Jack Stankiewicz

There was a compelling discussion among the 2007 Hall of Fame induction class, where everyone was honored to have joined, but, inevitably it raises the “if I am in, this guy should definitely be!” argument. One name that kept coming up was Jack Stankiewicz . People were shocked when he didn’t make the first induction, and so it perpetually grew when the second came and went without him. Finally, the Monmouth Rugby Football Club welcomes Jack Stankiewicz .
During the early days at Brookdale, he was the best player and scrumhalf. His name was constantly in the paper and he led the team in scoring until the Welters and Liscovitz appeared. He selflessly moved to the back row when Scotty arrived. He is third on Brian Harris’ list with 253 A side games played Jack helped recruit players. He, also, served as our captain for several years in the early years and was the MVP of the club for 1974-1976.  On the field, Jack was a clean player, though he was as hard as a coffin nail. He also knew and knows the most obscure details of the games we played in and often recited them at club gatherings. The early history of Monmouth games are in his head. He was the defensive anchor of the third row of Klar, Stankiewicz, and Hamm , which is the self-proclaimed best defensive back row in history. While this one was one statistic Brian Harris didn’t keep track of, most of their opponents from those years wouldn’t have the gall to argue the point. He took great pride in our hard tackles and even created a bounty system for the hardest hit of the game which really annoyed the refs. Refs made up penalties to deal with his hard play, in Saranac Lake he was penalized for tackling with attempt to maim; in Albany he was penalized for tackling with the hard part of the body.  Jack tackled so hard they didn’t know what else to do. Jack was one of the main keys to our successes in the late 70′s and was forced to leave us due to his Army Reserve commitments. Again, there is no one else more deserving to receive this honor than Jack Stankiewicz , and this was way too long a time coming.