VHS Football Documentary Picked For Festival

Once, there was a group of Verona High School football players that experienced 32 losses in a row, the most ever by a New Jersey high school football team. From their sophomore year, which started just after Verona won three state championships in a row, it was just defeat after defeat. The worst loss of them all was a 75-0 crushing by Madison High School in October 1966.

Last year, two of the former players on that team created a documentary about that loss, and the larger issues of winning and losing in high school sports. 75-0: The Documentary was screened at the Yogi Berra Museum and in Verona, and now it has been chosen as one of the finalists in the New Jersey International Film Festival at Rutgers University. It will be screened in New Brunswick on Sunday, October 4.

The 7 p.m. screening will be held in Voorhees Hall. Tickets are $10 for general admission, $9 for students and seniors and $8 for Rutgers Film Co-op/NJMAC Friends. You can buy tickets at the door or through PayPal. (See the General Information page of the film festival’s Web site for details.)

“In the bad times in your life,” filmmaker (and team player) Jay Curtis said last year, “you can say, ‘this is bad, but we’re not losing 75-nothing’.”