Sports: Baseball & Football
Born: January 5, 1920
Died: June 7, 2004
Town: Newark, New Jersey
Matthew J. Bolger Jr. was born January 5, 1920 in Newark, NJ. A gifted all-around athlete and natural team leader, he grew up on Halsted Street and attended St. Benedict’s Prep before earning a football scholarship to Notre Dame. He also starred for St. benedict’s on the baseball diamond.
At 6’1” and a rock-solid 195 pounds, Matt was a standout on the gridiron as a two-way end. Among the players on the 1940 freshman squad, Matt was listed first in a roundup of budding stars in the Notre Dame alumni weekly. He caught 8 passes for 135 for the Fighting Irish in 1941 as a sophomore in a year that saw the school attain a #3 national ranking. Matt snared an Angelo Bertelli pass for the winning touchdown in a November game against Northwestern.
Matt enlisted immediately after Pearl Harbor. After a stint in the Marine Air Corps that included action in the Pacific on an aircraft carrier, he completed his studies at Cornell, following Notre Dame coach Ed McKeever, who moved to Ithaca. Matt was a varsity letter winner for the Big Red in 1946 and 1947.
Pro football was hungry for talent during and after the war, and Matt was viewed as having potential as a pro pass-catcher. The Detroit Lions drafted him in 1944 and the Chicago Rockets of the All America Football Conference chose him in 1947. Although tempted to go pro after graduating in 1948, he was already in his late-20s and decided his future would be more secure as a coach.
Matt coached the line at St. Benedict’s for a year before taking a job at Upsala College in 1950. In 1951, he joined Alva Kelley’s staff at Brown. He came home to the Garden State in 1956 as a football coach at Rutgers, where Harry Rockafeller was the athletic director. Matt coached the offensive and defensive linemen under John Stiegman and John Bateman for 10 years. Matt was also a member of George Case’s diamond staff. In 1961, Matt succeeded Case as head baseball coach and guided the Scarlet Knights to a 15–4–1 record. His best player was All-American Jeff Torborg.
Starting in 1966, Matt took Rutgers to the NCAA Tournament three times in five seasons. He served as president of the American Baseball Coaches Association in 1979. His final season in the dugout was 1983. Fred Hill took over the program after that. Matt’s 283 victories stand as the most for any team in school history. In 2001, he was inducted into the Rutgers Athletics Hall of Fame. Matt passed away in Lavallette at the age of 84.