Essex County's Jim Morrissey Honored For Caddie Support To NJSGA
By Mike Moretti
For the past 30 years, Jim Morrissey of the Essex County Country Club has been a leading advocate of the NJSGA’s Caddie Scholarship Foundation.
Through his dedication and perseverance, Morrissey almost single-handedly has helped raised thousands of dollars for the worthy cause from the Essex County membership that has aided hundreds of young men. In 2011, Essex County ranked No. 9 among all NJSGA clubs with a donation of $21,590 to the Caddie Scholarship Foundation.
In 2011, Essex County was one of the top three Par Club contributors in the state. It takes just a $100 donation to become a Par Club member.
For Jim, it comes from the heart. And it has come full circle. His father, Jim, Sr., was a caddie himself at Essex County around the turn of the century. It was at Essex County, one of the 10 founding members of the NJSGA, that the greats of the game would pass through.
“Jim Morrissey embodies the spirit of appreciation for the people who helped him in life and committing his efforts to helping others achieve. Be it Essex County Country Club, Seton Hall University or our Caddie Scholarship program, we all share in his generous time and thoughtful commitment,” said Ed Batta, chairman of the Caddie Scholarship Foundation.
Bobby Jones, Frances Ouimet and Sam Snead were among the greats that Jim Morrissey’s father had the opportunity to watch perform at Essex County, a Tillinghast course that was then one of the finest venues in the country.
By age 20, James Morrissey Sr., left the caddying ranks and carried another bag, that of a postman, a profession he worked faithfully for 50 years.
In 1929, when Jim was just two, Jim’s grandfather Thomas, an inventor who worked in Thomas Edison’s lab in West Orange, passed away.
Thomas patented his button-making machine in 1894, among several other inventions, and Jim has mounted a campaign to have his grandfather remembered at the Edison National Historical site in West Orange, where the lab still stands.
Jim began his caddie career in 1941 at age 14, thanks to the good fortune of having Crestmont C.C. assistant pro Jim Toomey residing on the same block in Orange.
“The first day, five of us piled into Jim Toomey’s car. He told us he would take us up to Crestmont and we would learn how to caddy,” said Morrissey, who then worked at Crestmont for four years
One day, in 1941, a special visitor was seeking a caddy.
“The caddie master brings this big guy over to the shack. He picked my friend Elmer Gordon, who was a stringbean at 6-foot-4, but was wearing sneakers. The big guy asked him if he could run fast. Then he told Elmer, “Every time my bottle of Coke is empty, I want you to run to the refreshment stand and get me another cold one. “
Well that “big guy” turned out to be Babe Ruth himself, a friend of head professional Danny Williams and his assistant, Danny Williams Jr.
Three years later, Morrissey at age 17, signed up for the U.S. Marine Corps. It was during the height of World War II, June 1944, when he began basic training. His brother-in-law, his sister’s husband, had already been killed in action earlier in the conflict. Interestingly, Jim and Elmer reconnected in the Marine Corps as members of the 5th Division when Jim began basic training at Camp Pendleton in California.
“I became an expert marksman, but I ended up with a B.A. R., a big heavy machine gun. I wound up a replacement in the 5thMarine Division, the division that invaded Iwo Jima. My company was held back. We were being trained for the invasion of Japan,” Morrissey recalls. “That never happened because of the atomic bombs sent by President Truman.”
While training on the big island of Hawaii at Camp Tarawa, an unexploded bomb was triggered, costing a nearby Marine his leg. Morrissey, somewhat more fortunate, was hit by shrapnel that also resulted in a compound fracture of the right leg. The injuries landed him in the hospital for eight months before he was finally discharged in May, 1946. The explosion also affected his hearing.
Shortly after being discharged in 1946, Morrissey met his future wife, Eleanor Kalenowski, on the beach in Avon-By-The-Sea. Coincidentally, she was from his home town of Orange. The couple has been married since 1951, a year after Jim graduated Seton Hall College on the GI Bill.
Jim spent his life in the insurance business. The high point was a 15-year stint with Bankers National Life Insurance of Parsippany. He rose to Agency Vice President, overseeing nine regional vice presidents.
In the meantime, his interest peaked in the game of golf. He first joined Essex Fells, then Glen Ridge, and finally brought his family of five children to Essex County in 1970.
A 10-to-14 handicapper, he once won a First Flight Club Championship at Essex County. He also will never forget his only hole-in-one. It happened during a match in which the ace was attached to a closest-to-the-pin prize. That turned out to be a pair of Foot Joys!
