Somewhere in the history of high school basketball in New Jersey, there is a moment that receives far too little attention. In 1968, South Brunswick High School is defeating East Rutherford by a single point to win the Group I state championship in Atlantic City’s Convention Hall, which has over 12,000 spectators—an incredible number for a high school game. Dick Vitale, a young man, is the East Rutherford coach who is lamenting the defeat from the sidelines. He would go on to become college basketball’s most identifiable voice. Silently and without much fanfare, South Brunswick would go on to become one of the state’s more successful public high schools.
South Brunswick High School is located in Monmouth Junction, New Jersey, at 750 Ridge Road. Most people drive through rather than to this area of Middlesex County. After the original 1960 building was outgrown, the current 360,000-square-foot campus opened in 1997. It is located on 80 acres and currently accommodates about 2,700 students. When it first opened, it was a large school. Due to decades of suburban expansion in the New York-Philadelphia corridor, it is now even larger, ranking among the top four high schools in New Jersey in terms of enrollment.
The consistent pattern of success that runs through the school’s history without adhering to a single clear formula is more intriguing and more difficult to explain. For the 1990–91 academic year, it was awarded the National Blue Ribbon Award by the U.S. Department of Education, the highest accolade an American school is eligible for. For 2000–01, the New Jersey Department of Education designated it as a Star School. It was recognized as a New Jersey School of Character in 2011 and placed among the top four in the country. A school doesn’t get these kinds of accolades by accident or by just having a successful year. They often represent something more institutional.
The athletics record is equally diverse and, in certain cases, truly surprising. It’s important to note that the marching band won the Group VI New Jersey state championship four times in a row, from 2013 to 2016 and again from 2018 to 2022. Over a ten-year period, the band won nine state titles. In 2012, 2015, and 2017, the football team won Central Jersey Group V sectional titles; in the 2017 final, they stunned an undefeated Manalapan team. Since 1996, the boys’ bowling team has won state titles. Keep track. Baseball. hockey on ice. Its scope is uncommon for a single public school.
The alumni list is unique. This is where Donald Fagen, a co-founder of Steely Dan, received his degree. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and columnist Anna Quindlen also did. This is where Kirsten Lepore, the animator of Marvel’s “I Am Groot” series and the short film “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On,” went. These same hallways were traversed by Mohamed Sanu, an NFL wide receiver for more than ten years. The list gives the impression that South Brunswick has been producing individuals who are truly skilled at particular, unusual tasks rather than a constant flow of generic professionals.
Additionally, a student named Ian Moritz holds the 2012 Guinness World Record for the most high fives in an hour: 1,739, which he accomplished in thirty minutes during a pep rally. This coordinated, community-wide, record-breaking event that took place at a school pep rally and was promptly officially documented is arguably the most South Brunswick thing imaginable. It’s difficult not to find that particular detail charming.
This year, the school will graduate in late June at Trenton’s CURE Insurance Arena. After graduating from a school that, for the most part, sends them somewhere worthwhile, students will cross a stage in a city that some of them may never have been to.
