On the day Hamilton Township names two Veterans Park recreation soccer fields after the late Bob Rostron and Paul Tessein, the honorees will likely be looking down from above, wincing in tandem at the fuss being made over them.
“He would be humbled but embarrassed by the gesture,” Tessein’s son, Scott, said. “He just loved to recognize the players and loved to see their achievements and see them shine.”
Brian Rostron felt likewise about how his father would react.
“If my dad was here, he’d be very surprised to know he was getting a field dedicated to him,” Rostron said. “He was very humble. He never talked about all the things he did for soccer. He’d probably say he didn’t deserve it. Luckily for him, he has good friends, family and teammates to speak up for him.”
Speak up they have, and the honor both Hamilton Township soccer icons are receiving is well deserved.
The idea was the braintrust of Hamilton native and former Rider/Mercer County Community College coach Charlie Inverso, who incorporated invaluable aid from former Steinert/Rider baseball/soccer coach/player Rich Giallella.
If anyone knows about having their identity attached to a field, it is Giallella, as Steinert’s baseball diamond is named after him. His attitude is similar to what Tessein’s and Rostron’s would likely be.
“It’s a great honor but one in which I don’t know if I’ve earned,” said Giallella, who was close friends with both men. “You don’t ever say ‘One of my goals is to have a field named after me.’ It’s beyond what you ever intended when you started coaching.
“But, it’s also great in many ways because your family members, your children or grandchildren will know about you. It’s a great honor because people evaluate and say ‘This person really had a great influence on a number of young adults in whatever sport it is.’ These two guys are both highly deserving of having their families walk into Veterans Park and walk on those fields and say to their grandchildren or family ‘That was my husband or friend or grandfather.’”
Both legends died in the month of January, with Tessein passing in 2021 and Rostron this year. When Rostron departed, Inverso approached Giallella about naming a field in Veterans Park after him. The idea was met with full support and Giallella added that Tessein deserved the same accolade, to which Inverso completely agreed.
The fields are adjacent to Kuser Road and stage recreation games along with high school JV and freshman contests. They can be accessed by walking up from Kuser, or by entering the park and turning right between the tennis courts and dog parks.
The dedication ceremony will be Friday, September 6 and start at 3 p.m., an hour before the Colonial Valley Conference season-opener between Hamilton West and Steinert on Albert Cowell Field.
On hand will be Mayor Jeff Martin, councilman Charles “Chuddy” Whalen and Community and Economic Development Director Fred Dumont, who will emcee the event. Giallella credited all three with doing an outstanding job of putting things in motion after he approached them with the idea.
Each man’s family members will be on hand, with Scott Tessein and Brian Rostron giving speeches. After the ceremony, a portion of the Hibernians Club on Kuser has been reserved to continue the celebration.
“We’re hoping this is a nice gathering of the close-knit soccer community in Mercer County,” Inverso said. “Both of these guys were throwbacks to a great era of soccer and both deserved to be celebrated.”
Tessein, a captain for Hamilton West in his playing days, was the secret weapon behind state championship Steinert teams coached by Bob Pivovarnick and Mario “Goose” Laurenti. From 1963-73 he coached powerhouse Reynolds Junior High teams that fed into Steinert along with Nottingham Junior High. Tessein got the Spartans job in 1974 and over the next 15 years Steinert went 257-49-28 with four state championships, 15 Top 20 rankings and two No. 1 state rankings..
“What Paul brought to Steinert was modern soccer,” said Inverso, whose teams played against Inverso’s Notre Dame squads. “He was tough. You didn’t mess with him. He had a lot of tough characters to coach at Steinert and they all bought in and they all played for him.”
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Giallella became Tessein’s assistant in 1978 and stayed with him through their final state title in 1988. The two were almost like a comedy team with their “lively” conversations (i.e., disagreements) during games.
“His definitive answer without saying a word would be to just look at you and walk away,” Giallella said with a laugh. “After a while it was really funny. But he knew what he wanted. It took me a little while to evaluate my role, and when we both were able to understand each other, he trusted me and he would listen.
“But at times he would become very, very stubborn when it came to people doing the right thing. I would say ‘We need to do this,’ and he’d put somebody in and this person would not play the way he wanted and he’d take him out.”
Still laughing, Giallella added: “A little later I’d go over and say ‘Paul I think it’s time to put so-and-so in,’ and he’d just yell “Get away from me!’ I’d say ‘OK’ and go over to the kid and say ‘I think you better put your shirt back on because I don’t think you’re going back in.’”
