{"id":212345,"date":"2024-10-15T09:07:03","date_gmt":"2024-10-15T13:07:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/?p=212345"},"modified":"2024-12-17T15:51:05","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T20:51:05","slug":"oh-the-places-you-will-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/2024\/10\/15\/oh-the-places-you-will-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh, The Places You Will Go!"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, September 18, guest speaker Leon Zimmerman came back to Montclair State University after graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1959. Zimmerman reflected on his adventurous 12-and-a-half-year career with The Bergen Record<\/em>.<\/p>\n

From writing one or two stories for his Weehawken High School newspaper to being the sports editor for two years at the Montclarion<\/em>, he \u201cwasn\u2019t the traditional English major,\u201d Zimmerman explained. Intrigued by his father\u2019s stories about famous baseball heroes of the time, and inspired by his love of reading sports magazines, Zimmerman had ambitions to become a sportswriter.<\/p>\n

While he never became a full-time sportswriter, he went on to major success at The Record<\/em>. He began as a regional news reporter when he first joined its staff. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what story I\u2019d get, but it was exciting,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

His assignments got him into many interesting situations, which included Zimmerman getting the opportunity to meet legendary Yankee players Yogi Berra and Elston Howard while writing a story about the building of the largest Yoohoo! bottling facility (at the time) in Carlstadt, NJ.<\/p>\n

Zimmerman was also inside the Yankee locker room to do stories on other players. But his most interesting sports interview came when he met and interviewed Elston Howard at Howard\u2019s home in Teaneck. Zimmerman got an early-morning assignment to cover a story about the Yankee catcher and left fielder, as he\u2019d just won The American League’s Most Valuable Player in 1963. \u201cThe sports department didn\u2019t do a story about this, so they asked me to go to his house and interview him,\u201d Zimmerman said.<\/p>\n

He fondly remembered not wanting to wake up Howard for the story since it was eight in the morning, but later found out that the Yankee player was already up; he\u2019d been baling water from the basement since 3A.M. As a result, \u201cI was the first person who interviewed Elston Howard for that award,\u201d Zimmerman laughed.<\/p>\n

He also covered stories that had him traveling to New York City, specifically remembering writing about and interviewing a seminary student from Yonkers who was a longshoreman on the docks of New York during the summer. Zimmerman\u2019s journey also brought him to Norfolk, Virginia, to land on an aircraft carrier via a WW2 fighting plane, with six other journalists who were invited onto the excursion. He recalled bringing a \u201cSend Help\u201d banner that was folded inside a road map in his car, as a joke. While on that assignment, Zimmerman met a lieutenant commander from Bergen County who rescued United States astronaut Gus Grissom after a sub-orbital flight mission.<\/p>\n

Zimmerman\u2019s focus changed when he was assigned courtroom coverage for the paper. \u201cI would go to the courthouse every day to check lawsuits,\u201d he stated during his presentation. During this period, he discovered a lawsuit with examples of racial and ethnic bias in real estate practices in Wayne, NJ, which became a major story.<\/p>\n

Another experience came when Zimmerman covered the murder of two policemen in Lodi at a local bar. Because Zimmerman was headed home and the bar was on the way, he got there before any other reporter and before the scene was ready: \u201cI saw bodies under blankets, before being escorted away. I worked late in the night and co-wrote the story about the murders.\u201d Zimmerman said. \u201cI also covered the murder trial.\u201d The crime that Zimmerman covered was the Trantino Murder, one of the most famous of the era.<\/p>\n

Zimmerman later became a political writer during his time for The Record. Covering political figures who came into Bergen County and New Jersey, he had the opportunity to meet eventual president Gerald Ford when he was the minority house leader, and covered large political events in other states and territories, such as Kentucky, Idaho, Puerto Rico, and Missouri. He also covered the Republican National Convention.<\/p>\n

His biggest achievement was his coverage of the United States \u2013 Soviet Union Summit in Glassboro, NJ in 1967, earning himself a White House press badge. He would later donate the badge to Rowan University during its 100-year anniversary.<\/p>\n

Zimmerman later left the newspaper business and focused on politics and coordinated campaigns for New Jersey politicians. Because Leon had so many stories to tell about the first part of his post-Montclair career, he told the audience he would be willing to come back again to talk about those other experiences.<\/p>\n

The English Department<\/a> and Office of Alumni Engagement<\/a> were pleased to have Leon return many decades after his graduation. His story took him from Montclair to the Yankee locker room, to an MVP\u2019s living room, to an aircraft carrier, to a notorious murder scene, to the Republican National Convention, and to a major geopolitical summit–and that was just the first part of his remarkable career.<\/p>\n

Leon\u2019s wife, son, and granddaughter attended the presentation to watch him tell his story, along with a fellow 1950s English major and current English majors and faculty.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Written by Victoria Ribarich<\/em><\/p>\n

Click on an image below to enlarge photo.<\/p>

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  • Photograph of Leon Zimmerman (right) and another journalist from The Record<\/em> posing with a \u201cSend Help\u201d banner that he jokingly brought onto the WW2 plane the two men were boarding.<\/li>\n
  • Leon Zimmerman speaking to Yankees players Yogi Berra and Elston Howard while writing a story about the building of the largest Yoohoo! bottling facility(at the time) in Carlstadt, NJ.<\/li>\n
  • Leon Zimmerman posing for a photo with his wife Julie, son Rob and granddaughter Camille after the lecture.<\/li>\n
  • Photo of Leon Zimmerman and Professor Jeffrey Gonzalez.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    On Wednesday, September 18, guest speaker Leon Zimmerman came back to Montclair State University after graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1959. Zimmerman reflected on his adventurous 12-and-a-half-year career with The Bergen Record. From writing one or two stories for his Weehawken High School newspaper to being the sports editor for two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":212347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-20_chss-news","category-57_english-department","category-7_homepage-news-and-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212345"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212530,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212345\/revisions\/212530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/chss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}