With the classic top football playoffs abandoned this year amid the coronavirus pandemic, USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey, in partnership with RWJBarnabas Health, will award trophies to the team of the year at the state and local league level.
A truncated normal season reached its midpoint last weekend, and USA EDITORs TODAY NETWORK New Jersey continue to track state-wide progress, adding the Big Central Football Conference, which is being evaluated as team of the year on the field. , general record and sportsmanship.
More than 60 football systems from top schools have had to temporarily suspend their operations since the start of the season due to coronavirus-related issues.
More than 70 other groups have been affected by the cancellation or postponement of matches. Some groups had less than two days to prepare for others due to brutal rescheduling.
In honor of the players and coaches who navigate this challenging crusade and to show the kindness of the best school football systems that supported the Marisa Tufaro Foundation, the Middlesex County nonprofit is donating $3,000 to RWJBarnabas Health, presenting the TODAY NEW Jersey team with awards of the year.
The awards are intended to give student-athletes the opportunity to play for something meaningful during pandemic season.
“The platform that USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey has designed to recognize the one of the year is beyond creativity, (and is) adequate in what has proven to be one of the most difficult fall sports seasons in our wonderful state’s history,” said New John Jacob, commissioner of the Jersey Football Coaches Association, noted that this season is more of a matter of participation than of competition.
“In the midst of a pandemic where concentration has been in our pastime for play and our love of fraternity, they have created a mechanism to honor what will be remembered the true spirit of the 2020 football season at the best school. “
Senator Patrick J. Diegnan Jr. (D-Middlesex), editor of several laws that ensured the physical condition and protection of the best student-school athletes, praised the New Jersey State Inter-School Athletic Association and the New Jersey Football Coaches Association for positioning players to go back to the coronavirus pandemic box.
“In those incredibly complicated times, it’s amazing the paintings they’ve made to keep our young people safe, while being given the opportunity to participate in athletics, which I think is an essential component of a young man’s balance. “Diegnan said, noting that he believed the game plays an important role in the intellectual aptitude and socio-emotional well-being of student-athletes.
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Diegnan also praised RWJBarnabas Health, New Jersey’s largest and highest school fitness system, for being the best school football through its sponsorship of Team of the Year awards.
“In undeniable terms, RWJBarnabas Health is the benchmark in offering only quality fitness care, but also its commitment to young people, and students-athletes in particular,” Diegnan said, saying countless football players and coaches across the state gain advantages from the system.
“This (present sponsorship) is just one example of this commitment. “
This year marks the first in New Jersey since 1974 that a series of playoffs will not be the department’s champion. From 1912 to 1973, the NJSIAA “declared” football champion.
In many ways, this season reflects the 1918 campaign, in which another pandemic had a profound impact. The “Spanish flu” claimed the lives of 675,000 Americans that year and endangered the school barbecue campaign.
According to the first NJSIAA record book, published in 1919, a great fan of school sports at the Garden State donated “beautiful trophies” in 1918 to teams “declared” champions.
A little over a century later, USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey, in the same way, repeats the story with its team of the year that awards the season.
USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey will crown The State-round Team of the Year of new Jersey’s five public school groups, as well as the Non-Public Schools Team of the Year.
In addition, locally, USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey will crown several of the year through the length of the organization at the Big Central Football Conference, Shore Conference, West Jersey Football League, New Jersey Super Football Conference and North Jersey Interscholastic. Conference.
All winners will receive unique trophies through RWJBarnabas Health and USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey.
High school football writers representing USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey, a member of USA’s Atlantic group TODAY NETWORK, will vote for state year groups at the end of the season.
Online ballots will give enthusiasts the opportunity to vote for their own national and convention team of the year. Each fan ballot will represent one-third of the total vote.
Local writers and a separate panel of writers from the state of New Jersey USA TODAY NETWORK will also get a third of the votes.
This year, from the classic playoffs, the NJSIAA Football Conference and Conference Committee has created an election format called “NJSIAA 2020 Football Postseason Groups”.
NjSIAA’s 328 member schools are invited to participate in the playoffs, where groups of 4 groups will be created for two consecutive weeks of competition.
