Former Pleasantville track star Bill Neiderhofer making most of his second chance in life

On a humid day in July, Bill Neiderhofer strolls along the battered track that rings the run-down football field next to the bay in Pleasantville, across the street from the site of the old high school. It was here, more than 30 years ago, where about the only one who could beat him in a race was a dog who snuck onto the track and sprinted a lap and a half, leaving Neiderhofer in his wake. It seems like a lifetime ago that Neiderhofer was a budding track star, setting school records and winning Cape-Atlantic League titles in the 800 and 1,500 meters for the Greyhounds. And it was a lifetime ago. Looking back, it’s difficult for Neiderhofer to recollect the young man who ran for joy, and championships. He had aspirations of becoming a college track star, but, as just about every high school athlete realizes rather quickly after graduation, life rarely goes the way we envision it will. At age 19 he was a single father raising a daughter, Brandee. Then, a few years later, he met and married Andrea Jacobs and had a son, B.J., and a daughter, Natalie. Life was good. Until “Midnight Bill” came along, and things began to unravel. But the story of Bill and Andrea Neiderhofer is one not only of redemption, but also of determination. They divorced after 17 years of marriage, but after three years and much soul searching decided they didn’t want to give up on their family and began dating again. Then, in 2009, on what was supposed to be a simple prostate cancer check, Bill found out he had a brain tumor. “I was actually getting my prostate examined, and some of the bloodwork (my doctor) ordered came back funny. We were sitting down in his examination room talking. He was telling me that he thought it was a brain tumor. I went and got an MRI, then I got a phone call and they said, yes, you have a brain tumor and you need to contact a neurosurgeon,” Bill said. “At the time, Andrea and I were divorced, but we were back dating and I think that helped us move in a good direction.” The grind After Brandee was born, Bill realized the traditional route of becoming a college track star was no longer an option. He got a job working the midnight shift as a police dispatcher for Ventnor. In the early days of their marriage, Bill and Andrea were like a lot of young couples, working alternating shifts for the good of the family. It wasn’t easy raising three kids, especially with Bill going to work in the middle of the night when Andrea was sleeping, she heading off to work as he was coming home in the morning. As Bill puts it, “we were like ships passing in the night.” Bill Neiderhofer, a 1981 graduate of Pleasantville High School, sits on some bleachers at the track where he became a Cape-Atlantic League star. He was two-time all-first team and won four CAL championships during his outstanding career with the Greyhounds. (Glory Days Magazine photo/Dave O’Sullivan) “I think what led to a lot of our marital problems was the lack of time we spent together as a couple. A lot of couples, you want somebody to be home with the kids so you work different shifts. And then you’re passing in the night and that’s it. You think you’re strong and that you can handle it, but as time goes on you find out that you’re not close to your spouse,” Bill said. “I summed it up like we were both drowning, and we both needed a breath of air, but we were fighting for that same breath of air. I wasn’t really fighting against her, but I needed that air, and by me trying to get that breath of air I was pushing her down. That’s kind of what it was like. We were both so tired. She was going back to school to get her degree and I was working midnights. I would just get a series of naps, and then we would end up arguing about who was more tired.” There also were different philosophies on parenting. Bill was more strict, where as Andrea would try to do as many fun things with the children as possible because her time with them was so limited. She was working all day and also striving to get her college degree. Andrea went to work at Stockton College at age 18, but in her 20s wanted to get the college degree she had hoped to achieve and that meant sometimes attending night or Saturday classes, thereby limiting even further the time she could spend with her kids. “I wanted to be strict and organized because I wasn’t getting much sleep, and she didn’t get to see the kids much so she wanted to be fun and more relaxed,” Bill said. “We were just going in two different directions and it all just came to a head. But the tumor was one of the things that brought us back closer. It made some of the stuff that we would argue and fight over seem so silly, but when you are in the middle of it, it seems so huge. It put everything into perspective.” “‘Midnight Bill’ is tough. By no fault of his own, though, it’s not an easy shift to work. We certainly have a busy life and a busy schedule. During the time (I was going back to college) Bill was working midnights and it was very difficult. I worked full time and was taking classes, so it was tough,” Andrea said. “Because you don’t talk about things and don’t resolve things you tend to drift apart.” According to Bill, working such an odd shift and being sleep deprived a lot, his fuse was short and arguments were quick to ignite between he and his wife. As time went on, the bickering became much more commonplace than the hugging, the kissing, the kinds of displays of affection that married couples need to survive. And it snowballed. Andrea began referring to the cranky, combative Bill affectionately, or perhaps not so affectionately, as “Midnight Bill.” The sleep deprivation, the stress, it all added up to make Bill sort of an altered version of himself. Making concessions Andrea said she never stopped loving her husband, but felt as though she was out of options to save the marriage and believed a divorce was the right thing to do. “We didn’t get divorced because we didn’t love each other anymore. I never stopped loving him, we just weren’t happy and we were fighting all the time and I didn’t want to do that anymore,” Andrea said. “He definitely is different, in a good way. And me, too. I feel like I really grew up during that time period.” When they got divorced, Natalie, now a 16-year-old rising junior who plays on the basketball team at Holy Spirit High School, was only 11 years old, and B.J. was in high school. Bill and Andrea decided that it was paramount to be civil toward each other and not let their marital problems affect their children, or at least limit the ways in which it did affect them. “It was tough on everybody. But even though we had a lot of pain and hurt we were dealing with, we tried to put that aside when it came to dealing with the kids. A lot of people didn’t know we were divorced because they would see us out together at sporting events,” Bill said. “I can’t tell you how many kids I’ve coached who, they’ll make a great play or a basket and they go to look for their parents and they look one way then they other. And you feel bad because you know they are thinking, ‘did I look the wrong way first?’ So we always did things together. (Natalie) was doing travel soccer at the time and it was ridiculous to take two cars everywhere. We tried to keep it civil and go from there. We supported Natalie through all her sports and activities.” Said Andrea, “All of the kids handled the whole situation well and I think that has a lot to do with how Bill and I handled it. We always were concerned about the kids and kept them first. Even though we were divorced, we still did things together and wanted the kids to feel like we were still a unit, even if we were not necessarily together. That was
