Recent photos of Division Avenue people, including two teachers

Armand Tarantelli, now pushing 90 years of age and still going strong. The original Mr. T was a popular industrial arts teacher.

Karen Biro Hewson, class of 1960, in Panama City, Panama.

Jerry Jewell, best known as the highly successful football coach of the Blue Dragons. The man doesn't seem to age.

Tim (1963) and his cousin Glenn Lavey (1969) at the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City.

Bob Gifford, class of 1962, and a Hofstra University graduate.
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Photos of Mr. Jewell and Mr. Tarantelli taken by Lou DeFrancesco on May 14, 2012.

Do you remember Jimmie Amen and Jerry Jewell? They taught and coached at Division Avenue High School for decades.

Click on pics to enlarge

By FRANK BARNING

This is the fourth installment of "Do you remember . . .?" Approximately 18 Division Avenue High School faculty and staff members from the late 1950s and early 1960s were still working at the school in 1975.

Today we've included shots of Mr. Amen and Mr. Jewell sitting next to each other from the 1962 yearbook. No, they did not share a desk in the phy. ed. office. Larry Loewy '75 provided photos of the DAHS old timers that appeared in the 1975 yearbook.

Both were highly successful coaches, Amen in baseball and Jewell in football. Both won county titles and sent numerous players on to college ball. They were an institution at Division Avenue and an interesting combination.

Amen played "good cop" to Jewell's "bad cop". To most of us, Amen was the gentle, available father figure. Coach Jewell was a tyrant, pushed boys around and was not generally appreciated. The girls who got to know him, adored coach Amen.

A few of his former football players would argue that the life lessons that they absorbed from Jewell were highly influential as the years after high school drifted into the past. A couple have told me that what they learned from him got them through their Vietnam service.

Mr. Amen passed away in November 30, 2001 at age 87. There is a memorial in his honor near the baseball field behind the school. The plaque reads, "A most beloved teacher, coach and friend. His legacy of sportsmanship, integrity and caring helped shape our lives. We are grateful to have known him."

Still going strong is the old football coach who has attended recent reunions and is involved in fund raising for former players who have experienced health and financial problems. He has been honored by having the football stadium at the school named for him.

They may have been different types, but both men were incredibly memorable institutions at Division Avenue High School.

Division Avenue High football coach Jerry Jewell was immortalized as the tall, dark stranger in a Maverick theme song parody

The old coach is still going strong. This photo was snapped at the class of 1960 reunion in 2010

Jerry Jewell was a physical education teacher, department chairman and football coach at Division Avenue High School for decades. Some of us remember him as early as around 1956 when he was a young gym teacher out of Cortland State. He built a great Blue Dragons football program, one of the best in Nassau County.

The class of 1961's John Kinstrey played on some of coach Jewell's early teams and recalls that the players, not to his face, referred to him as Tonka, Chief and Wahoo because he resembled a Native American.

"I think my teammate Carl Kielbasa hit on Tonka," said Kinstrey. "These names were terms of endearment which never left the confines of the locker room. The little ditty we made up about him went to the tune of the original Maverick TV show theme song starring James Garner."

Who was the tall dark stranger there?

Jerry Jewell is his name.

Beating a path to who knows where,

A whistle’s his companion

Wind sprints are his game.

Chorus:
Run along all you clods

Tearing up all the sod

Run it on down the field

And back again.

We’ll be here 'til five

And unless you come alive

We’ll be on this football field 'til ten.
**
Your blogger's recollection was that maybe John Kinstrey's 1961 classmate and football teammate Tom Lux had written lyrics. Here is his poetic reply.....

Tommy was talented, have to admit

But had nothing to do with the writing of it.

Daydreaming in class consumed most of my time

So I dabbled and pondered the challenge of rhyme.

The infringement of copyright I did take on

By the time they caught up

I long would be gone

So I stole the Maverick tune like a thief

And put in pentameter our Indian chief.
*****
Mr. Jewell attended the 50th reunion of Division Avenue football last year as well as the 50th reunion of the pioneer class of 1960. According to some of his players from the old days, their coach's early nicknames still seem appropriate. John Kinstrey has been crowned by your blogger as the Poet Laureate of DAHS football.