• Harold "Buck" Thompson -

    Class of 1940

    Football, Basketball, Baseball

    Presenter - Jack Ford

     

    Thompson played end for Coach Granville Magee's single-wing teams from 1937-39.  It was during his senior year that Manasquan (who had generally been perceived by the press as an underachieving squad in the previous two seasons) put together an 8-0-0 run, winning both the Shore Conference and NJSIAA Group II Titles (back then state and Shore winners were chosen on a elaborate point system. It was believed to be known as the Colliton System).  The Blue and Gray, as they were known back then, was the first team in conference history to win both the Shore and State titles in the same season. Buck was cited as a unanimous selection All-Shore Conference end and 2nd Team All-Group II, and was given the Peter Blocksom Roetzel Award as the school's most outstanding football player. 

     

    Herb Kamm, in a later Asbury Park Press article from 1941, referring to Thompson at the University of Delaware, called him as "the greatest end Manasquan has ever produced".

     

    On the basketball court, Thompson was a leading member of the first team in Manasquan's history to win 10 or more games in a season.   His senior year, the Blue and Gray went 17-2, losing in the final games of both the Shore Conference (a loss that knocked Manasquan out of its No. 1 ranking which it held most of the season) and State Tournaments. He finished the season 3rd in scoring, was cited by the Asbury Park Press as the Shore Conference's "most outstanding pivot man", was an All-State selection, and was given eth Frederick Lyman Abbott Award as the school's most outstanding basketball player.

               

    Buck went on to play for Bill Murray's Blue Hens at the University of Delaware from 1941-42, and again in 1946.  His career at UD was interrupted by his service in the war, during which he landed at Normandy Beach on June 7, 1944.

     

    During his days at UD, the Blue Hens would go 25-0-1.  In 1946, Thompson led Delaware to its first-ever post-season game and a win over Rollins in the 1946 Cigar Bowl, in Tampa, FL.  That year, UD claimed it's first National Title (small college) and finished 19th in the AP's major college football poll.  Thompson was selected an AP Honorable Mention All-American set two records that year that still stand at UD:longest KO return for a TD (99 yards), and longest rush from scrimmage (98 yards).

                   

    In 1947, he signed a contract with George Halas to play for the Chicago Rockets of the AAFC, but was traded to Branch Rickey's Brooklyn Dodgers of All-American Football Conference, running down passes on the same turf that Jackie Robinson ran down hits.  Thompson is the first professional football player to graduate from Manasquan High School or the University of Delaware.

                   

    After his playing days were completed, Thompson turned to teaching and coaching in Upper Darby, PA, and served on the University of Delaware's Board of Trustees, Chairing the UD Athletic Visiting Committee.  He is a 1996 inductee into the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame, Wilmington, and a 1999 Inductee into the University of Delaware Athletic Hall of Fame, Newark.