Signorino Comes Home Again

His eyes have seen a million images capturing and documenting glory-filled Friday nights and Saturday afternoons of autumn, from the days of black-and-white film shown by clicking projectors to the laser-guided, life-like color of high definition.

He has watched football evolve from the Wing-T, to the wishbone, to the shotgun, to the spread; from the full-house backfield to the empty set; from five down linemen to four to three, and from cover two, to cover three, to the nickel and even the dime.

He will tell you that when he arrived, the part of Hooper Avenue that led south from Brick was a dirt road; that Route 37 had two lanes – one in each direction -- that Toms River had a downtown movie theater, one chain store – W.T. Grant -- and one identity.

The lines around those eyes are a roadmap, charting a route from a rural high school in western Pennsylvania to Toms River, from Toms River South, to Brick Township, to to Monsignor Donovan and eventually Ocean County football immortality. With Warren Wolf at Brick, Al Saner at Point Pleasant Boro and Joe Boyd at Central Regional, he gave Ocean County football a face, a brain and a heart.

has coached football for 45 of the last 47 years. In his time he has participated in some of the greatest games in Shore Conference history, was a tactician for some of its finest teams, motivated hundreds of players and received the adulation of thousands of fans.

Yet 2011 may be Signorino’s greatest season -- and no one is quite sure if the team he is coaching will win a game.

This fall, Signorino will assist his son, Ron Jr. – a first-time head coach. His grandson, Matt Martin, is the team’s offensive coordinator and another grandson, Trevor, is a junior quarterback. And he will do it at the school where his teams became legendary and his reputation was made – Toms River South.

“I’ve always felt like I looked best in maroon and white,’’ Signorino said with his signature smile. “I can’t believe I am back at Toms River South … this is God’s final great gift for me.’’ 

Next Saturday night, shortly before the 7 p.m. kickoff against Southern Regional, Signorino will exit the Toms River South fieldhouse. He will follow the Hitting Indians – the name they earned under Signorino for their tenacious play in the 1960s – while the band plays “Old Indian Tom.’’

Signorino will enter Detwilier Stadium, the bandbox where it all began. Around him, traditions he helped start when he arrived in Toms River in 1964 will come to life for another season.

For the first time since the fall of 2000, Signorino will go to the home sideline. Behind him will be the maroon-clad Indian Nation. It figures to be quite a moment.

“I am certain there will be a moment of reflection for Dad,’’ said Ron Signorino Jr. “I suspect there will be a smile and maybe even a tear.’’

Signorino returns for his third stint at Toms River South under similar circumstances he faced when he arrived from Bald Eagle High School in Pennsylvania. When he was hired at Toms River High School in 1964, the school had just one win in the two previous seasons. In 2011, Toms River South takes the field for its second regular-season game in the midst of an 11-game losing streak.

 “I’ve come full circle,’’ Signorino said. “I have felt more respect and appreciation from the people at Toms River South than I did when I was the head coach here.’’

Signorino admits his role in this resurrection at Toms River South will be significantly less than it was the first time in 1964 and the second time in 1997.

“In my reduced capacity I will still coach with urgency and dedication,’’ he said. “I want my little piece of Toms River South (he is the slotback coach) to contribute to its success.

“Honestly, I am not as good as I used to be,’’ the 77-year-old Signorino said.

“Yeah, right,’’ said Dennis Toddings, a former head coach and now the athletic director at Monsignor Donovan, where Signorino coached for two seasons. “Ron Signorino has forgotten more football than most people remember. He still sees things on the field that the young guys miss.’’

“He is still amazing,’’ Signorino Jr. said. “He still breaks down film and opponents better than anyone I’ve ever seen and he still brings information that helps a team win. His suggestions and advice are awesome.

“He may have lost a step, but he certainly understands today’s game. He needs the game and the game needs him. It keeps him sharp.’’

His mind remains one of his greatest assets. He can tell you the score of nearly every game he coached and the turning points. He remembers his mom served lasagna and homemade pie ala mode when a little-known assistant coach from Penn State named Joe Paterno came to Beaverdale to recruit him.

“Joe wanted our right guard and right tackle and he figured that if I went to Penn State the other two guys would follow me and they did,’’ said Signorino, who was a 185-pound linebacker-center. “Those two guys never finished at Penn State.’’

And Signorino never played a down on the Penn State varsity.

His connections at Penn State landed him the head coaching job at Bald Eagle High School, where his teams went 7-1-1 in 1962 and 8-0-0 in 1963. It was then he heard about the opening in Toms River through a member of the Penn State staff.

“I drove to my brother's house in Valley Forge and we pulled out the atlas,’’ Signorino said. “We couldn’t find the town. I thought I was going to a place called Palms River and not Toms River.

“I told them I wouldn’t come for less than $6,000 a year,’’ he added. “I was only making $5,000 at Bald Eagle. I remember I got hired on a Saturday and bought at house in Silver Ridge on Monday.’’ 

His daughter, Terri, lives in that house now. And she is married to a former Hitting Indian, Cliff Martin.

When Signorino came to Toms River South in 1964 he brought with him discipline, preparation and emotion. Signorino Jr. has brought much of the same to the Indians in 2011.

