Bob Kennedy, left, and Tom Lisinicchia are shown when they were seior captins of the 1975 Irvington football team.
IRVINGTON, NJ — In 1975, the Irvington High School football team produced one of its best seasons ever.
The team, known as the Campers, qualified for the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association’s North Jersey, Section 2, Group 4 state playoffs. It was the just the second year of the NJSIAA playoffs.
“We had a bunch of guys that beat the crap out of you,” recalled John Schmidt in a recent interview. “We were a blue-collar, smashmouth type of team.”
Schmidt, a senior backup lineman, fondly said that the 1975 team was “Irvington tough,” borrowing a phrase coined by former IHS head football coach Ashley “Smoke” Pierre, who coached Irvington from 2016 to 2023. Pierre led them to their first state sectional title in 2021.
On a dreary day in the quarterfinals of the North Jersey, Section 2, Group 4 state playoffs, Irvington faced a Barringer High School team that averaged around 30 points a game and featured future NFL Hall-of-Fame linebacker Andre Tippett.
Irvington, which was the visiting team, unfortunately lost a heartbreaking 7-6 decision at Schools Stadium in Newark.
Irvington scored first on a 32-yard touchdown run by Stanley Jones in the second quarter. They went for the two-point conversion on a running play, but fell short.
Barringer answered later in the quarter on a 10-yard TD pass and kicked the extra point that proved to be decisive.
There was a bit of controversy in the second half. Irvington had a long punt return, but the play was negated after Irvington was called for a clipping penalty. That turned out to be a game-changer.
Schmidt recalled that the team later watched game film and didn’t see anything illegal on that play. Schmidt also said that the referee later admitted to then-Irvington head coach Fred Manuel that he made the wrong call.
Barringer went on to win the title, beating Livingston in the final. Schmidt said he and the rest of his team had no doubts that Irvington would have beaten Livingston had they met in the final, because Irvington had manhandled Livingston in a preseason scrimmage.
Irvington went on to lose to Columbia HS in the final game during Thanksgiving weekend to finish with a 7-3 record.
It was a remarkable turnaround for Irvington, which had finished with a 2-7 record in the previous year, though the team played in a lot of close games. The wins came in the final two weeks of the season, as they beat West Side 42-12 and then Columbia 10-6 on Thanksgiving, both at home. They beat Columbia on a trick play. Irvington that season was led by John Pawlyk, who was the team’s first 1,000-yard rusher.
Irvington carried that momentum into the 1975 season, starting off 6-0 and extending the win streak to a school-record eight games dating back to the previous year. In the season opener, they beat Nutley 15-0 on two TD runs of 53 yards and 56 yards by Jones for his first two carries of the game.
Irvington also defeated Montclair, under legendary coach Butch Fortunato, for the first time since 1959, winning 14-6, and defeated Union 23-10. Union featured tailback/linebacker Larry Kubin, who went on to star at Penn State and played in the NFL. The win over Union put Irvington in the state rankings for the first time. Irvington was ranked No. 19.
Irvington defeated Vailsburg 24-6 on the road. They moved up to No. 17 in the state and defeated Belleville 16-13 on the road. They moved up to No. 15 and won at Kearny 7-0.
In the seventh game, Irvington lost to Bloomfield 27-7, but regrouped to beat East Side 22-14. East Side was led by All-State center Tony Sanchez, who also was a star wrestler.
What was so special about the 1975 Irvington team was its close bond, despite the players’ diverse backgrounds.
“We were all friends,” Schmidt said. “It didn’t matter if you were black or white. We had each other’s backs. We were all good friends.”
The 1975 team was inducted into the IHS Athletic Hall of Fame in May 2024.
Schmidt went on to earn a journalism degree at Duquesne University. He was the managing editor of The Glen Ridge Paper and The Independent Press of Bloomfield. Coincidentally, he worked with a reporter who was a player on that 1975 Livingston team. They would rib each other about that season in good nature. Schmidt later worked in corporate communication and public relations for more than 40 years.
The senior captains were quarterback Bob Kennedy and two-way lineman Tom Lisinicchia.
“Back then, it was a lot of fun. I had more fun playing high school football than when I did when I went to college,” said Lisinicchia, who played at Boston University, in a recent phone interview. “We had a good time playing. It was a lot of camaraderie. We worked really hard. Our practices were tough. Manuel used to make us run back and forth. But it was a lot of fun. A lot of the guys liked playing.”
Gary Way was the leader of the defense as a senior safety. In a recent phone interview from Oregon, where he resides, Way reminisced about that team, talking about how they overachieved.
“That team came out of nowhere,” Way said. “There were low expectations for the ‘75 team. We were a young team and the expectation was that we were going to have it rough. On both sides of the ball, the team was primarily underclassmen and/or players new to the program. We thought the next year was going to be the breakthrough year. We were unexpectedly successful.”
Way also remembered the strong chemistry on the team. “I thought we got along pretty famously,” he said. “We really jelled and got along really well. We had a good locker room. We had clearly good chemistry. We had three or four returning lettermen. We started juniors and sophomores, and seniors don’t know sophomores. You kind of hang out with your class. Being teammates to people who were 15-year-old and (we’re) 18-year-olds, that’s a rare kind of mix, to have three or four sophomores playing up. We had really good chemistry and we were successful. The football team drew from all around the town. We were very much underestimated and we were undersized.”
Way went on to attend Rutgers University and then earned his law degree at New York University. After working for a law firm for a couple of years, he worked for the commissioner’s office of the National Basketball Association for a decade and then worked for Nike for 25 years until he retired. He now represents Janasia Wilson, the 2024 IHS graduate who was an All-American flag football player. He helped broker a Name, Image and Likeness deal for Wilson through his connections with Nike. Wilson has continued her career at Keiser University in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Indeed, the 1975 Campers will truly be remembered as one Irvington’s best football teams.
Photo Courtesy of John Schmidt
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