Gridiron Classic: Point Beach Star Survived Knee Injury, Hurricane Sandy

Written by Bob Badders

When Danny Tighe was carted off the field late in the third quarter of Point Beach's Central Jersey Group I semifinal loss to Florence, he had a whirlwind of emotions spinning around in his head.

After weeks of cleaning up the local communities, which were ravaged by Hurricane Sandy in late October, while trying to carry the flag for their respective towns with an undefeated record and high-powered offense, the Garnet Gulls were emotionally spent.

Now they had lost their best player in their most important game to a broken right fibula, and it proved to be an insurmountable task. Tighe watched from the sidelines, powerless to help, all while wondering if he'd ever play football again.

"The hardest part about the whole thing was sitting on the sidelines when we lost, watching the clock run out and seeing the air getting taken out of the whole town and knowing I couldn't do anything," Tighe said.

That moment signifying the conclusion to his high school career was going to be tough to swallow, and Tighe initially also believed his injury could be serious enough to keep him off the field for good. That's what makes his participation in Thursday's US Army All-Shore Gridiron Classic so important to him.

"It was a pretty scary injury at first and I wasn't sure how I was going to heal and if I was going to be able to play in college," Tighe said. "To now have played in the (North/South) all-state game and then this, a game I've always wanted to play in, means a lot."

Tighe finished the 2012 season as the Shore Conference's leading rusher with 1,569 yards and 25 touchdowns with a video-game-like 13.3 yards-per-carry average and was selected as an All Shore Media First Team All-Shore running back.

He helped the Garnet Gulls set a school record for wins (10-1) and capture the Class B Central division title, the program's first since 1997. Also a standout defensive back and returner on special teams, Tighe was selected as the Class B Central Offensive Player of the Year.

Tighe returned to athletics in the spring for Point Beach's track team, a big step in his recovery that showed him he was ready for football again.

"Everything that happened, us losing, the injury, was a big, big motivating factor for me," Tighe said. "I knew I was going to get selected to play in this game and I wanted to be 100 percent healthy. I didn't have as good a year in track as the year before, but I was just happy to be running."

When Tighe suits up for Ocean County at 7 p.m. on Thursday at Toms River High School North, he will do so as the area's top rusher and one of the best two-way players in the Shore. Given Tighe's speed, it is easy to see why he tore up defenses to average a first down every time he touched the ball, but to lead the entire conference in yards is still shocking to him.

"My goal was to rush for maybe 1,000 yards and try to make it to this game," Tighe said. "So it's pretty sweet."

"He came out of nowhere," said Point Beach head coach John Wagner, who is also the head coach for Ocean County. "He was a backup to Cody (Coleman) last year but was a starter on defense. His speed just created so much balance, and it really helped everybody else."

As the towns within the Point Beach school district - Point Pleasant Beach, Bay Head, Mantoloking and Lavalette - continue to recover and rebuild, so have Tighe and his teammates.  Areas of Mantoloking and Bay Head are still knocking down and hauling away destroyed homes, but the area as a whole is getting better.

Just as optimism has spread in the months after Hurricane Sandy, Point Beach's outlook on its season has been put in perspective.

"Bay Head and Mantoloking are still bad and people think seven, eight months later it's over, but there's still a lot of stuff to clean up," Tighe said. "But everyone is still in good spirits. They're still here."

"Looking back we can say we're the best team to ever play at Point Beach," he added. "I'm not going to lie, it sucked the way it ended, but we changed the program and helped rebuild and make Point Beach football stand out."

Tighe, who is headed to Albright College in the fall, gets to finish his high school career on his terms - on the field and able to make an impact. The bittersweet memories of the fall of 2012 won't soon be forgotten but on Thursday at Toms River North, he'll look to create one final moment of magic to hang his hat on.

For more coverage of sports in the Jersey Shore, see All Shore Media site here.