“We’ve had players go to Boston College, Stanford and Villanova along with schools such as Slippery Rock, Lackawanna and Monroe. Wherever there is a good fit for the kid we look to try and get him in position to keep educating himself for a bright future.

“You go through life and see things you may have missed out on, but you can also try and see a piece of good that you can hopefully bring to someone else, and that’s all I’m trying to do.” 

One of the coach’s three sons, Omari Gaines, is a red-shirt freshman at Stanford where current Bulldogs senior linebacker-wide receiver-running back and ‘Wildcat’ formation QB Zaden McDonald is headed next fall.

“Zaden can be a game-changing type of player and the big thing for us is to just try and get the ball in his hands, whether it’s catching it, running with it or moving over to be our quarterback in the ‘Wildcat,’” said Gaines. “He is one of the top athletes you’ll find out there, and we have a number of very talented players we can turn to on this team.”   

Along with McDonald among the other offensive standouts to watch on the 2025 Shabazz squad are junior QB Kariem Costan, senior RB Noah Foxworth and junior RB Shareef Yazeed.

The Gaines family has another college ready player on the current scene with another of the Bulldogs coach’s sons, Nasir Gaines, Jr., presently performing as one of the wide receivers at Montclair State University.

“It’s all about developing young men for a productive future and if we can make football part of that journey that’s great,” said the Shabazz coach. “Right now, we’re just trying to prepare our kids to face Westwood.

“They have a variety of ways they can hurt you and we know that we have to stop No. 1 (sophomore QB Bruno Vega) and No. 3 (senior RB Steve Klein) and let them go to anyone else.

“We’re not taking anything for granted or looking ahead to Thanksgiving (vs. Brick City rival Weequahic in the annual ‘Soul Bowl’ on Thursday morning, Nov. 27, at the Indians' Untermann Field). It’s all about trying to be ready to face Westwood and leaning on our attitude to be ‘The Marines’ out there!”

NOTES- Nasir Gaines is a 1998 graduate of Essex Catholic where he played for the late, great coach Larry Schumacher…One of his science teachers at Essex Catholic was Tony Jones, the longtime Montclair Kimberley Academy head basketball coach and current biology teacher at the Montclair private school. “Mr. Jones is a great man and was very influential in my life,” said Gaines, who also played youth football for the old East Orange Falcons and their coach James McDaniels…Another of Gaines’ sons, Zyeiar Miller, played his high school football at St. Peter’s Prep…Shabazz breezed through the first two rounds of the N2G2 playoffs this season rolling past 8-Lyndhurst, 46-7, and 4-Rutherford, 47-0.

This Week’s Games Involving Essex Teams (Pick To Win In Boldface):

Friday, Nov. 21:
Cedar Grove at Butler, 7
Shabazz at Westwood, 7

Record on Picks last week: 3-1; for the season: 136-31 (81%)