By: Sean Farrell – Record Sports Staff
Stan Woods just won’t give up.
It doesn’t matter that he’s crossed off just about everything on his bucket list.
The legendary 78-year-old wrestling coach keeps coming back to the gym named in his honor, to watch his team run out to “Born to Be Wild,” and enjoy the same job he’s held for almost all of his adult life.
The sideline is where he belongs, and the man with a state-record 728 wins has more work to do.
Emerson/Park Ridge is still trying to win its first Bergen County title. This year might be its best shot.
“I even told them the pressure is on you,” said Woods, on preseason expectations. “You’re a good team. People know you’re a good team. You have to step up and meet the challenge. They work hard in practice. They’re a hard-working group. They’re focused. I don’t think we have any holes in the lineup. We’re pretty solid. You might beat us one place or another, but you’re not going to beat all of us.”
Winning the BCCA Holiday Wrestling Tournament – which takes place Thursday and Friday at Hackensack – has been nearly impossible for public schools of late. Only two have done it in the last quarter-century: Paramus in 2008 and NV/Old Tappan the following year.
But the Cavos believe Woods’ 51st season could be a special one.
Seven state qualifiers returned – an unusually-high number – giving them one of their most balanced lineups since the co-op began a few decades back.
It features a Bergen County champion in 138-pounder Luke Mazzeo as well as two bronze medalists in Zach Lewis at 195 and Shane Carcich at 220. Sophomores Nick Babin and Logan Mazzeo are among other returning 30-match winners. This group doesn’t really look much different from the one last season that took second in the county behind Don Bosco. Except now everyone is a year older.
“It would be important to me for the kids to achieve something that nobody else has here,” Woods said. “Just like when we won the states two years ago. No [Bergen County] public school had ever done it.”
Just about everything else is checked off for Woods.
The Cavos have only had one losing season since he took over in 1967, a mix of quantity and quality that’s made his résumé as full as the banners that hang by the corner of the Emerson mat.
Thirty-seven league titles. Nine sectional trophies. And of course, the historic one-point win in the 2016 Group 2 final.
“He’s the greatest coach in New Jersey,” Carcich said. “He’s always making us push hard. If we’re dogging it, he’s going to step in there and say that we need to keep working hard because we’re not going to get anywhere if we don’t work hard.”
The legacy that Woods created is easy to see, but one he wants to be about more than wins or losses.
“It’s that the kids were proud to be part of the program and learned lessons in life from it, that they learned to be good people and good men,” said Woods, who wrestled for Roxbury High School and East Stroudsburg University.
“That’s what I like about it. The numbers are nice. But it’s about the relationships you get with the kids.”