Jim also has fond memories of bringing his then-retired father to Essex County, the course where he had caddied so many years before.
“He was shy at first, remembering what the club was like 50-60 years before. He thought it was all millionaires up here. Finally, we got him to relax and then he would come out and hit some balls. He could hit them straight, both lefty and righty,” Jim said.
Morrissey is exceedingly proud that all three of his sons had the rite of passage, that is, the experience of caddying.
“I see it as the greatest preparation a kid can have. If you do it well, you can succeed in life,” he said. “And you meet fantastic people who can help you along the way.”
His sons are all successful. Peter, 55, is an executive in the mortgage industry in San Francisco. Tom, 53, is a senior vice president of design for Fox Studios in Hollywood, and Jay, 48, is vice president of a California company that sells guitars nationwide.
Jim has always been a huge sports fan. He was among the first to buy blocks of tickets for both business associates and his family to attend Seton Hall University games at both the Izod Center and currently, the Prudential Center, where he still owns 12 seats. He was also a season ticket holder for Giants games at the Meadowlands.
A great Yankee fan, at the request of his friend Tom Gibson, the chairman of the Yogi Berra Golf Outing, Jim was able to sponsor the initial Berra Outing at Essex County before it was permanently moved to the Montclair Golf Club.
“I remember Mickey Mantle standing on the tee of the ninth hole and years later and recognizing me at Montclair because we had worked on the tournament over the years. Ironically, it was at the ninth hole where I made my first hole-in-one in 1997,” Jim said.
Jim’s legacy will be his dedication to raising money to the New Jersey State Golf Association’s Caddie Scholarship Foundation. Thanks to Jim’s dogged determination to the cause, Essex County year after year has been among the top five clubs in contributing to the worthy cause of sending young men and women to college.
Jim’s been the head of fund-raising there for the CSF since 1980 and is still going strong thanks to the help of Essex County’s accounts receivable administrator Sheri Bock, who helps organize the donations.
“I had the good fortune to caddie for Jim during the summer of 1951 at Essex Fells Country Club, where he was a member. My recollection was that when he handed me $3.00, including a 50-cent tip, he said: “You know kid, when I caddied we only got $1.25 a bag,” Batta remembered.
“Our lives later intertwined again through the Caddie Scholarship Program and I have watched in admiration as Jim has not only raised several hundred thousand dollars at Essex County, but also has personally made sure that deserving young people were aware of the scholarships; in many cases, he has made sure the requirements were met when the kid’s follow-up was a little lax.
“He is “Mr. Caddie Scholarship” at Essex County.”
The membership at Essex County sought to honor Jim Morrissey in a special way.
“Jim has been a loyal and valuable member of the ECCC family since 1971. To spend time with Jim, either on the golf course or in the clubhouse is truly a valuable and eye opening experience,” said club president John Delaney.
“His sense of the history of Essex County, its membership and our involvement in the Caddie Scholarship Program is a treasure. The stories he can tell of former members gives us all a sense of where we are and where this great club has been in years past.
“When one of our Board Members, Peter Byram, suggested that we make Jim an honorary member, everyone readily agreed. As you well know, Jim is a very special person, and we are honored to have him amongst our ranks here at Essex County,” Delaney stated.”
Bill Raftery, a popular and long-time broadcaster of college basketball for ESPN and CBS and has served as an on-course commentator for Champions Tour events, was a long-time playing partner with Morrissey at Essex County, from the early 1970s to 2000, when he left to join Baltusrol.
“Jimmy was the catalyst for all the fund-raising at Essex County. He had keys guys at other clubs to make sure they would contribute to the Caddie Fund. Most of us were living hand-to-mouth then. We weren’t making a lot of money and supporting young families,” Raftery stated.
“But every year, Jimmy would get you for the Caddie Fund. He was so good at it, he could’ve been connected. “
In 1972 Bill Raftery took over as head basketball coach at Seton Hall University. As an alumnus, Morrissey couldn’t help but encourage Raftery as much as possible. Within a few years, Raftery had joined Morrissey at Essex County.
“He’s always been a big Seton Hall fan. He was very supportive of me, and when I left (in 1980), of P.J. Carlesimo as well. He was also a very successful businessman in the insurance field, mostly involved with banking. For a while, I was involved with banks, so we would meet at conventions and spend many enjoyable nights together.
“Jimmy was also active at Essex County. I’m glad to see him get honored there. In the days we golfed, we played a lot of $5 Nassaus, but you’d think it was for $500. Jimmy was a very good competitor and knew how to play. I still remember a lot of the big putts he’d make.”