“I went to Sig’s first practice in 1964,’’ said Joe Adelizzi, the former sports edtior at the Asbury Park Press and a Toms River graduate. “There were about 100 guys out for football. On the first day, the players had to meet times in a distance run. The previous two years, the players were given a pass when they didn’t make the required times. But not under Sig. The second day of practice there were only 60 guys left.’’

His first game was against Middletown.

“We ran a trick play on the first play of the game and scored on a 60-yard hook and lateral,’’ Signorino said. “It was called back.’’

And Toms River lost, 42-0.

Toms River went 1-8 in Signorino’s first season. It was a year of frustrating losses including a 19-18 loss to Warren Wolf’s mighty Brick Dragons.

“There were 14 seconds left, Brick had no timeouts and one of my players starting grandstanding and didn’t get up off the ground,’’ Signorino recalled. “The referee stopped the clock for an injury. Brick regrouped, called a screen pass and scored.’’

The rivalry, between Signorino and , between Brick and Toms River, was born.

“The only win we had that year was 3-0 over Freehold Borough,’’ Adelizzi said. “But every game was a war.’’

Toms River then went 4-4-1 and 5-4 and then 6-3.

In 1968 the Indians went 9-0. The team featured Harry Walters, who went to Maryland and had a long career in the Canadian Football League; Bill Malast, who went to Villanova and later became the director of Homeland Security for the New Jersey State Police. Rip Scherer was the the quarterback who later became the head coach at the University of Memphis and a quarterback coach in the NFL, and there was a pair of gusty performers named Bob Hermani and David Bloom.

In 1969, Toms River South raced to a 7-0 start. In the second game of the season, the Indians traveled to play Bayonne at Roosevelt Stadium on a Saturday night. Bayonne went into the game ranked No.1 in New Jersey.
  “We beat them 40-0,’’ Signorino said.

Toms River was No.1 in New Jersey for the next five weeks. In its eighth game, Toms River played Middletown in a game that is regarded as the greatest in the history of the Shore Conference. On a bitterly cold afternoon, Middletown put together a late scoring drive and beat the Indians, 14-8. It was the last season that Middletown and Toms River had only one high school.

  Signorino had only two losing seasons in his first 16-year stint at Toms River, the first one and again in 1973. But the losses ate him alive and he rarely enjoyed the victories.

  “We’d win, but I would be so worried about the next game, I didn’t enjoy it,’’ Signorino said.

    And his son was about to be varsity eligible at Toms River South.

  “I felt like I can’t be his coach,’’ Signorino said. “It was the biggest mistake I ever made.’’

  So after the 1979 season, he resigned. His departure had a profound impact on Ron Jr., who had a difficult time with the new coaching regime at Toms River South. It was so difficult, he transferred and graduated from Toms River North.

  “When I stepped down, I asked if there would be any repercussions,’’ Signorino recalled. “I was told no, but it didn’t turn out that way.’’

  Over the following years there were clashes with the Board of Education and administration. Signorino claimed he was promised a job as a vice principal that he never got. He became a powerful voice in the teachers union, once leading a walkout at a Board of Education meeting. He was not given the job at South when it opened two years after his resignation. Signorino said he was denied an opportunity to be an assistant at Toms River North and he was moved out of Toms River South and to Toms River East as a teacher. Signorino retired from teaching in 1994.

  Unable to coach in Toms River, Signorino was approached and eventually joined forces with Wolf and Brick, forming what was the most prolific coaching duo in the history of the Shore Conference. Signorino – at Wolf’s urging – coverted Brick from a 5-2 to a 4-4 defense. They spent the next 16 years working together. Brick went 11-0 in 1981 and won sectional titles in 1982 and 1983.

  In 1997, Signorino returned to Toms River South for the second time, replacing Chip LaBarca. He was hired by then-Superintendent Michael J. Ritacco.

  “Ritacco told me to clean up the program,’’ Signorino said.

   During the four-year run, Toms River South won a conference championship, had an 11-1 season. However, problems among the coaching staff prompted Ritacco to relieve Signorino of his duties in May 1991.

  “He wanted me to resign but I wouldn’t,’’ Signorino said. “But I wouldn’t, so he fired me.’’

  Signorino served as a consultant at Brick in 2001 and then spent four years on the coaching staff at Toms River East with Joe Arminio, who is now the district’s athletic director. He went back to Brick for the 2006 and 2007 seasons and then joined Dan Duddy at Monsignor Donovan where the Griffins went from 0-10 to 4-6 to 5-5 and then to 6-4.

  When Signorino Jr. was finally given the job in the spring of 2011 he brought his father with him. And in the months that followed much of the bitterness has gone away.

  “The love and respect for my dad has just been oozing from the school,’’ Signorino Jr. said. “I’d say he was a little worried at first but most of those fears have been put to rest.

  “It’s a unique situation. He has his son and his two grandsons with him. I think he’s happy.’’

  Even at age 77, Signorino still maintains the ability to motivate players like he did when he was 28.

  “He has the uncanny ability to know what to say and when to say it,’’ Signorino Jr. said. “I have most of his speeches memorized and the hair on my arms and the back of my neck still stand up when he speaks. He actually might be better at it now than he was years ago … it’s just so authentic.

  “There isn’t anyone else I would want to inspire my football team,’’ Signorino Jr. said. “I’ve seen it happen too many times in too many other places to believe it won’t happen here.’’