The ageless New Providence head football coach Frank Bottone provides plenty of lessons on life for those who take notice, such as longtime sportswriter Art Polakowski, who has covered Bottone's teams at NP since the veteran gridiron coach's early years. (Photo by Todd Mundt)

Bottone A Breath Of Fresh Air
As Coach Who Understands It All
By Art Polakowski
for sidelinechatter.com

This writer becomes more convinced every year that the quality of a football roster at a “normal” high school- (i.e., not an outlaw parochial program)- is directly proportionate to the number of athletes playing football as a second or even a third sport. It’s confounding how many coaches are oblivious to that concept.

When an enforced commitment towards football begins bordering on the exclusion of different sports (along with other activities in which a normal teenage boy might want to be involved), the results are counter-productive.

Too many coaches simply don’t get it! They whine about not possessing suitable substitutes when someone goes out with an injury. Hey, it’s football. Kids are going to get hurt. The idea is to have athletes capable of filling in for those guys.

For 48 years, New Providence coach Frank Bottone has found those athletes operating within a small, Group 1 high school. You know why? Because he’s never broached the absurdity of a 24/7/365 football ”commitment.”

He allows his athletes space to play other sports, to do other things. And, he’s always supported them in those endeavors.

A decade removed from the teaching profession, he still attends more New Providence games -in all sports- than any other coach I can think of. There are many, many coaches at schools – and I’m including all sports now – whom I have never seen at another team’s game or match, unless an extra-pay stipend was involved.

Although it’s bewildering that so many coaches (and, again, I’m referring to all sports) can’t grasp the importance of cultivating a mutual rapport with prospective athletes, I believe students are more perceptive than ever.

Yes, he’s a dinosaur who will turn 80 in January, but Frank Bottone still connects with teenagers as well as any coach I’ve ever seen.

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As another example-via a past anecdote revolving around coach Bottone- we can learn even more about the man and high schools today.

It was during his 46 th season (2008) guiding New Providence football that concluded with Bottone accepting the ‘Mayor’s Trophy’ presented to the winner of NP’s annual Thanksgiving Day game against neighboring rival Governor Livingston of Berkeley Heights. Oddly enough, a vast majority of the 3,000 or so fans in attendance at Lieder Field that Turkey Day were unaware of the following incident, and most of them still are.

During the second quarter, Bottone was knocked over by an official and suffered a concussion. It occurred during a pass play where Pioneer halfback Vinny Fuschetto ran a deep pattern down the right (NP) sideline, and the covering official was apparently trailing a bit farther than normal outside the line, because he collided with Bottone.

The players standing in the bench area would have screened anyone’s view from the home bleachers. And, it’s unlikely many people on the visitor’s side saw it either, since they would have more likely been following the flight of the football, a play on which Fuschetto made an outstanding catch.

Nevertheless, Bottone, who didn’t feel any ill effects at the time, was sick that night. He realized his head had struck the ground and, sure enough, was diagnosed as having sustained a mild concussion.

I related the episode to my friend and colleague, Steve Tober of Sideline Chatter, a couple of days later (by which time Bottone was fine) and, it so happened that Tober’s to-do list included interviewing Bottone for a comment about the announced retirement (at the time) of Brick Township’s Warren Wolf, one of only two football coaches in New Jersey history at the time with more career victories than the 317 New Providence’s legendary mentor had compiled to that point.

Since then, both Vinny Ascolese of North Bergen (340) and the now retired Doug Wilkins of Mountain Lakes (328) have surpassed Bottone (323).

On the phone that day, Tober suggested to Bottone that at age 78 he might need to be a tad more careful while on the sidelines.

Bottone’s response?

“Oh, that’s not nearly so dangerous as trying to get into the parking lot at 3 o’clock when all the teachers are leaving.”

The man is, as we have said, an admitted dinosaur. He is also a former educator and still-ever-present coach who has never fully comprehended the direction both education and athletics have taken. And while he – nor anyone else, for that matter – can’t do anything about the first element in that equation.

Bottone is still guiding his program in as remarkably similar a fashion as when he arrived to launch New Providence High School football in 1963, a two-year start-up prior to the first NPHS varsity campaign in 1965.

And, that program still functions more efficiently than just about any counterpart you’d care to name.

Bottone was ever-present at the 2010 New Jersey North-South All-Star Grid Classic at Kean as member of North staff. (Photo by JR Parachini)

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