Fastpitch softball with the Vipers and Renegades

HARRINGTON PARK, N.J. — It started 10 years ago and continues with momentum. Whether it is the North Jersey Vipers or Northern Valley Renegades, their amazing fastpitch softball saga has turned our area into a lively, fertile sports playground.

Bob Germano has seen it from the beginning with his wife Liz and two daughters, Lindsey and Raegen. In one form or another, all can savor a slice of this satisfying journey that shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, when Raegen’s windmill pitching delivery clocks past 60 miles per hour with unfailing accuracy and efficiency, it is the equivalent of a 90-mile per hour Major League fastball.

As a co-founder of the age-group girls programs (with Craig Weis), Germano, an Old Tappan resident since 2003, has watched his club ranks of athletic 8- to 18-year-old girls swell to numbers now in excess of 150 from as many as 20 different Bergen County towns and 23 county high schools, plus several Rockland County communities. Along the way, his girls have won countless titles, state age-group championships and dozens of college scholarships, including a number to softball-strong Division 1 schools. The Vipers also were finalists twice in national tournaments.

“It’s nice to see our girls progress to All-County players through the Vipers program,” says Germano, whose daughter Raegen was a county champion as a freshman, all-county as a junior and will be completing her senior season at NVOT this spring.

The Germanos have softball in their veins. Bob played outfield at Park Ridge High School, several years at Seton Hall University and 150 games a year in men’s fastpitch leagues for 25 years. Liz was a high-school left fielder, and her sister-in-law, Laura Germano, was a three-sport high-school athlete and played softball at Ramapo College.

Their daughters have embraced the programs designed to build relationships, reputations and community spirit. Raegen started pitching lessons in the second grade and still takes two lessons a week during the year. “Pitching is a year-round craft,” Germano says. “You have to stay sharp. It’s like dominoes. If one thing goes wrong, the whole lesson collapses.”

The two programs have differing objectives. The Vipers is a more serious year-round program designed for girls between 10 and 18. Girls can play for their respective high-school teams during that season and still remain an active Viper traveling to games throughout the Northeast. In the 2019 Bergen County championship game between NVOT and Ramsey, 23 current and former players were on both teams. In the 2021 Ramsey-Mahwah matchup, 15 current and former players were represented.

“It was hard to watch and fun to watch,” Liz recalls of the 2019 final, “because we were rooting against our former players.”

“We want the Vipers to be a major part of our kids’ lives,” Germano says, noting that a Viper could play as many as 80 games in a full season. “But we don’t want to let it be a takeover.”

As a more casual program, the Renegades start accepting members as early as 8 through 14, begin once-a-week practices in February, with the main season from May through July. A nice feature with the Renegades, and a philosophy that the Germanos have adopted from day one, is that no players, regardless of ability level, are cut.

Though the Vipers and  Renegades have different seasons and objectives, for those girls who want to try other sports in their respective seasons, the flexibility is there and even encouraged. Life lessons, Germano says.

Interestingly, the Germano girls took slightly different paths. As early as age 4, Raegen watched and mimicked  her “big sister” but drifted to pitching. Lindsey emerged as a power-hitting first baseman and has added coaching as part of her career path as an elementary and special education teacher.

“We’re all very competitive,” says Reagen. “The feeling of winning with friends is the best thing I like about it.”

But the game has changed, Germano says, and not simply because of an extended pandemic.”If we had started today,” he says, of the many pressures and outside influences confronting parents and their children, “I don’t know if we could have done it.”

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