“Mr. Old Bridge,” Ron Mazzola, second from right, with Old Bridge wrestling coach Bryan Garnett (middle) after winning his 100th match. (Source: Ron Mazzola on Twitter)
He’s been at it a while, seen a lot, and does a little of everything.
Ron Mazzola is most well-known to the average fan as being the PA voice of Old Bridge football. His first game was by accident, a rescheduled game due to rain that ended up being played at Edison, and the main announcer, Gus Persch, was unavailable.
The Knights beat No. 2 Hillsborough that day 49-0. The rest, as they say, is history.
But even before that, Mazzola was busy behind the scenes, not long after he graduated Madison Central High School in 1978, having played baseball and basketball for coaches Walt Peto and John Somogyi.
He was involved in many youth sports and did PA on frequent Madison and Cedar Ridge night soccer games.
He’s done video for Old Bridge teams, helped run the GMC wrestling tournament and gymnastics championships.
He even helped run the first “unofficial” Big East wrestling tournament in 1996 at the behest of then-Rutgers coach John Sacchi.
In the midst of it all, after having worked at various now-gone sporting goods stores like Herman’s, Gervin’s and Route 18 Sports, he opened his own business – Prestige Imaging – which still thrives to this day, despite a downturn during the pandemic, and provides the Greater Middlesex Conference with all its postseason awards.
They even helped create the new Old Bridge uniforms after the Madison-Cedar Ridge merger. (He’s still got the rejected color combo jerseys -“retro” jersey day, anyone?)
I sat down recently with Ron to talk about his involvement with local sports.
Click below to hear Mike Pavlichko’s interview with “Mr. Old Bridge,” Ron Mazzola: