From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank

It was July 15, 1988, at the U.S. Olympic Track Trials at the Michael A. Carroll Track and Soccer Stadium on the campus of Indiana University Indianapolis campus. The Burlington County Times had sent me and ace photographer Dennis McDonald out to Indy to cover the large South jersey contingent at the Trials, and that Friday afternoon Lenape graduate Mike Pascuzzo was competing in the high jump. Mike – “Scooze” – had PR’d with a 7-5 that January in a Metropolitan Athletics Congress indoor meet at West Point and matched it in June when he placed 6th at the U.S. Championships in Tampa. But this wasn’t his day and he failed to clear opening height of 7-1 ½.

After his 3rd and final attempt, he remained in the pit on his hands and knees staring straight down in disbelief, and Dennis captured that heartbreaking moment with a full-color photo that ran the next morning on the front page of the BCT. [Somehow, Dennis found that image this morning,, and that’s what you see here] For the next 35 years, Mike gave Dennis and me plenty of good-natured ribbing about that photo every time we saw him. It was something we laughed about literally for nearly four decades, and I can’t believe I won’t get the opportunity to laugh with him again.

Mike was a true heartbeat of track and field in South Jersey. Nobody cared more about the sport and nobody gave more to the sport as a competitor, coach, organizer and entrepreneur. In the winter of 1981, as a Lenape senior, Mike broke the South Jersey indoor high jump record three times, culminating with a 6-11 in a meet in Glassboro State College’s gym. That remains the No. 3 mark in South Jersey history behind Mike Morrison’s 7-4 ¼ in 2003 and Terry Ferguson’s 7-0 in 1987. Mike went on to win a JUCO national title competing for Hagerstown and earned NCAA All-America honors at Maryland – where he also won an ACC long jump title – before spending several years traveling the world and high jumping on the pro circuit.

When he retired from competition, he turned his energy over to doing everything he could to help grow the sport he loved. He coached at Lenape for decades and had a bunch of outstanding jumpers – Musa Cooper, Dan Mitchell and Ty Coughlin among them – and founded the long-running Vertical Adventures camp, where every summer for over 30 years he gathered a remarkable collection of world-class athletes in every discipline who donated their time to work with athletes from South Jersey and beyond. Nearly 20 years ago, he started an annual beach pole vault competition that ever summer draws hundreds of vaulters in different age groups and categories to the beach in Atlantic City. Mike coached at Lenape but for decades if you were over at the high jump at any big meet, you would see Mike helping athletes from every school, many of whom had attended his camps. Coaches from other schools didn’t mind because they knew Mike just wanted the best for every competitor.

Mike was an idea guy. Every time you’d see him, he’d have another big idea of how to make track better, and they all made sense. You’d say, “That’s impossible, it’ll never happen,” and then he’d shake his head and explain why it could happen and tell you what he was doing to make it happen. When he was frustrated that FedEx couldn’t get a set of camp brochures from Manhattan to Mount Laurel in one day, he started his own courier service,, All-American Courier Services. And Mike was tireless in his efforts. He would drive up to White Plains, N.Y., every May to post camp brochures at the massive Glenn Loucks Meet and then race down to Northern Burlimgton to post brochures at the BCSL meet later that day. And he’d always have a Glenn Loucks program for me, since he knew I went to White Plains High. In fact, one of my teammates at White Plains, distance runner Greg Herzog, was Mike’s teammate at Maryland. When we first met in the mid-1980s, that was one of the first things we talked about.

Scooze died this weekend up in the Poconos. He was 63. It’s impossioble to imagine South Jersey track without Mike. He’s meant so much to so many athletes, coaches and parents over the years, and I was looking forward to seeing him in two weeks at the South Jersey Track Hall of Fame banquet. It’s hard to imagine going to a meet and not seeing Mike and sharing a laugh and listening to his latest ambitious idea or project. I was always so impressed with the enthusiasm he would have talking about a freshman who just PR’d or a kid from some school in Western Pennsylvania who had come to his camp and just cleared 6-8 for the first time. Here’s this former world-class high jumper – still ranked in the top 100 in U.S. history with his 7-5 ¼ PR from New York in June of 1992 – who got as much satisfaction from helping a 9th-grade kid clear 5-10 for the first time as he did when he PR’d himself. “Scooze” was one of a kind and he’ll be missed tremendously by everyone he crossed paths with. Peace and love to Loretta and all of Mike’s friends and family.