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From...Bugliari Soccer – The Beginning
The New Coach
In some ways, soccer was an afterthought in Pingry athletics from
the start of interscholastic athletics through the 1950s. As Troupe
Noonan wrote in The Greatest Respect: Pingry at 150 Years, football
under Reese Williams and Mr. Les was “the straw that stirred the
sports drink.”
When Miller started coaching in 1959, everything changed. His goal
was not a winning season – that was a given – it was excellence, as
measured in championships. His vision was that Pingry would become
not only the leading New Jersey prep school team, it would dominate
Union County public schools.
But for Pingry as it entered the 1960s, such aspirations were, well,
unimaginable. Pingry was a small school whose students came largely
from affluent suburban homes – and who were expected to meet the
most demanding academic standards. A “good season” was one in
which a team won more games than it lost, or even “tried hard”
against tough opponents while winding up with a losing record.
Peter Wiley ’60 remembers Coach Frank West, who had guided
Pingry soccer for almost a quarter-century, as a deeply caring man
with an abiding love for the game of soccer. “But none of us had come
even close to experiencing anything like Miller’s intensity, energy, and
enthusiasm. He was like a big kid. Under Coach West we had practiced,
but he didn’t really coach us. Miller coached us incessantly – in a
different game. For the first time, Miller had us learning and playing
tactical soccer – a short passing game completely unlike toe-kicking
the ball downfield and scrambling in front of the net.”
The October 2, 1959, Pingry Record noted: “With the addition of
Mr. Miller Bugliari to the coaching staff, a special emphasis has been
put on conditioning.” Gordy Sulcer ’61, a junior on Miller’s first team,
remembers what “special emphasis” really meant. “We were used to
Mr. West conducting practice in the same grey pin-striped suit and
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E i g h t D e c a d e s at T h e P i n g r y S c h o o l
wing-tip shoes he taught in. The first day of practice he introduced
Miller as ‘a former player who was going to help with the coaching.’
We looked at him – he was dressed in what amounted to ratty gym
clothes, to be kind about it − and we were saying to ourselves, ‘Who
is this guy?’ We found out fast.
“Mr. West just turned the practice over to Miller, who began by
saying: ‘Gentlemen, we’re going to spend time getting in shape’ − this
to a bunch of guys who had done almost nothing before the season in
terms of running. He had us take a lap around the entire field, and
when the last player struggled in, Miller said, ‘That wasn’t fast enough.
Do it again.’ We ran that
second lap a lot harder
than the first. That
established the tone for
the season. Miller drove
us incessantly, often
taking the lead and
setting the pace.”
In the Fall 1994
issue of The Pingry Review,
Mr. West demonstrating
“Soccer at Pingry,” Miller recalled
proper technique – in his suit!
his first years as Pingry’s young
coach. “I was excited to try my hand at coaching on my own, to try my
personal theories about training and fitness as they related to soccer.”
His first players remember those “personal theories” well: at almost
every practice, Miller would have some often bizarre new drill for the
team, like dribbling the ball through traffic cones at full speed. Early
on, Miller began starting practices with what he told the team was the
“Hungarian National Team’s Warm-Up Drill,” Miller’s invention for
a series of punishing leg-strengthening exercises that began with
hopping, then cariocas at full speed, then lunges − until players’ thigh
muscles were on fire. He’d have players cool down with jumping jacks,
and then start all over again.
That was the foundation on which Pingry soccer under Miller was
built: the highest possible expectations, superb conditioning, relentless
defense, a total enthusiasm for soccer, and the unswerving commitment
to a team-based short passing game.
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E i g h t D e c a d e s at T h e P i n g r y S c h o o l
The 1960s: The Championship Quest
“Blended into my memories of coaching in the 1960s
are recollections of the intensity and nervousness
that go with that responsibility.”
Miller, 1994
The Challenge
The year before Miller’s arrival, Pingry’s schedule reflected its prep
school identity, with opponents like Poly Prep, Rutgers Prep,
Bordentown, Haverford, George School, Staten Island Academy, and
Riverdale. Pingry would often measure the success of its season against
Blair Academy. But winning repeated prep school championships would
mean beating boarding schools like Peddie, Hun, and Lawrenceville,
whose teams were stocked with postgraduates, often All-County and
All-State players from the previous year, as well as with foreign students
who had grown up playing soccer.
Accomplishing that goal against the large Group III and IV Union
County public schools was an even more daunting challenge. And it
wasn’t just the disparity in the size of the schools Pingry competed
against. Pingry was located in one of the richest areas of the country
in terms of high-level soccer.
