bout, there was the feeling that the Bellboys had improved from a year earlier, but would they be good enough to compete with Pascack Hills?
The crowd had arrived quite early for that 1976 match. Since it was a Saturday afternoon, 1 p.m., start, a lot of the fans were there by 11 a.m. In fact, Rehain, a gracious man who returned to Belleville a few years back to honor Silvestri’s memory, recalled when his team had arrived for that match, two hours early, the gym was just about packed.
“I remember coming into the gym that morning and couldn’t believe it was already full,” recalled Rehain. “We knew Belleville had a good team, and when I saw that crowd, two hours ahead of the start, I knew we’d be in for a crazy day.”
Despite all the hype, Hills was indeed the consensus favorite, with four future state champions in the lineup. After Belleville’s Carl Arlt had won the first match at 101 pounds, by major decision, to give the Bellboys a 4-0 lead. Bobby Freda would do a good job at 108 pounds, and while he lost a close decision, he saved his team some bonus points, so Belleville still led, 4-3.
Most in attendance will agree that the 115-pound bout was decisive. Belleville had weighed in two wrestlers at that weight, Vin Mustacchio, the starter and a talented, yet young wrestler in Mark D’Amico. Waiting for Pascack Hills was arguably its best wrestler, Tom Husted an eventual 2-time state champion and clearly the driving force behind the program’s success in 1976. In a tactical move, Silvestri forfeited the match to Husted,, and moved Mustacchio up to 122 pounds. While the forfeit did give Pascack Hills a 9-4 lead, Husted not competing was a downer for his team.
Bumping up to 122 pounds, Mustacchio got the job done, winning his bout by major decision to draw his team within a point, 9-8.
Pascack Hills then won convincingly at 129, 135 and 141 pounds, with a pin and two major decisions, to extend its lead to 23-8. The 148 pound match would be critical for the Bellboys, as Robert Villano had to wrestle a future state medalist, in Bob Waldron. Had Vilano lost, Pascack would have all but clinched the bout, but Villano worked hard and earned a 2-2 tie, which kept the Pascack lead at 15 points, 25-10. (Back then, there was no overtime rule in high school wrestling. If a bout ended in a tie, each team would gain two points).
Chris Tremel would begin Belleville’s comeback, with a pin at 158 pounds. Tremel ,who was undefeated for most of that season, gave the fans some excitement and the buzz was starting to be felt by the large crowd, which for a few bouts, didn’t have a lot to cheer about. The momentum was starting to shift and Keith Waddell’s match at 170 was the turning point, for sure.
Waddell, nicknamed ‘Wildman’ by his teammates, followed with a major decision at 170. As that bout drew to a close, the huge crowd was chanting ‘Wildman, Wildman‘, and the place was now incredibly loud, as a knowledgeable wrestling fan base was sensing a comeback for the ages. While Belleville had closed to within 25-20, the math was rather simple. There were two matches left, at 188 pounds and heavyweight. If Pascack Hills won that 188 pound match, by a simple decision, it would clinch a team victory, making the heavyweight match anticlimactic.
Ken Milano was Belleville’s 188 pounder, and he wrestled his best match of the season in the most crucial of moments, winning by decision. Milano, with the fans clearly in his corner, was methodical in his 3-1 victory, working the edge of the mat to perfection and applying solid defense.
Belleville now trailed, 25-23, going into the final bout, where George D’Alessandro waited for the Bellboys. The deja vu was clearly evident, as George took the mat at heavyweight for the Bellboys. A year earlier, D’Alessandro stepped on the mat in the final match against Essex Catholic, with his team trailing 24-19. Big George would get the pin to provide Silvestri his biggest win, to date, 25-24.
Now a year later, D’Alessandro only needed a decision to give Belleville the improbable win, but George, with a flair for the dramatic, would get the pin early in the second period. Belleville won, 29-25, and the reverberation of the gym walls was telling. It would be Silvestri’s last dual match as head coach, since he would be promoted to Belleville’s athletic director the following fall.
Jimmy would be Belleville High’s athletic director from 1976-1990. He passed away in November, 2010.
Thirty eight years after the match, George D’Alessandro and Rehain would meet at Belleville High following the Jim Silvestri Memorial match. When George spotted Bucky, he smiled, and said ‘how you doing, Coach?’, as if George were still in high school. Bucky smiled and the two enjoyed a nice conversation
Over 40 years later, those who were there, still say it was the best Belleville High School sporting event they had ever witnessed.
And while countless sporting events have been held at the BHS gymnasium since ’76, the vibration the facility felt on that iconic Saturday afternoon, in February of 1976, is still there, in the hearts and minds of the Blue and Gold fans.
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