important to us. They handled it well, but when we got back together it meant a lot to them.” Blessing in disguise When Bill found out he had a brain tumor, naturally he was terrified. Did it mean he was going to die soon? Would he deteriorate slowly and watch his family fall apart under the mounting pressure of skyrocketing medical bills? Would he spend his last days lying unconscious in a hospital bed? Like the message in the country song “Live like you were dying” by Tim McGraw, the news was a wake-up call for Bill. It was one of those life-check moments when you take stock of what’s around you, where you are going, and if you are doing the things you need to be doing to enjoy a happy life. “I realized how much I loved Andrea and just how important that relationship was. In a lot of situations, that marriage relationship gets put on the back burner,” Bill said. “It was on a low simmer for a while and it needs to be up front and taken care of more. We put too many other things in front of that.” “We had started to get back together and we kind of realized that a lot of the things that we let bother us were not that big of a deal. We started to realize that before (the brain tumor) happened, but that completely changed all of that. It makes you realize what’s truly important,” Andrea said. “I remember when he told me. We were sitting on the porch and one of the first things I said to him was, ‘we did not go through all of this for this to happen to you. It’s not going to happen. It just can’t.’ It absolutely motivated us to move in a unified direction. Family is the most important. You have to go to work every day, but that isn’t the most important thing in life. “You’re doing the same thing every day and you kind of get lost in that.” Lessons learned Bill said being diagnosed with a brain tumor had a profound impact on his life. It made him realize how lucky he is to have a loving wife (Bill and Andrea got remarried four years ago) and three great kids. “It blew my mind that it was gone. I went over to Atlantic Medical Imaging to get a copy of the report because I thought maybe they missed something. But they compared all the MRIs and it’s just not there anymore. I wanted to see that in writing. They still want me to continue taking my medication until I go back for my follow-up appointment in October, but hopefully that will be it,” Bill said. “I called (Andrea) at work (a few weeks ago) to tell her. Certainly she was excited and happy. We still have to go out and celebrate, but we’re certainly very happy.” These days, Bill spends a lot more time enjoying the moments he gets to share with the people he loves and a lot less time worrying about the daily grind. “We spend a lot of time sitting on our front porch, or sitting in the back yard next to the fire pit. We don’t have to go a lot of places or spend a lot of money, we’re just enjoying each other’s company. I do notice a big difference in myself now. We’re definitely moving closer and closer,” Bill said. “Someone who was very important in my life said that you can learn from other people’s lessons. Sometimes you need to experience them first-hand, but look at people around you and learn from their lessons. The kids can’t maybe do all the things that they want to do. You need to make some choices because the relationship that the parents need to have to carry forward is important.” “We definitely make more of an effort to spend more time together. We spend a lot of time with Natalie with basketball and all of us doing that together,” Andrea said. “He doesn’t get so upset about a lot of the little things anymore. One of the things that was difficult for us was when we were raising the kids was we were different parents, and that happens with a lot of people. But we met in the middle more and he’s relaxed about the little things more. That’s a huge change in him. He doesn’t go from zero-to-sixty so much anymore.” What lies ahead Bill and Andrea agree that there is much more happiness in their life these days. They are excited about the upcoming school year and watching Natalie’s basketball career take off. She was a reserve guard on last season’s team that won 20 games, and as a junior has a chance to become a starting player for the Spartans. “She has a good bunch of friends and has made really good decisions. I’m very proud of her. To see some of her performances (on the basketball court) just blows me away. To watch her develop into a nice young lady just blows my mind,” Bill said of his youngest daughter. And in just a few short years Natalie most likely will be off to college, leaving Bill and Andrea alone in the house, a prospect that several years ago both of them feared. “My wife and I have talked about this before, when the kids are all out of the house, are we really going to like each other? Did we spend enough time together? But we spend a lot more time together now that Natalie is older,” Bill said. “It’s a whole new experience. Obviously I loved him then, but I love the man that he has become,” Andrea said. “I’m looking forward to our next chapter. I know that in two years Natalie is going to be graduating high school and I used to be scared. What are we going to do with ourselves? But now I don’t feel that way at all. I think we are going to love this stage of our lives just as much as raising kids.” A few weeks ago, Bill posted a lengthy open letter on Facebook, sharing the joy he felt at knowing his brain tumor had disappeared and sort of using the platform as an open diary entry to thank all the people who had supported him, and also to recognize the miracle of health that had been bestowed upon him. The lesson in his story, Bill says, is to never give up on something you love. Bill may not have realized at the time, but the fibers of that belief were sewn together on that tattered track in Pleasantville so many years ago. Not many believed that the skinny kid in the early 80s would have what would turn out to be one of the best track careers in Pleasantville High School history. But he just never gave up. He would sneak out of his bedroom window in the middle of the night and run for several miles, knowing that if he worked harder than everybody else he could become a champion. He never gave up as an athlete, and his and Andrea’s unwillingness to give up on the love they had found so many years ago, that stubbornness, ended up saving their marriage and putting them on a path to a happy future. “Even though we divorced we still hung in there and battled back from it. To me, that’s the biggest miracle. It’s so easy to get sidetracked and focus on all these other things that aren’t really that important,” Bill said. You can bet Bill Neiderhofer won’t get sidetracked again. Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays [adsense]