The Personal Injury Attorney in Teaneck, NJ, You Can Trust

Head baseball coach Jamie Quinn is now in his sixth season with Devils baseball. Quinn is using his extensive baseball knowledge, including four years spent with the Long Island Ducks — an independent partner team with Major League Baseball, to create a baseball legacy at FDU. In 2022, he helped the Devils bring home an Eastern College Athletic Conference tournament championship. Take a look at what it is like to be on the field with Coach Q.

Where are you from originally?

I am originally from Long Island, New York. I grew up in Bethpage and graduated from Plainedge High School.

What made you decide to coach at the college level?

Coaching was instilled in me at a very young age, as I was an assistant coach for my father, coaching my younger brother’s baseball teams growing up. As I became a student-athlete in college, I started to appreciate and watch how my college coaches went about their preparation and player development. During this stage of my playing career, it made me want to learn more about, and eventually coach at the college level.

What does a typical practice look like for your team?

As baseball has many individual skill sets in a team sport setting, a typical practice begins with our stretch and mobility circuit, followed by mental performance exercises, and then the pitchers and position players split up to do their own segments. Pitchers do their arm care activation, throwing program, daily skill work, followed by any bullpens that are needed to be thrown. Position players, get right into their base running circuit, followed by arm care activation and their throwing program, then into their positional fundamentals. After this time, the pitchers are completed with their progressions and they join the position players for team defense.

Once team defense is completed, we go into our batting practice progression, which includes hitting off pitching machines, and doing different drills in the cages, bunting off machines, and situational hitting on the field. There are a lot of moving parts during our training sessions, while packing in a lot so we can enhance the rate of improvement in our player development.

What do you expect of your student-athletes?

We have standards in our program and everything kind of rotates around the golf term, that we use as the acronym, PAR. PAR stands for punctuality, accountability, and respect. I expect our student-athletes and staff to be punctual, accountable, and have respect in everything that we do; on the field, off the field with support staff, in the community, in the classroom, with their professors. I expect them to hold themselves up to PAR and have a positive impact in the FDU and surrounding communities. On the field, I expect our student-athletes to play the game hard, with respect, and the right way.

During a game what is the energy of your sideline/bench?

During a game we have a lot of energy in the dugout. Our guys bring a lot of energy, effort and enthusiasm. They are loose and excited to have the opportunity to compete at a high level.

Where would be your dream location for your student-athletes to play?

I think a dream location for student-athletes to play would be a Big League stadium. I was fortunate enough to play at Shea Stadium — the former stadium of the New York Mets, in high school. There is just an aura about being in a ballpark that is like a cathedral. Many student-athletes play at Minor League stadiums growing up, but not many get to play in the environment of a Big League stadium.

TEANECK — With a second straight North 1, Group 3 girls basketball title on the line, Teaneck was nearly flawless at the line.

The No. 1 seed Highwaywomen made 14-of-16 free throws in the fourth quarter to close out a 59-46 victory over No. 2 Old Tappan in Saturday’s sectional final at Curtis March Court.

Senior Erin Frazier made all 12 of her foul shots, including six in the final period. She and classmate Demi Simpson capped their careers by leading Teaneck (23-7) to its third sectional repeat all-time.

The four-year letter-winners also helped their team finish 3-1 against their Big North National rival, including a Bergen County Tournament semifinal win.

“We were here last year – we knew what the sectional environment was going to be like,” Frazier said. “We’ve seen [Old Tappan], this was the fourth time, and we know how they are. So that’s why we kept we kept our composure.

“We’re not new to this.”

What it means

Teaneck advanced to Wednesday’s 7 p.m. NJSIAA Group 3 semifinal at Ramapo High School. Its opponent will be the winner of North 2, determined Saturday evening between Chatham and Colonia.

Old Tappan (22-7) played in its first sectional final since 2018, when it went on to win Group 3.

“Whenever you play a team four times, the last time is always the hardest, right?” Highwaywomen coach Brad Allen said.

Key sequence

In a 25-all game midway through the third quarter, Teaneck went on a 9-0 run. After Simpson made 1-of-2 at the line, the home team forced a turnover, and Frazier sank a pair of free throws after being fouled.

Less than a minute later, Imani McKenzie set up Simpson for a jumper, and freshman Leayana Dorville stole the ensuing inbounds pass and scored to prompt an Old Tappan time out. The Golden Knights got no closer than 5 the rest of the way.

“In the third quarter, we didn’t allow them across half court until three minutes to go,” Allen said. “Everybody did exactly what we told them to do at halftime, and it worked out really well.”

A lot on the line

In last month’s Bergen County championship final against Saddle River Day, Teaneck made less than 50 percent of its foul shots (10-for-21) in a three-point loss.

“We really beat ourselves that game,” Simpson admitted. “Free throws meant everything.”

Allen responded by having the team shoot “literally 200 a day, every day” at the free-throw line. There, the Highwaywomen finished 30-for-38 (79 percent) in the North 1, Group 3 final.

Game balls

► Frazier and Simpson combined for 29 points and 19 rebounds and made 8 of their team’s 15 steals.

► Teaneck sophomore Jill Carter contributed 14 points and made all four of her foul shots.

► Old Tappan senior Layla Giordano collected 18 points, 9 rebounds, 2 steals and 2 assists.

They said it

“She’s amazing to play with. This is what I’m going to cherish.” —Simpson on winning back-to-back sectional titles with her four-year teammate, Frazier

“Amazing. This is my favorite person ever.” —Frazier, on Simpson

“Last year, we were so happy to win the sectional, and we went to overtime [against Sparta]. Then we had a 24-hour turnaround. This time, we have a 72-hour turnaround, so we can get ready a little bit better.” —Allen

New Teaneck football coach Cekuan James doesn’t like the world "rebuild." He does like the word "toughness," though.

