Remembering Richard Van Norr

In the late 1950s, the Philadelphia Phillies sent their Long Island scouting representative to a newly developed high school in Lake Ronkonkoma, N.Y. to look at a kid named Richard Van Norr.

When the club printed its scouting guide that year, Van Norr - affectionately known as Red for his hair color - was listed “as a boy to talk to after graduation.” And that was only after his sophomore season at Sachem High School.

Unfortunately that graduation never came. On Nov. 15, 1958, Van Norr, a junior in high school, was killed tragically in a car accident. He was 17. He was walking home when a car of friends picked him up. There are no records available to show if there was alcohol involved, and some sources have conflicting views. 

"There was no alcohol involved in this accident," said John Hall, a junior member of the Holbrook Fire Department at the time.

The vehicle was headed southbound from Portion Road towards Church Street, traveling at a high rate of speed and was unable to make the curve slamming into one of two large concrete pillars by Raynor Park, according to Hall. The curve in the road where he died is where Raynor Park is located today on Ronkonkoma Avenue. (To see an image of the curve, look at the gallery above).

Van Norr was in the front passenger's seat and was trapped in the vehicle.  Hall said Holbrook Fire Department had just received its first Hurst Hydraulic Porta Power, now known as the Jaws of Life. The vehicle had to be cut apart in order to get Van Norr out, “but it was too late.” 

"I never forgot this accident. It was my first dealings with death,” said Hall, who joined the Nassau County Police Department five years later and retired 34.5 years after that as a member of the Arson Bomb Squad. “To a 16 year old kid, who never knew what death was, Red's death had some impact on me.”

Sachem provided buses to Van Norr’s funeral. His family had the car from the accident placed in the parking area across the street from the funeral home as a lesson to all the students who came to pay their respects.

“We were all stunned by the sight of the car and the reality that such a vital, strong, classmate could be snatched away in an instant," said soccer teammate John Cassese.

He's laid to rest at Washington Memorial Park cemetery in Mount Sinai. (To see an image of his headstone, look at the gallery above.)

Van Norr was Sachem’s first highly skilled three-sport athlete and immediately following his death the school district began rewarding the top three-sport athlete the Richard Van Norr Memorial Award. It has been given out every year since at Sachem North and the tradition is also bestowed at Sachem East.

Mike Mahoney, a teammate of Van Norr’s, won the first award in 1959 and was presented with the honor by Van Norr’s parents and Dave Rothenberg, Sachem’s first athletic director. Tom Sabatelle, Sachem's second athletic director, also won one of the original awards as a student, as did Paul Albert, an exceptional athlete from that time in Sachem's history.

"He was a hero to many at a time when an infant school district and athletic program needed a hero," Sabatelle said. "He needed more time to realize his potential.  His legacy is that he showed many of us what the future could be, and should be."

Van Norr played soccer, baseball and wrestled. As a junior he was an all-county half back on the soccer team that finished 4-6-2 in 1958. The baseball team finished 1-9 in the spring of 1958, his final season on the diamond as a catcher. In wrestling he lost in the county finals by one point in the 140-pound weight class.

“He was respected not only by his fellow teammates, but by his opponents as a fierce competitor and a sportsman,” it said in the 1960 Sachem yearbook, the year he was meant to graduate. “Where he is, his friends will always remember him.”

“Red Van Norr was a symbol for our newly formed school district,” said Cassese. “Because of his athletic prowess, he represented what we hoped Sachem's athletic standing would one day become. He was a fierce competitor.”

He was inducted into the Sachem Athletic Hall of Fame in 2003, the first and only year new inductees were added.

On the plaque it says, “his keen athletic intuition and varied skills served as a model to all Sachem athletes of his day who were learning to compete in the early years of the school district.”

There have been countless notable athletes to receive the honor since 1959, one being Davon Lawrence in 2010. He played football, basketball and ran track at Sachem North all at high levels and ranks as one of the top football players of all-time in the district.

"It was an honor getting the award," he said. "All the years in high school putting all that time in, sport after sport with no break, receiving the award felt like it all paid off in the end."

, who played football, wrestled and was a track & field team member, won the award this week at Sachem North for 2011. The physical education department at Sachem North is in the process of creating a more stable memorial to honor Van Norr and the award at the building.