It is hard to believe - and is still probably utterly incomprehensible to those who he loved and those who loved him most of all - that fourteen short days ago, Drew Gibbs led his Ramapo High School football team through its first practice in preparation for Ramapo's North Jersey Section 1, Group 4 Final against undefeated Northern Highlands High School, the #5 team in New Jersey heading into the playoffs. Gibbs, Ramapo's head football coach for twenty-one years, was the architect of one of New Jersey's perennially strongest public school programs, and the winner of multiple sectional and regional championships.
And then, like that, everything changed.
On that fateful mid-November Monday evening, Coach Gibbs suffered what was termed a 'medical emergency' at practice and was rushed to the Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, New Jersey in a valiant effort to address that emergency, which proved to be a tear in his aortic valve. The effort, while valiant, proved unsuccessful. Drew Gibbs died on Tuesday, November 16, 2021. He was fifty-nine.
His players, knowing no better way to honor the legacy of a man to whom their bond was more father-son than coach-player, voted to play on in his absence and with the agreement of Northern Highlands High School and the folks who oversee high school sports in New Jersey, their game was moved from the weekend before Thanksgiving to the day after Thanksgiving. On Friday night, ten days after his death, his kids played their hearts out. Brian Gibbs, Drew's son and an assistant of his father's staff, stepped in for his father. With less than ninety seconds to go in the game, Ramapo scored a touchdown to forge ahead 30-28. Northern Highlands stormed right back and, set up by a long kickoff return, scored what proved to be the winning touchdown with a little more than thirty seconds to play. There would be no fairy tale ending for Ramapo.
Ramapo is not the only team competing in this year's playoffs that has battled tragedy as well as its on-field opponents. Michelle Brown, the mother, hero, and inspiration for her son, Alex, Red Bank Catholic's senior quarterback, succumbed to breast cancer on Thursday, November 11, following a lengthy, spirited battle. The following day, playing in honor of his mom, Alex accounted for eight touchdowns in Red Bank Catholic's first-round playoff win over Morris Catholic.
Neither Alex Brown nor the Caseys were finished. Not even close. On Friday, November 19, the homestanding Caseys trailed St. Joseph's (Hammonton) 10-7 at halftime of their playoff semi-final game. After intermission, Alex Brown rushed for two scores and the RBC defense did not yield a single point, culminating in a 21-10 comeback win and a date with top-seeded and favored DePaul for the Non-Public Group B State Championship this past weekend.
On Friday night, in the swamps of Jersey (Met Life Stadium) Alex Brown and his #9 Caseys squared off against DePaul, the #3 team in New Jersey. At night's end, Red Bank Catholic emerged victorious, edging DePaul 13-8. In the middle of it all once again was Alex Brown. He rumbled in from two yards out late in the third quarter for what proved to be the game-winning touchdown and, for good measure, was one of two Caseys who broke up DePaul's last-play Hail Mary in Red Bank Catholic's end zone to preserve the win.
It is the Poet Laureate of Freehold who observed approximately two decades ago, "There ain't no storybook story." One could argue that the results of this past weekend's playoff games here in the State of Concrete Gardens prove the veracity of that observation.
Or at the very least, prove the veracity of Mr. Abbey's.
-AK
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