“We never want to rebuild, we always want to reload,” James said Thursday night. “We want to build a tough culture here so that after every game we play, the other team walks off saying ‘that Teaneck team played tough'.”

The 29-year-old was approved as the Highwaymen's new head football coach Wednesday night by the district’s board of education. He’s been the team’s defensive coordinator the last two seasons, before that he was an assistant at Don Bosco.

James was born in the Bronx, but his parents moved him and his siblings to Teaneck just before he entered eighth grade. James calls his father, Cedric, a huge influence on his life and aspirations. The James family ran a youth organization in the Bronx and now Cedric oversees the Teaneck Junior Football program.

Cekuan (pronounced Say-kwon) was a two-sport standout at Teaneck, playing linebacker and wrestling before graduating in 2012. He went on to play college football at Kean before getting his bachelor’s degree and masters.

He started coaching in the Teaneck Junior Football program when he was 18 and he’s known some of the players on the 2024 Teaneck team for almost 10 years. James believes that type of consistency and continuity is the key to a program being successful.

“We have a staff that pays attention to details, that coaches hard, and we keep the main thing the main thing,” James said. “You’re the most confident when you’re sure about your assignment and know the right way to do things. Confidence breeds toughness, in my opinion, and the only way to get confidence is by doing the right thing over and over. That’s the bottom line here.”

Teaneck has spent the last two seasons in the Super Football Conference’s Ivy Division, set up for teams trying to grow their programs and stimulate interest. Teaneck went 7-4 each of the last two years under Harold Clark. The program will be back in a regular varsity division in 2024 and James believes the roster will have around 55-60 kids.

“We didn’t really know much about the Ivy Division when we first got to Teaneck, but we just knew we were going to practice hard and scout hard and prepare,” James said. “We knew the league was going to sharpen us and make us ready for the Group 3s, Group 4s and Group 5s of the world.”

James is currently a physical education teacher in the school district and said the plan is to move to a similar position in the high school.

Hackensack and Teaneck are scheduled to meet next Thanksgiving for the 90th time. Hackensack has won the last nine meetings. James notes that he went 3-1 in his career against the Comets as a player and is already looking forward to the day.

“It’s time to put in the work and get back to those numbers [when I played],” he said. “We have so much respect for the rivalry and we want to play our hardest to give the people in Hackensack and Teaneck a great game and come out with a win.”

Bischoff's, the homey, old-school, near-90-year-old ice cream shop in Teaneck, is closing permanently — again.

After giving the five-generation-long family-owned soda fountain, which closed at the end of last year only to reopen four months later, a second chance, owner Steve Mather and his mother, Anita, decided to close the shop for good.

The shop announced the closing on its Instagram and Facebook pages Tuesday.

"We can't begin to express how painful this decision was for us," the post said. "Five generations of our family have treasured our role in the community. Bischoff's has been everything to us. YOU have been everything to us. — every kid who first tasted ice cream in our shop, every couple on a first date, everyone who came here for a celebration, or because they needed something sweet in a painful time."

Bischoff's was reborn on Memorial Day, this time as a summer pop-up, with the help of Rony Alvarado, chef of Rony's Rockin' Grill in Bergenfield, TJ Quinn and Edward Pierce, all Teaneck residents. They, avid fans of the ice cream shop, came up with the pop-up idea. Alvarado also served as Bischoff's new chef, offering sliders, fries and onion rings, all firsts for Bischoff's, because for the first time it had a fryer. The shop will stay open until Sept. 3.

The long-term plan was to launch a completely remodeled, full-service restaurant, sometime next spring, that would not only serve homemade ice cream and hot dogs but be a community space with local artwork, a stage for performances by local artists and more. The group set up a GoFundMe account to help raise funds to make their dream come true — and took donations at the store.

As of Tuesday morning, Quinn said, all the GoFundMe money raised — around $15,000 — was returned. As for the money raised in the shop? "Every penny will go to something in the community," Quinn said. "No one in the shop is going to profit from it."

"It’s really sad," Quinn continued. "We really thought it would work. It was a brutal decision. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy."

When Mather originally closed the store, he said the finances just weren't working. The shop implemented changes in hopes of improving business. It even began accepting credit cards in 2019. And then COVID-19 hit.

Mather could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

When he announced the first closing weeks in advance, he was taken aback by the outpouring of love the shop received.

"I always knew people loved it, but maybe I didn’t understand just how much," he told The Record. "I mean I didn't think that people would wait three hours in line for two pints of ice cream — and do that in the rain."

The people came out again when the shop reopened, Quinn said, but it just wasn't enough to sustain a business long term.

"There was great support," Quinn said. "But ice cream is not a cheap thing to make, not when you are trying to do it right and not when you want to pay your employees a decent rate."

"People love Bischoff’s," Alvarado said. "We wanted to do something totally different. We wanted to build a community center. We were going to have a coffee shop, do lots of work. We were going to have pastries. That involves a lot of money. It didn’t make sense money-wise." He added that the Mather family does not own the Cedar Lane building, making rent another expense.

The original Bischoff's was founded in Manhattan by Mather's great-grandfather, Albert Bischoff, in the 1890s. It moved to Teaneck 89 years ago and has been a cherished part of Teaneck ever since.

"There was always a sense of responsibility to the community," Quinn said. "It really is not just about the people in the store. Everyone knows what Bischoff's has meant to the town, and this is the hardest part."