But Giallella quickly noted that for the most part Tessein leaned on his assistants, who included Tony Armenti and Ted Kinter. He also pointed out that while Tessein had skilled players, that didn’t automatically mean his teams would be great.
“You gotta have talent to win, you can only do so much as a coach,” said Giallella, who won three state titles in baseball. “But when you get the talent you have to be able to get them to play together and sacrifice themselves.
“You can say how great that ‘77 team was (ranked No. 1 in the nation by Playboy magazine), and it was a great bunch of players and an intelligent bunch of guys. But to do what they did you gotta have somebody leading you. You can’t have just anyone out there.”
Giallella noted that one of Tessein’s best ideas was keeping 22 players on the varsity roster so the second team of mostly underclassmen would practice against the first team.
“He’d say ‘I want those kids to get better because next year is their turn,’” Giallella said. “He said their practice would be better than playing a JV game. The practices were hard and competitive and the players learned from what he was saying. And we still had great JV teams with Ted Kinter.”
Tessein’s daughter, Paula Chaussepied, followed her dad into the profession as West Windsor-Plainsboro North field hockey coach. She and brothers Scott and Sean will proudly be in attendance for the dedication.
“It’s a good thing that he is being honored for his all his accomplishments,” Sean said. “I’m proud that this is happening for him.”
Tessein was more than a high school coach. He also coached Olympic Developmental teams for 25 years and was a recreation and travel coach for the Hamilton Township Recreation Soccer League, for which he served as president. Tessein expanded HTRSL from rec to travel as soccer was his passion on all levels.
“He loved what he did and did what he loved,” Scott Tessein said. “One cannot ask more than that. It was a life well lived and we as a family are humbled by the gesture to name a soccer field after him.”
The Rostron family feels the same way as Bob’s wife, Mary, daughter Amy Cuccia, Brian, his three granddaughters and three sisters all share in the pride.
“Our family is very appreciative for the honor of having a soccer field dedicated to Bobby,” Mary said. “His dedication to soccer was witnessed by many. This means that his legacy will live on and people will be reminded of his passion when they see the field and sign and we hope it will bring a smile to their face.
“His heart was in soccer. He truly enjoyed coaching and watching his players develop as individuals and as a team.”
Brian, a former Hamilton West head coach, added “This is a fitting tribute, and we thank everyone who made this happen. He would hope everyone enjoys the field, and ‘Kick it like you mean it,’” he said, stressing Rostron’s famous catchphrase.
Rostron was well known for his playing skills at Steinert and at Rider, where he was a teammate with Giallella.
“I scored the goals, but that’s because Bobby controlled the field and got the ball to me,” Giallella said. “None of it would have happened without him.”
Inverso, who’s a Mercer soccer historian when it comes to the 1960s and 70s, noted that Rostron was “The Man” on a club team roster full of superstars.
“The greatest team in Mercer County history was the Trenton Extension,” Inverso said. “(Mercer Hall of Famer) Timmy Murphy said that was Bobby’s team. You had guys on there like (Hermann Trophy winners) Mooch (Glenn Myernick) and Billy Gazonas, and (NFL and NASL player) Matt Bahr. Joe Sec was the coach but Bobby ran the show. Here’s a guy that was an accomplished player and great coach and you would see him out lining the field on Sundays. You’d never see that nowadays.
“You look at the fact he worked in a methadone clinic until the time of his death. That shows you what kind of guy he was. He was in the Air Force, in Viet Nam. This is the least that can be done for him.”
Rostron, like Tessein, is in the Mercer County Soccer and Steinert halls of fame after an award-winning career that he was modest about.
“If he got an accolade of some kind he was embarrassed by it,” Giallella said. “He was always one of the best players, if not the best player I played with on every team that we played on. He motivated you because of how he played. He always played extremely hard and the people around him had to play extremely hard. He had a great skill set and his love of soccer was very similar to Paul.”
When his playing days ended, Rostron became a local coach on the recreation and travel level and helped develop countless young players who went on to star in high school and college.
“He did everything for the township in soccer and I’ll bet you nobody knew what he did except the kids who played for him,” Giallella said. “Paul and him were very similar in that the game of soccer should be played a certain way. And if it wasn’t played that way they both would be very critical.”
It is fitting that recreation fields will be named after the two, since they both made a huge impact on local rec soccer despite being more well known for what they did at the high school level
“We have to really thank Chuddy, Freddie and the Mayor for this,” Giallella said. “Giving something like this to Paul and Bobby gives Charlie and I great satisfaction. You have to say both of those people did it in different ways, but they meant something special to me.”
Judging by the honor they are receiving, they meant something to a whole lot of people.
