Columbia HS Athletic Hall of Fame inducts 2025 class

MAPLEWOOD/SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — The 18th annual Columbia High School Athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony took place May 8 at Orange Lawn Tennis Club in South Orange.

The following are the honorees:

Henry “Bud” Schwartz, Class of 1942, baseball, posthumously.
Robert Terry, Class of 1963, wrestling.
Paul Millar, Class of 1976, baseball.
Brian Kerrigan, Class of 1980, soccer.
Jennifer Hartung Bartsch, Class of 1982, volleyball.
Neil Jasey Jr., Class of 1994, All-Around.
David Brothers, Class of 1985, Coach Award.
Meg Wastie, Pete Cross Award.
1994-95 volleyball teams, Team Award.

Henry “Bud” Schwartz

Schwartz played baseball for the Cougars from 1940-42 under legendary coach Phil Marvel. A left-hander with a nasty curveball, his career record was 15-1. He also played in the outfield. At one point, he pitched 26 straight innings without allowing an earned run, striking out 41 without a walk.

He also played basketball and was co-captain as a senior when the Cougars went 15-4 and snapped Weequahic’s 24-game win streak. He went to Duke University on a baseball scholarship, but was drafted by the Army Air Corps during his first semester. He was invited to spring training with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1946. Instead, he wound up at Seton Hall University. He later was the committee chairman for Maplewood’s Recreation Commission and helped revive the baseball program.

Robert Terry

Terry was one of Columbia High’s top all-around athletes from the early 1960s and was one of the finest wrestlers in CHS history as a two-time district champion. He also played football as a running back, lacrosse and hockey. His father, Robert Sr., was a pilot and instructor for the famed Tuskegee Airmen, the first Black flying group in the Army Air Force during World War II. Robert Jr. received a wrestling scholarship to Trinidad College in Colorado and later graduated from Duquesne University. He later switched his focus to judo and excelled enough to qualify as an alternate for the 1964 Olympic Team.

Paul Millar

Millar, an outfielder and leadoff hitter, earned All–Essex County and All–State recognition as a senior during a period of school district budget cuts, which limited the number of games that the team could schedule. He had a .482 batting average as a senior and went on to play at Catawba College in North Carolina.

Brian Kerrigan

The soccer program was guided by the late legendary head coach Gene Chyzowych. Kerrigan was one of the first players developed through “Mr. C’s’ ” Cougar soccer club program. Kerrigan was a tremendous offensive talent. He was a three-year starter at right wing, most notably on the 1978 and 1979 teams that won the first Group 4 state titles in school history, while also finishing as the No. 1 team in the state. He ended his varsity career with 28 goals and 33 assists, which placed in the school’s top 10 in both categories at the time of his graduation.

During the 1978 state-title run, he scored or assisted on the tying or winning goal in each game, including scoring the tying goal on a diving header and assisting on the clincher in the state championship win over Brick at Giants Stadium. He started his collegiate career at Old Dominion and finished at Fairleigh Dickinson, where he was captain and team Most Valuable Player as a senior.

Jennifer Hartung Bartsch

The girls volleyball program at CHS accomplished one of the greatest feats in school athletic history, when it won the first 247 regular-season matches in its history, starting from the team’s inception in 1977 and lasting into 1988.

Hartung Bartsch was a member on teams that went 77-0 during her career. She earned the Best Setter Award at the 1982 Cougar Invitational, and MVP recognition at the Tournament of Champions, hosted by Columbia, as well as MVP of the Essex County Tournament. She played at Rider College, where she earned All–East Coast Conference recognition, and as a senior, ranked fourth nationally in service ace percentage.

Neil Jasey Jr.

Jasey excelled in both soccer and track and field. In soccer, he had 14 goals and 15 assists as a junior while earning All–Essex County recognition as a forward. He moved to midfield as a senior and was first team All–Essex after scoring eight goals and assisting on seven goals, despite being hobbled by an ankle injury. CHS won the county championship that season.

In track, leading up to his senior year, he broke an 18-year-old school record in the 600-yard run and helped the team to its first-ever boys outdoor sectional title, helped the sprint medley relay post the year’s best time in the state, and was first team All–Area in the 400 meters and 1,600-meter relay.

As a senior, he also was the indoor state champion in the 400 meters and finished second at the Meet of Champions in the 800 meters. During the outdoor season, he was the Essex County and Group 4 champion in the 800 meters. At Princeton University, he was a soccer starter from his sophomore year on, and helped the track team win three straight Heptagonal championships.

David Brothers

Brothers was a four-year member of the football, lacrosse and wrestling teams. On the football team, he started at linebacker as a junior and senior, and received the Team Player award in his senior year. On the lacrosse team, he helped the team to a No. 3 state ranking in 1984 and No. 6 state ranking in 1985.

In wrestling, he contributed to the team winning a county championship as a sophomore, and as an individual, he earned third- and first-place finishes in the districts.

After graduation, he played four years of lacrosse at Rutgers University.

In the spring of 1990, athletic director Bob Curcio, his original lacrosse coach at CHS, hired the 22-year-old Brothers as the program’s JV coach, when he was still a student at Rutgers. He was Columbia’s head lacrosse coach from 2002-09. He also was the head CHS wrestling coach from 1995-2005. He had 292 career lacrosse coaching victories, having spent 26 years at Columbia, Bernards and Livingston. He led Bernards to the Group 1 state title in his final year in 2004 and was named the state Coach of the Year by the Star-Ledger. He was the head wrestling coach at Bernards from 2006 to 2024. His brother, Jon, a 1991 CHS graduate, also is in the CHS Athletic Hall of Fame. Both are members of the New Jersey Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

Meg Wastie

Wastie was a long-term Columbian, arriving in September 1972 and retiring in June 2003. In addition to her tenure as an English, Speech & Dance teacher, she directed more than 15 plays and musicals for the CHS stage. Her love of swimming brought her to the CHS pool, where she joined Pete Cross, Dave Yoresh, Al Hector and others for a daily pre-school swim. She continued her connections with the athletic department as a ticket-taker for home football, girls and boys basketball, and wrestling. Eventually, she was made site manager for these events and added track official to her list of contributions.

1994-95 volleyball teams

The 1994 and 1995 girls volleyball teams both went unbeaten and finished No. 1 in the Star-Leger spring volleyball rankings.

Columbia went 24-0 in 1994, despite returning only two starters. Another 24-0 campaign followed, capped by a victory over Caldwell for a repeat Suburban Scholastic League tournament title, which extended the program’s latest win streak to 55.

Photos Courtesy of Sean Reilly