The New Jersey Suburban Youth Football League thanked DJ Catalano with a prestigious award.
And then the Head Coach of the Bridgewater-Raritan High School football team returned his thanks to the people who helped him achieve a historical season.
The New Jersey Suburban Youth Football League (NJSYFL) is regarded as a highly respected and well-run youth football league in the state, with an estimated 24 teams from communities in northern and central New Jersey. Bridgewater-Raritan is among the league's teams.
At the annual NJSYFL Awards Dinner that was held on Sunday, February 1, at the Gran Centurions in Clark before a crowd of 200 guests, Coach Catalano received the league's High School Football Coach of the Year Award.
Coach Catalano had just guided Bridgewater-Raritan to the North Jersey, Section 2, Group 5 state championship this past fall, which was the program's first-ever state sectional playoff title.
When he received the elite award from Russ Yeager, the NJSYFL's long-time Commissioner, he cited the 22 senior players on his team who had grown up playing for the Bridgewater-Raritan program in the NJSYFL.
He saluted the youth coaches from both his neighborhood and the entire NJSYFL.
"The coaches are the people who are the lifeline, and the NJSYFL is the one who gets the kids interested in football,' said coach Catalano, who posted a 9-3 record in his third season at Bridgewater-Raritan High School. "Once the kids catch that bug, it gives them more time to develop."