January
10, 2007
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| Cresskill head coach Marty Rivard coaching against Palisades Park on Tuesday night in the game that would turn into his 649th career victory. |
PALISADES PARK – A glance at the digital voice recorder indicated that the interview had gone on for 8:35. It was not much time to glean some nuggets from the 35 years worth of memories that Marty Rivard has piled up as Cresskill head boys basketball coach. But on the night that Rivard broke the record for career wins by a Bergen county boys basketball coach (649) there was the opportunity for nearly nine minutes worth of reflection and I am glad I asked.
I was aware of Marty Rivard when I played hoops in high school although I never played against him. We didn’t win enough games at Palisades Park to have ever seen Cresskill in the state tourney or the Jamboree and we were off playing Christmas Tournaments at St. Aloysius in Jersey City, crossing county lines in search of much needed wins.
But I had seen him coach back then, I was as big a high school hoops junkie then as now, and since we started this website during the 1999-2000 winter season, I have seen Coach Rivard, a fellow East Stroudsburg University alum, in state finals, Jambo games and the ones that I like the most, the small school rivalry games, the kind I grew up on in small gyms.
That was where he was on Tuesday night. He was in my old home gym, coaching against Pal Park’s Mark Cieslak, my high school coach who himself played against Rivard’s Cresskill teams. Pal Park and Pal Parkers had a chance to share in some history being made.
I had almost nine minutes, I asked as many questions as I could and enjoyed listening to the answers.
Here’s the Q&A:
CD: Coach, what was your best on the court memory?
MR: Oh, there are so many, but one of the most important shots I remember, and don’t ask me the year because they all blend together, Garrett Kreitz’s senior year we were playing the section final at Paramus Catholic against Park Ridge.
We took the ball out at the far baseline, and Wie Chung Wang, the quarterback of the football team, threw the ball to half court. Garrett came up off the baseline and took the second pass. He turned around, we were down two, and he backed all the way into the corner, turned around and took a three-pointer. He swished it and we won the game by one at the buzzer.
CD: Who was it against? (for those keeping score, that is dumb question No. 1)
MR: Pete [Crandell] is going to kill me, but we beat Park Ridge.
CD: Worst on the court memory?
MR: Nothing jumping into my head.
CD: In 35 years of varsity coaching, give me the one kid that, with no time on the clock and down one, you would want to shoot those free throws.
MR: This would probably be someone you don’t know. I had guys like [Brian] Furman and Kreitz and [Matt] Henry, John Reuter shot 86 percent from the foul line his senior year. That’s not too bad for a high school kid, he didn’t miss. He was the shooting guard, Brian Furman was the point guard and Brian shot 85 percent that same year. If we were ahead at the end of the game and holding [the ball], I figured we had a pretty good shot at winning the game.
CD: Best player you ever coached against, give me three…
MR: [Bogota’s] Pat Sullivan. We used to beat him up and he would still get 23, definitely Pat Sullivan.
CD: Did you ever coach against [Harrison’s] Ray Lucas? (for those keeping score, that is interruption No. 1)
MR: I actually did, but when we played against Ray he was a freshman and he was still the best basketball player on their team and then we split leagues. The kid [Corey] Raji (now a senior at Westwood and headed to Boston College) had a great state sectional semifinal against us when they were Group 1 when he was a freshman. It wasn't a performance like some other guys, but when he needed it down the stretch he got it. They had two other real good players, but he is the guy that beat us down the stretch.
CD: OK, one more…
MR: I’d like to say Tony Campbell, but I don’t think we played them that year. There were a lot of great ones at Bergen Catholic, we played them a few times in the Jamboree. Robin James, he had a great game against us in the Jamboree. That was one of the best performances ever against us.
CD: Favorite guy to coach against?
MR: It’s got to be [Bogota’s] Jay Mahoney. And I only know what other people tell me because I don’t see him when we are coaching, I don’t pay attention.
I’ll give you a little story about when they used to have the ‘Seatbelt Rule’ down at Bogota. We sit in those metal chairs and I hear this noise to my left and there is Jay. He is across halfcourt, still in the chair, three of the legs are on the [playing] floor and I look at him and say, 'Hey, Jay you better get back there, I am going to tell the ref that you are all the way out here in a chair.’ He looked at me, he looked around, he had no idea how far he had come out. The seatbelt thing, he used to bounce around in that chair all over the place, he was a riot.
CD: Just talk about Chris Donfield, whose record you just broke…
MR: Donfield is great. I coached against him a couple of times, but I worked in his camp for 18 years in the summer. He is a gentleman, he treats everyone with respect. He’s very good to the people that worked there, the counselors that worked there and the kids. He is an outstanding man.
CD: Coach, thanks for your time and congratulations again.
MR: Thanks, now I can think about practice tomorrow.
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