By Jim Hague
While Lyndhurst’s Patrick Rono clearly earned The Observer Male Athlete of the Year award for the last scholastic sports year, there were a host of other local prominent male athletes from the Observer circulation area that were worthy of the honor as well.
We can start with Harrison’s three-sport standout Rahim Douelfakar, who would have earned the honor in any other year. Douelfakar was a great football player, a fine basketball player and one of the best volleyball players in New Jersey. Finding that kind of diversity is very rare, but Douelfakar established himself as one of the finest all-around athletes in the history of Harrison High School.
Douelfakar will now move on to play volleyball at nearby Rutgers-Newark, which has a fine and established volleyball program. He was a credit to Harrison High and will continue to represent the area well into his high school days.
Another Harrison athlete worthy of recognition is Brian Costa, who was a fine member of the respected Blue Tide soccer program and joined Douelfakar to become a main cog in Harrison’s best volleyball season in school history.
To read the full story, see this week’s issue of The Observer.
