By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Publisher A lot has changed since Bruce DiNardo was an offensive guard for the Ocean City High School football team in the early 1960s. The original high school is long gone. Players wear fancier uniforms and are bigger and stronger, the cheerleaders have vastly different hairstyles, and coaches can scout opponents in any number of ways using advanced technology. In 1964, DiNardo was a starting guard on the offensive line. He was 5-foot-8 and about 190 pounds. And he was one of the bigger players on the line. “The biggest thing is speed and size. I’m still the same size, and I was the biggest guy on the line at that time. There were a couple guys who were a little bit bigger from time to time, but for the most part I was one of the biggest guys,” DiNardo said. “Today I would be considered a small guy.” But, a lot remains the same about high school football more than four decades later. The quarterbacks and running backs still get most of the attention from newspaper reporters and doe-eyed high school girls while linemen still toil in relative anonymity. DiNardo said he never minded not being the big man on campus, though. He just liked playing football. 
Even though he was only 5-foot-8 and about 190 pounds, Bruce DiNardo was one of the bigger offensive linemen at Ocean City High School in the early 1960s. (Glory Days Magazine photo/Dave O’Sullivan) “I never made all-Cape-Atlantic or anything like that. I never shined, I was just one of the guys. One of the forgotten linemen in the trenches,” DiNardo said. “The quarterbacks and the running backs always got all the glory.” Another thing that remains the same is coaches getting on players for not doing their jobs on the field. DiNardo said he caught the wrath of former coach Andy Prohaska for missing an open-field tackle. That little infraction cost DiNardo half of a game’s playing time. “I got on coach’s bad list a few times. Once I should have made a tackle that was right in front of me. He kept me out for half a game. My line coach kept saying ‘can we put DiNardo in?’ But I got back in for the second half and I did well,” DiNardo said. When you have a strong desire for a sport it sort of never leaves you. DiNardo, who graduated from Ocean City High in 1965, still is involved with high school football 48 years later, as an NJSIAA official. At age 66 he can’t move like he used to, so he is relegated to being the timing official, but he said he still loves being around the game. Something that does stick out in DiNardo’s memory from those days in the early ’60s was the rivalry with Mainland Regional, which is as strong today as it ever has been. “We had some tremendous games against Mainland. My senior year, Mainland was supposed to beat us by six or seven touchdowns and our coach threw in the old single wing offense and we lost 7-0 on a fumble in the end zone. They went on to be undefeated that year,” DiNardo said. “One game, against Mainland, I went up against a kid who was about 6-foot-4 and 235 pounds. He was on my head the whole game, but he didn’t get in. After the game the coach said I did a tremendous job handling him. 
Here DiNardo is pictured during his playing days for the Red Raiders. (Photo courtesy of Barbara DiNardo) “All of us had grown up together and had gone to school together, so that’s what made it a rivalry. It was fun back then, I enjoyed it, I really did. I don’t think any one thing stands out. I just had a really good time playing.” The 1962 Mainland football team went undefeated and last month was enshrined in the school’s hall of fame. Their toughest game that year was, naturally, against Ocean City, a 13-12 victory by the Mustangs. DiNardo was born in Philadelphia and moved to Ocean City when he was a toddler, eventually settling in Upper Township with wife Judy. Following his high school career, DiNardo went into the service. After his military duty he began coaching in the early 1970s and continued into the early ’80s, when he became an official. Unofficially his refereeing career began in 1984, but he’s been a certified referee for the NJSIAA since 1989. He also is a former president of the Cape May County Junior Football League. During the past 24 years as an official, DiNardo has seen a ton of great high school football players. He said perhaps the best he saw was former Ocean City great Kevin Sinclair, one of the best running backs in the state in the 1990s. “You could see that he was going to be good and he broke a lot of Ocean City rushing records,” DiNardo said. “I saw Doug Colman play. He went on to play for the Jets and coach at Absegami.” DiNardo said the best thing he took away from his time playing high school football was the discipline he learned to not give up and to get the job done that you had set out to do. “The focus on job oriented, you had to get it done. You have to do this, this and this in this order to get the job done. I think that and dedication. If you decide you are going to do something stick with it. I always instilled that into Chazz when he was growing up,” DiNardo said. Chazz Barber is DiNardo’s grandson and a former captain of the Ocean City wrestling team who graduated from Stockton College this past May. His daughter, Barbara, Chazz’s mother, also is a graduate of the high school and helps organize the Red and White Weekend every year for homecoming. DiNardo’s high school days might be long gone, but he still has something to look forward to. Each year during alumni weekend the graduating class that is coming up on its 50th anniversary is recognized. In 2015, DiNardo’s Class of 1965 will be honored. “I’m looking forward to that. I still keep in contact with some of my classmates,” DiNardo said. “The Red and White Weekend has really helped with that. It’s fun reminiscing.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays
My glory days: Bruce DiNardo, Ocean City High School 1965