A committee of presidents and planners from the state’s five football meetings will create postseason hooks. The playoffs will begin on November 13 and end the following week.
USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey will announce team of the year award winners in a time later.
During the pandemic season, RWJBarnabas Health is an appropriate sponsor of Team of the Year awards, Jacob said, “because wherever there is a physical fitness crisis, it turns out that RWJBarnabas is there to respond. “
“Your competence, compassion and service are incomparable. They continue to show that they are a pillar of goodwill in our communities and their sponsorship is even more a testament to their commitment to service.
Those who are going to donate to RWJBarnabas Health can donate online to their emergency reaction fund in honor of a player, coach or team.
The fund provides the necessary resources to help treat the maximum number of critically ill patients, ensures the protection of all caregivers, front-line personnel and staff, and manages the ongoing preparedness of the surrounding communities in the event of a possible resurgence of the virus. or other emergencies.
A board member of the Marisa Tufaro Foundation, Diegnan called the nonprofit’s donation to RWJBarnabas Health, which will be used for pediatric patients at Robert Wood University Hospital at Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital and PSE
Since its inception just over 3 years ago, the Marisa Tufaro Foundation has donated more than $170,000 to pediatric patients and neglected children, the nonprofit also donated thousands of toys, non-perishable foods, baby supplies, winter coats and others on which it gave no economic value.
Greg Tufaro, executive director of the Marisa Tufaro Foundation, is a sport of USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey, a consortium of nine state newspapers with dozens of the best journalists, photographers and school football videographers for Asbury Park Press, Bergen Record, Burlington County Times, Courier News, Courier Post, Daily Journal, Daily Record, Home News Tribune and New Jersey Herald.
His daughter, Marisa, died at the age of thirteen three years ago, succumbing to a rare form of cancer after a valiant struggle.
Born with a complex defect at the center that required six open-center surgeries and a center transplant, Marisa Tufaro has been in love care all her life from Joseph Gaffney, MD, associate professor of pediatrics and division director of pediatric cardiology at Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine in Rutgers. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.
Dr. Gaffney is a member of the Board of Directors of the Marisa Tufaro Foundation.
Several Big Central Football Conference groups have partnered with the Marisa Tufaro Foundation to participate in networked service projects for the PES Children’s Hospital
Many league groups have donated to the Marisa Tufaro Foundation, which has provided money to Child Life systems and other systems at Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital, PES Children’s Hospital
About 200 porrs, players and coaches from all football schools in Middlesex and Union counties who participated in a Charity Summer All-Star Game six months after Marisa’s death also raised the budget for the nonprofit that bears her name.
The Marisa Tufaro Foundation is honored to honor the kindness of others by donating to RWJBarnabas Health children’s hospitals.
The RWJBarnabas health service area covers nine counties with a population of five million. The formula includes 11 acute care hospitals: Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville, Community Medical Center at Toms River, Jersey City Medical Center in Jersey City, Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, Monmouth Medical Center Southern Campus in Lakewood, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark, RWJUH in New Brunswick, RWJUH Somerset in Somerville, RWJUH Hamilton, RWJUH Rahway and Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston; 3 intensive child care hospitals and a leading pediatric rehabilitation hospital with a network of outpatient centers, an independent behavioral fitness center with 100 beds, two trauma centers, a satellite emergency, outpatient care centers, geriatric centers, the state’s largest behavioral conditioning network, comprehensive home care and palliative care formulas , Array fitness and wellness centers, retail pharmacy services, a medical group, multi-site imaging centers and a care organization.
RWJBarnabas Health is New Jersey’s largest personal employer, with more than 35,000 employees, 9,000 doctors and 1,000 citizens and trainees, and wins national awards for outstanding quality and safety. RWJBarnabas Health, in partnership with Rutgers University, is creating New Jersey’s largest school physical care system.
The collaboration aligns RWJBarnabas Health with the education, studies and clinical activities of Rutgers, adding those of the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, the only Comprehensive Cancer Center in the designated state through the NCI, and the Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care.
Joe Martino is director of Courier News, Home News Tribune and MyCentralJersey. com.