April 7, 2010
Has CAL become top swimming league?
By TOM WILLIAMS
Sports Columnist
Last week in this space we paid homage to the 2009-10 basketball season in the Cape-Atlantic League.
But, before completely filing away the winter season, there are a few more points to make.
With all respect to the accomplishments made by the basketball programs in the CAL, it is probably
accurate to say the league has become a swimming league.
Consider this season. The No. 1 team in South Jersey boys swimming - for the seventh straight season -
is St. Augustine Prep. And the No. 1 girls team is Atlantic City.
There's more.
Atlantic City is led by freshman Colleen Callahan, the New Jersey swimmer of the year, who is one of a
handful of talented freshmen who should keep ACHS near the top for many more years. And the statewide
rankings have Holy Spirit, Vineland and Mainland joining the Vikings among the state's top 18 teams.
While The Prep has some important seniors in its lineup, the fact that they've been South Jersey's best
for seven years indicates their feeder program is pretty healthy. The Mainland and Holy Spirit boys were
also among the top 20 teams in the state.
Wildwood Catholic and Egg Harbor Township have had their share of strong swim teams and will probably be
among the leaders again. This year, Oakcrest and Cape May Tech also had strong boys swim teams.
The sad thing is that swimming might be one of the first sports eliminated under the pressure of the governor's
radical budget recommendations. After all, most schools don't have a pool on campus and might have to pay rent
for a facility. That expense will jump out in school budgets like its typed in red. In fact, Hammonton has
already announced plans to drop swimming from its available varsity sports, along with golf, winter cheerleading
and night football.
The future of swimming might be in doubt at some CAL schools. We'll all find out more about that in the weeks
to come. But, for now, it is probably accurate to say that the Cape-Atlantic League is as good as any league
in South Jersey in the sport.
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Then there is Gene Barber.
If there was a Mount Rushmore of CAL sports, with one face carved into the mountain from each sport, Barber
would be the wrestling guy. He won more than 500 matches at Absegami, including six South Jersey titles. In his
career he developed more than 120 wrestlers who were district champions and 14 of them had 100 or more career
victories. At one point, his Gami wrestling team won 103 straight matches.
Barber has been a great teacher of wrestling, a magnificent coach and the face of the sport in the Cape-Atlantic
League. His absence from the scene will leave a void in the future. But his dedication over the past 33 years
has established a firm base for wrestling in this area that will serve the sport well for many decades.
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Recently two men left us whose love of sports inspired their sons to dedicate their lives to advancing it.
Ernie Troiano, who died early last month at age 82, demonstrated his passion for sports as a member of Warrior
50 Club and a member of the board at Wildwood Golf and Country Club. It was his influence that sparked his son,
Ernie, a former Wildwood mayor, and Ernie s family to make sports a centerpiece of their lives.
You would see Ernie Sr. regularly at the Boardwalk Basketball Classic, an event his son helped develop and where
he frequently worked as a volunteer. He was also there four decades earlier when his son played for Tom Jorgenson
in the Greater Wildwood Little League and on the Wildwood basketball team that played against teams like the Ocean
City Chatterbox and other teams in the Cape Boys Basketball League. And for many games in between.
Frank Getzke, who died two weeks ago at age 68, had similar impact. After a successful high school football career
in New York, he settled in South Jersey. Getzke coached in the Atlantic County Junior Football League and later
got more active in the sports communities by opening two sporting goods stores - Olympia Sports and SportsWorld
in Ocean City.
Frank loved the Phillies and the Eagles and he aroused an interest in his son, Tom, who played football at Mainland,
coached basketball at Egg Harbor Township and has been an important part of sports broadcasting in this area for
decades. Tom's son, Mark, and daughter, Sarah, also were successful athletes.
We offer condolences to the families of Ernie Troiano and Frank Getzke and celebrate their lives. Their involvement
in sports, and the paternal inspiration they provided, have made sports better for all of us.
Read more of
Tom Williams' columns