In the mid-1800s, the Clark Thread Company from
Scotland opened plants in Kearny and Newark, importing
hundreds of workers and their families to serve in the
factories. The ensuing decades witnessed the opening of
the silk mills in Paterson and the rapid growth of
industrialized areas throughout Hudson, Union, and
Essex Counties. By the late 1920s and 1930s, soccer
clubs representing the huge influx of working-class
immigrant families had spread throughout New Jersey’s
industrial cities and neighborhoods: Scots and Irish
in Kearny, Harrison, and Paterson; Portuguese and
Ukrainians in Newark’s Ironbound district; Germans
and Italians in Union; Hungarians in New Brunswick;
and Spaniards in Bayonne. These clubs evolved into
semi-pro soccer leagues such as The American Soccer League,
The German American League, The Schaefer League, and the
Italian American League, whose players stunned the soccer world
by beating England in the 1950 World Cup.
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And the challenge Pingry teams faced wasn’t just from the
descendants of America’s earlier immigrants. Through the 1960s, local
high school soccer teams were fueled by a steady influx of players
whose families had recently arrived in New Jersey. If you look at the
All-County and All-State teams in the 1960s, you see names like Kelley,
Fiorillo, Porchetta, Russo, Periera, Schiesswohl, Jurczak, Barroquiero,
Tsimanides, Dziadosz, Theofilos, and Majkut. These players were
skilled soccer players with deep roots in the rich heritage of countries
like Ireland, Italy, Germany, Poland, Greece, and Argentina. The
instinctive sense of and love for the game was in their blood.
“In my three years on the varsity soccer team, we worked harder than
any other sports team at Pingry. The incessant running and relentless
conditioning was the ‘Red Badge of Courage’ that you earned as a
Pingry soccer player.
“Two other things really set Miller apart. We realized immediately
that he was a really skilled, experienced player who could defend
more tenaciously, control the ball better, and kick more accurately
and harder than any of us. He modeled for us the kind of player we
needed to become.
“And he was ‘Italian’ – he epitomized all the allure and deep
traditions of the European game.”
Les Buck ’64
Out of gritty dirt fields like Farcher’s Grove in Union, the Gunnell
Oval in Kearny, Schutzenpark in North Bergen, Hinchcliff Stadium in
Paterson, Passaic Sportfreunde Field in Wayne, and the famous old
fields on Delancey Street and the Ironbound Stadium in Newark came
not only the gifted, superbly skilled players like the United States
National Team stars of the 1990s and mid-2000s such as Tony Meola,
John Harkes, Tab Ramos, Greg Berhalter, and Claudio Reyna, but
also the All-County high school players from Thomas Jefferson in
Elizabeth and from Linden, Union, and Edison Tech. They played
a different game than Pingry kids and defined the extraordinary level
of excellence Miller had to help Pingry players achieve in order to
win county championships.
The Life & Times of Miller A. Bugliari
“This Is Why We Don’t Lose”
Bob Dwyer ’65 remembers a story that has been repeated in different
versions so many times it has become an indelible part of the Pingry
Soccer legend. “We beat BMI 4-0, but didn’t play particularly well, so
Coach made us run laps afterwards. An astounded BMI player asked
me: ‘You just killed us. What do you guys have to do if you lose?’
I replied: ‘This is why we don’t lose.’”
Bob Dwyer ’65
Becoming Champions
Like a long-distance runner relentlessly, inexorably picking off
competitors ahead of him to cross the finish line in first place,
Miller’s teams worked their way through the prep school competition
in the 1960s, relegating Blair and Peddie to also-rans and finally and
permanently taking the measure of Hun. That left the reigning
pace-setter Lawrenceville, winner of 12 of the past 16 Prep School
Championships, so loaded with postgraduate talent that Pingry would
never have dreamed of competing against them before Miller’s arrival.
Pingry’s first meeting with Lawrenceville in 1963 inaugurated a bitter
but successful rivalry that would last for more than another
quarter-century.
Becoming Union County Champions posed a more basic challenge.
In 1964 and 1965, Pingry went undefeated against the top Union
County teams, but watched teams they had beaten be awarded the
championship based on points for wins and losses – and Pingry couldn’t
get enough public schools on the schedule to qualify. Miller remembers
thinking, “What do we have to do to win a championship!”
The following year, working with equally visionary high school
coaches like Frank Severage of Clark, Frank Chirichillo of Edison Tech,
Herb Kassel of Jefferson, and Jim Jesky of Union, Miller took the
initiative to petition the state to establish a Union County Tournament.
