I wasn’t going to write about the passing of Mickey Corcoran, a man I knew and loved for more than 40 years. Darren Cooper, Art Stapleton, Jeff Roberts, Sean Farrell and Greg Mattura had done a brilliant job of reporting and writing about a man who is unquestionably the most influential and memorable figure in Bergen County sports history and I wasn’t sure I could add anything to what they had to say.
But waiting on line Wednesday to pay my respects at Mickey’s wake at St. Mary’s Church in Dumont, I met the Panchi family from Oradell and talked with their 15-year-old son Matt. Matt is a sophomore at River Dell and will be on the sidelines Saturday morning as his River Dell team meets Ramapo in the North 1, Group 3 sectional final at Met-Life Stadium. Mom played softball at Ridgefield Park and dad played several sports at Hudson Catholic and they are neighbors of Michael Corcoran, one of Mickey’s three sons. Matt had met Mickey on many occasions and shared the mentor’s love of golf.
While we waited I told him a couple of stories about Mickey, whom I first met as a 21-year-old college senior in 1972 covering a Christmas basketball tournament. The late Ron Drogo had prepped me by telling me about “The Mentor” who had played basketball for Vince Lombardi more than 75 years ago at St. Cecilia’s and has been part of one of the strangest and most memorable basketball games in Bergen County history, a 6-1 Saints victory in February, 1940. I don’t really remember anything about that first meeting, only that after that I was thrilled and happy to see him every time we met after that. I covered several games while he was still coaching and spent a lot of time at Northern Highlands during his years at Athletic Director. I got him to join me on the Sports Award Dinner committee that I chaired for the YMCA of Greater Bergen County for more than a decade and was invited to dinner with him and the rest of the Bergen County Jamboree committee when the tournament was held at Hackensack High School from the 1970s to the 1990s.
While we waited, I pointed out Bob Hurley to Matt Panchi as the legendary St. Anthony’s coach patiently stood on line to pay his respects and told him the story about Ramapo star Glenn Stokes and the fantastic 1990 semifinal between the Green Knights and Bogota when Stokes, who later starred at Monmouth and North Carolina-bound Pat Sullivan of Bogota hooked up in a gym that was sold out 2 hours before the game began.
I pointed out the Buckley twins from NV/Demarest, who played in probably the greatest game in Jamboree history, the 1985 final between undefeateds Demarest and Rutherford that went two heart-stopping overtimes before the Norsemen prevailed. Mickey could never tell the twins apart (truth be told neither could I) and always called both of them “the Bucks” and said to his dear friend Gerry Emison as one of the twins was at the altar about to be married. “Which one of the “Bucks” is that?”
And when we got to the front row in front of the altar we both saw the floral arrangement with the name Bill Belicheck next to the one from the Bergen County Coaches Association. In talking to Matt Panchi as we wound our way to the front nearly 90 minutes later, it occurred to me that in all the tributes that had already been written and spoken about Mickey, and in all of those sure to come at Thursday’s funeral, not once was Mickey’s record at Northern Highlands and River Dell mentioned, not once were his league or county championships teams lionized, not once were his immortal players discussed.
That’s because, as his oldest of 13 grandchildren, (and I might add the one that looks the most like him) Mike Kehoe, eloquently spoke at Thursday’s funeral — No one knew Mickey’s record and no one cared. His teams never won a county or state title and the one league title he shared wasn’t undisputed because his team lost a league game to a team that won just two other games the rest of the season.
Mickey Corcoran’s won-loss record probably wasn’t very good — because in his years coaching at River Dell and Northern Highlands, his players weren’t very talented — at least in basketball.
Arguably his best athlete, Bill Parcells, the Hall of Fame football coach, was a football player playing basketball. His best basketball player, 6-foot-11 Billy Paultz, who played 15 years in the NBA and ABA from 1970 to 1985, couldn’t get up and down the floor his first two years of high school and could only average about 12 points a game as a senior playing in a mediocre high school league.
Yet no one who came to St. Mary’s Wednesday or Thursday or went to Alpine Country Club for the repast after the funeral cared about that — not the winningest girls basketball coach in state history, Jeff Jasper, nor the winningest boys coach, Bob Hurley, or the winningest girls soccer coach, Paul Heenehan or any other of the successful coaches, educators, officials, businessmen, lawyers, journalists or ordinary people whose lives Mickey touched over his extraordinary life.
I talked with Matt Panchi, the 15-year-old aspiring football player from Oradell about that Wednesday and I realized that Mickey Corcoran’s legacy will long survive his passing of November 29, 2015 even when all of us who were privileged to know him are gone.
Not just through his wonderful family, led by his wife of 70 years! Dolores, his four surviving children, his 13 grandchildren and generations of Corcorans still to come.
But also through Matt Panchi and the unrelated Corcoran twins, Veronica and Victoria of Demarest, who forged a lasting friendship with a man 75 years their senior. And Leon Steinberg’s son Bobby, an eighth grader in Franklin Lakes, who knew Mickey through his dad, a great player at Pascack Valley in the late 1970s who stayed in touch with Mickey after his career was over. And hundreds of other kids, now grown with kids of their own, who will make sure the memory of Mickey Corcoran stays alive through their stories.
He was a man who touched everyone he met in a lasting and positive way and was the epitome of what a “Mentor” was and should be.
We sometimes overuse the term “legend” but in the dictionary there’s no question that next to that word is a picture of Mickey Corcoran.
Thank you for being my friend and mentor.