Coach Charlie Yennie (2006)

Charlie Yennie coached RHS teams to winning records in three sports over a 13-year span and also made important contributions to athletics in Bergen County. His basketball teams compiled a 150-102 record over 11 seasons (1945-56) and won Bergen-Passaic Interscholastic League championships in 1951 and 1955. He never had a losing season. He was the founder of the Oscar F. Thompson Memorial Jamboree, the Bergen County boys basketball tournament. He coached soccer from 1944 to 1956 with an 81-63 record and two state championships (1944 and 1953). He was a founding father of both the Bergen County Soccer Coaches Association and the Bergen County Soccer Officials Association and was instrumental in starting the soccer state playoffs. He coached baseball from 1943 to 1945, with a record of 32-8 and a state title in 1945 when nine different players pitched an inning in a 3-2 victory. He served as athletic director of Benjamin Franklin Junior High School. The Haledon native graduated from Paterson Central High School and Trenton State College (now The College of New Jersey) in 1936. He was inducted into the TCNJ Athletic Hall of Fame in 1986 for his accomplishments in football, track and golf. He started the Ridgewood Recreation basketball program and was recreation director for a number of years. All-told, he gave 42 years to Ridgewood youth as teacher and coach and in the Parks and Recreation Department. He coached at Clifton and East Orange before he came to RHS and had five state championships for his career. Charlie and Dorothy Yennie had two sons, Doug, retired after a 34-year career coaching basketball and golf at Bergen Community College, and Bo, a ski instructor in Steamboat Springs, Colo. Charlie died at age 86 in May of 2001.