A coaching legend who spent 27 years as a teacher/coach at Ridgewood, Mozeleski’s football teams compiled a 92-44 record over 16 years, racking up three undefeated seasons (the 1957 campaign had a tie), and the longest winning streak in the school’s gridiron history (20-0-1) from 1955 through the first two games of 1958.

The Maroons won five Northern Bergen Interscholastic League titles (1950, 1951, 1956, 1957 and 1958) and Ridgewood was the Bergen County champion in 1956. His teams scored 2,689 points while allowing the opposition only 1,459, registered 38 shutouts and produced a number of All-County, All-State and All-League players. He also guided the basketball team to 97 victories, a Bergen County Jamboree title in 1963-64 and the Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League crown in 1960-61. And he coached golf for eight years, the last one a state champion in a 15-2 season.

He had 15 years of coaching experience under his belt when he was hired in 1943 to coach baseball at Ridgewood. He never handled a diamond squad, but his football, basketball and golf teams helped fill the school trophy cases. Gene Links, one of his All-County and All-State players in the 1944 and 1945 grid campaigns, was inducted into the Ridgewood Athletic Hall of Fame in 2004. The other, the late Dr. Mario (The Mole) Ferraro, is in this year’s induction class. Mr. Moz, as he was forever respectfully known to all his athletes, died at age 75 in 1986 in Clearwater, Fla., where he spent the last 15 years of his life.