EAST ORANGE, NJ — The East Orange Campus High School football team this fall enjoyed a season for the ages.
The Jaguars finished as undefeated state champions. They won the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association’s North Jersey, Section 1, Group 5, championship and the NJSIAA North, Group 5, regional championship to cap their 13-0 campaign.
The last time East Orange had an undefeated football team was in the late 1960s. The East Orange High School Panthers, under legendary head coach Tom Dean, posted back-to-back unbeaten seasons in 1967 and 1968.
After going 8-1 in 1966, the Panthers went 8-0-1 in 1967 and 9-0 in 1968. The loss in 1966 was against Montclair, 14-0, in front of about 20,000 fans. But the following year, the Panthers avenged that loss with an emphatic 39-7 victory. The one blemish in that season was a tie against Barringer on Thanksgiving at Schools Stadium.
The Panthers had talented players, most notably Daryl White, who was an all-state lineman who went on to become an All-American at the University of Nebraska, one of the premier college football programs at the time. White is currently a renowned fencing coach at Columbia High School and has led the program to several boys and girls state team championships.
White’s cousin, Gregory White, was the quarterback for the Panthers.
Two players who were part of those teams were Reggie Griffith and Curly “Moto” Anderson, who recalled the teams during recent phone interviews with the Record-Transcript.
“The first team was finding ourselves,” said Griffith, who was a junior on the 1967 team. “The attitude was, let’s see how we do. We lost to Montclair, so the goal was to beat Montclair. We were finding ourselves. That senior year, we came in with the attitude of, we are the best. We had an attitude of success by doing the right thing.”
Griffith currently lives in Atlanta, Ga., and works with an anti–gang-violence program.
Anderson played linebacker for the Panthers.
“It was the best time of my life to play for East Orange High School,” said Anderson, who lives in Toms River and has been a basketball referee. “We had a great team. Academically, we were sound, great community, great teachers, educators, but we had excellent coaching. I think we had some of the best coaching probably in the United States of America.”
Anderson was ecstatic for the EOCHS Jaguars for their unbeaten championship season. In many ways, this year’s Jaguars team was a lot like those late-’60s Panthers teams, he said.
“I can identify with how they played,” he said, “their team spirit. They have talent, offense, defense, interior linemen, great running backs, quarterback. Their defense is strong and consistent, and No. 1, they are good students. We excelled academically back then, and this team, they are academically sound. They remind me a lot of our team.”
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