Convincing the more conservative athletic directors in Union County
on the value of innovative change turned out to be a struggle. Miller
was successful finally in leveraging the example of the county basketball
tournament – since it worked well in that sport, why not give soccer
the same opportunity? Miller and his fellow coaches got approval
initially for a four-team post-season tournament, but Miller realized
that too narrow a field might still leave good Pingry teams out of
consideration, so he fought and won the battle to expand the
tournament to eight teams.
Building the Sport
Miller’s leadership then expanded to embrace the entire state.
He was instrumental in helping create the New Jersey Soccer Coaches
Association in 1968 and headed up their committee charged with
formally ranking the Top 20 teams in New Jersey each week and
guiding the selection of players to All-State and All-Group teams.
Looking back, Miller recalls, “In the early 1960s, high school
soccer was still largely an ethnic thing limited to a few schools.
I believed soccer had a much greater potential value throughout
New Jersey as a competitive sport. Done the right way and for the
right reasons, soccer – all sports, actually − could offer kids invaluable
experiences and lessons they would draw on the rest of their lives.
So we needed to find ways to make soccer attractive, get kids
interested, and help schools build programs. The tournaments and
Coaches Association were ways to achieve that goal. When we
started instituting clinics to upgrade the quality of coaching, soccer
took off. In retrospect, what we did in Union County in the 1960s
with soccer really opened a lot of doors for other emerging sports
like hockey and lacrosse, and, just as important, for girls’ competitive
athletics a few years later.”
In September 1959, a young, incredibly intense, and unproven rookie
coach stood at the first day of practice looking at a senior-dominated
team he didn’t know, taking in their curiosity − and skepticism. He
must have wondered, “Can they do it?” – and, more importantly,
“Can I do it?”
Miller got his answer: his first decade ended with one unofficial
and five official Prep School Championships. The goal of winning
the Union County Tournament he had created, however, frustratingly
eluded Pingry through the 1960s. That would change, in dramatic
fashion, starting in 1970.
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E i g h t D e c a d e s at T h e P i n g r y S c h o o l
The 1970s: Union County Dominance
“What’s the secret of anything? It’s hard work and the
attempt to be ready for every game… and we try to
keep it fun.”
Miller, 1975
Throughout his career as a player, from his sophomore year at Pingry
through Springfield College and his years playing semi-pro soccer
with the Westfield Lions, Miller had followed a simple, fundamental
principle: to win consistently against top competition you have to
continuously improve your skills and understanding of the game.
The best way to do that is by practicing and competing against players
who are better than you. Each season, Miller used pre-season games
to set players’ expectations for the level of soccer they needed to reach.
Opponents included not only top-rated high school teams not on
Pingry’s schedule, but also the Penn freshman team.
Miller’s successful efforts in the 1960s to grow the sport of high
school soccer in New Jersey had the inevitable consequence of
increasing the caliber of play of the teams Pingry needed to beat
to win championships.
That meant finding ways to continuously lift the level of the
game for Pingry players. Miller needed not just dedicated, tough,
hard-working athletes who would never quit; he needed soccer
players. But you can’t develop a soccer player in a couple of weeks
of pre-season practice and a 12-week season. Pingry’s rise to
become the dominant soccer team in Union County was forged
by the commitment of the players to work at their game during
the off season.
For many players in the mid to late 1960s through the 1970s,
the “off season” was spent at Miller’s Camp Waganaki in Maine.
Younger campers gained the experience of competing against and
learning from older, more experienced often All-County and All-State
players. For members of Miller’s team, a summer at Waganaki was
spent as counselors-in-training or as members of the infamous “kitchen
crew.” Pete Borden ’65 remembers almost developing a hernia lugging
rocks off what would become the soccer field – when he wasn’t
humping 50-pound potato sacks for Waganaki “chef” Larry Karet.
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Even though the Pingry soccer players called Waganaki “Miller’s
illegal soccer camp,” Miller was careful to follow the state athletic
association’s rules and restrictions on formally coaching his players in
the summer. That doesn’t mean they didn’t work hard on developing
new skills and getting in shape – often until 9:00 at night.
But competing against your teammates wasn’t enough. In order for
them to not only play the game at a higher level but actually feel the
game of soccer, Miller knew his kids needed to develop against the
best soccer talent in New Jersey.
