• 

• 

Call them players. It’s all about keeping in step with the high school game. And the RFH Football Team played on …

So did the band. Both players of a different kind. Playing to the same tune — the game. But school spirit and team player strength doesn’t always come in numbers. With high school football season on the horizon, memories come to mind of the old days when the RFH Band played on and in step with many more field-marching members than these days. The football team the band was playing about? Not so much. There was a time when the RFH football team was small — smaller than the band that trumpeted the team.

Band was big and so was a big band era decades ago, for that matter. In fact, going back more than half a century, like back to the 1930s, when RFH was Rumson High School, the football team was minuscule by comparison. There was no regional in the high school name. And the population was, well, low. There were sprawling estates, farms (with a lot of asparagus growing wild) and berries aplenty for picking.

And there was, indeed, football.

So, the Retro Pic of the Day honors what were the early years of football at what is now RFH.

This shot is of the Rumson High School team in 1934, or so the football says. It’s a snapshot of one of several pics donated to and hanging on the walls of Val’s Tavern, the go-to spot for unwinding and/or celebrating after a game, before or after reunions, and just plain old catching up with R-FH area friends. So, it’s doubly fitting to honor RFH football and the athlete’s and parents’ forever after-game hang-out.

Now, about this team. Anyone know who these guys are? Don’t forget, RFH had some celebrities in its midst. Rumson High 1932 grad Ken Lockwood told us a few years ago that he rode the bus from Fair Haven to Rumson High with Nelson Riddle. But that was a different tune of celebrity — more in step with the band. Get it?

And did you know that, speaking of football, Vince Lombardi was a Fair Haven resident?

Anyone else? How about those players?