Climbing Mt. Everest is a challenge. So is coaching football at Nazareth Regional High School.
Yet Gary Gooden, the man who played on a New York City championship team with the Kingsmen, is up for the challenge.
A year-ago, Nazareth dropped its football program. “It’s been a revolving door of coaches,” Gooden, told the Eagle the other day. “It’s my time now.”
Strong words from the kid who grew up in East Flatbush.
Gooden had his time on the playing field as a tailback and gaining more than 1,100 yards in 1984, also returning eight kickoffs for a 46.3 average, while wearing a Nazareth uniform.
He earned All-City, All-Conference and All-District honors as a senior.
Now, he says, “It’s about each and every kid. Yeah, I won a lot of championships in school and in college. It’s not about training four years to run 10-seconds.”
Gooden says he went through the interview process with the board, and feels comfortable handling the rebirth of football — a jayvee unit of 30 freshman and sophomores, only six of whom previously played football.
“Right now,” he said, “It’s all about bonding. There’s no humility today; perhaps thanks to social media. I’ve seen the changes over the years. Kids don’t listen to coaches like they did 30 years ago.”
The real challenge for Gary Gooden is to “raise good citizens, good gentlemen who will live cohesively with each other.”
Nazareth Regional High School has been a big part of Gooden’s life. As a 5-7, 112-pound freshman, he willed himself on the football team. Dom Laurendi, coach of Nazareth’s first football team (1981) told me, “There’s no substitute for speed.”
Gooden had that for sure. In fact, he’s been teaching and coaching track and field at Nazareth since 2009 and still holds several records at the school.
As a senior, he won the 100-meter dash in 10.5 seconds for his first record. He returned about an hour later and took the 200-meter dash in the CHSAA Outdoor Track and…
Read the full article here