The Waganaki Soccer Camp
Rob Curtis started as a camper at Waganaki as a nine-year-old −
which means that’s also when he started playing soccer. “Compared
with the professional quality of Pingry soccer, Waganaki was pretty
rough. We played on a rock-strewn field wearing soccer cleats or
sneakers, shorts or cut-off jeans, tube socks, and the Waganaki T-shirts
we were supposed to save for Sunday. And Waganaki was a small
camp; putting age-group teams together for games and tournaments
with other camps was a challenge. It was typical to have nine- and
10-year-old kids playing on the 12-and-under team. So growing up,
you were competing with and against older players. And for young
Pingry kids, our coaches were Miller’s varsity stars − players we
idolized. Then, as an older camper myself, it became part of my job
to get younger kids involved in the game and make them feel a part
of the team.
“The biggest impact on my growth as a player, however, was when
Miller brought in two counselors from England, Roger Bruce and
Mike Prideaux, both of whom were soccer coaches with a whole new
approach to the game. It certainly helped me when I and the other
Waganaki kids returned to Pingry each fall. We were in good shape,
our skills had developed, rather than becoming rusty, and we were
mentally ready to start the season at a high level. It gave Pingry
a big, early edge on most of the teams we played.”
Rob Curtis ’79
The Life and Times of Miller A. Bugliari
In the mid-’70s, Miller initiated the Pingry Soccer Camp – the first
such camp in New Jersey. Run by assistant coach Dan Phillips ’59, and
now in its 42nd year, the camp exposed young players to some of the
best coaches in the country – and to the benefits of attending Pingry.
Farcher’s Grove
But developing highly skilled players ultimately meant winter soccer on
the frozen field of Farcher’s Grove in Union and the other tough fields
of the German-American Soccer League. Art and Robbie Kurz’s father
was a member of the Elizabeth Sport Club and a sponsor of their
semi-pro team, which would change its name in 1982 to the Union
Lancers. His sons had played at Farcher’s Grove in the youth programs
since they could first kick a soccer ball. He helped Miller, starting in the
mid-1960s, get his best kids onto league teams – the first prep school
coach to start formally developing players out of season. Miller’s
model was the public school stars who played soccer year-round
because that’s just what they did – they were soccer players.
Sean O’Donnell ’75, who captained the 1974 team and went on to
star at the University of Pennsylvania, was just such a “soccer player.”
He began playing at Farcher’s Grove with his buddies as a little kid,
using empty beer kegs from Farcher’s bar for goals. “There was nothing
even close to fancy about Farcher’s,” Sean remembers. “The dirt field
was bounded on one side by the train tracks and on the other by the
river, with the PSE&G substation in the rear. The far side of the field
was fenced in – right next to the field. If you overran the touchline
you smashed right into the chain link fence. On the other side by
the clubhouse they had raised
wooden bleachers, but people
didn’t usually sit there. They lined
the field. You learned to be really
careful when you were playing the
ball next to the other team’s fans.
If you lofted the ball over the
20-foot-high fence at one end, it
could bounce through the Sunoco
station next door and start rolling
downhill on the street.
“We got a lot of conditioning
just sprinting after balls to keep
them from getting run over in the
traffic. And the ‘locker room,’ if
you can call it that, was a cinder
block building that hadn’t been painted – or cleaned – for decades.
The shower room had three shower heads…and lots of mold. Getting
to the bottom of it would have been like an architectural dig.”
Christopher Merrill’s The Grass of Another Country is a fascinating
history of the growth of soccer in New Jersey and the United States
leading up to the 1990 World Cup – and a must-read for fans of both
the U.S. Men’s National Team and Pingry soccer. In it, he relates his
own experiences playing at Farcher’s when he was Sean’s Pingry
teammate. “I remembered training here under the lights in midwinter:
how the cleat marks, divots, and holes in the mud would freeze until the
field was harder and rougher than a cobblestone street. Good players
like Sean learned to run with short strides, moving their feet constantly,
hoping not to turn an ankle. They learned to trap the ball with a
minimum of effort, dribble it close to their feet so that it would not get
away from them, adapt instantly to balls ricocheting off the ground,
deliver to their teammates quick, accurate passes, and pray for the
best.” Brian O’Donnell ’81 remembers watching the old New York
Cosmos with their team of international stars play an exhibition at
Farcher’s. “Pelé handled the ball on the rutted field easily. That wasn’t
a surprise. But Franz Beckenbauer had a nightmare game of bad passes.”
Grass couldn’t grow on Farcher’s field, but something else did:
Pingry’s 1970s dominance as Union County champions.
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