The Dutchmen are flying in football fame

December 19, 2022 Andy Furman

Erasmus Hall High School has a glamorous facade. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

Erasmus Hall High School. Eagle photo by Lore Croghan

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Yes, Allen Leibowitz not only remembers – he’s not at all surprised.

After Erasmus Hall High School topped Canarsie High, 21-0 in the PSAL “A” Championship at Springfield Gardens High School last week, Leibowitz pretty much knew it was going to happen.

For Erasmus – and their coach Danny Landberg – it was their fourth consecutive city title – a PSAL record.

The Flying Dutchmen have been in the championship ten times – and Landberg’s men have won five.

“That’s quite a feat,” Leibowitz, the former PSAL Football Commissioner, told the Eagle. “I have known Danny since his high school days at Midwood, when he was a student there, and played football with my son, Sean.”

Leibowitz, who played and later coached football at New Utrecht High School says he’s stayed in close contact with Landberg throughout the years once he graduated college.

In fact, it was Leibowitz who recommended him for the teaching and football position at Erasmus.

Talk about an eye for talent.

“When he started coaching,” Leibowitz continued, “he would stop at my house after practice on his way home and we would discuss football strategy.”

Apparently, those talks paid off.

“It didn’t stop there,” Leibowitz added, “I watched him grow to be a great family man, as a successful teacher and coach and a role model for all who come in contact with him.”

And despite all his success, Leibowitz says Landberg remains humble.

And with all the championships – five – perhaps Landberg’s greatest feat – sending his players to college – to play football.

Deonte Roberts, a linebacker, was the first Dutchman to play for Rutgers University. In fact, no less than seven Erasmus football players have accepted scholarships to Rutgers.

Roberts was a two-time captain for the Scarlet Knights.

Erasmus Hall, founded in 1786, is the second-oldest high school in America. It boasts a garish list of alumni, including chess champion Bobby Fischer, singers Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond, boxing promoter Bob Arum, Oakland Raiders owner (the late) Al Davis, NBA great Billy Cunningham, Giants owner Bob Tisch, Chicago Bulls and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, music producer Clive Davis, NFL great Sid Luckman, and most recently, Washington Commanders wide receiver Curtis Samuel.

Yet today, the school is a football powerhouse.

Perhaps one of the largest for public high school football talent in the Northeast.

As for Landberg, he arrived at the Flatbush-Avenue school in 2001, began coaching in 2005.

In his 18 years as a coach, some 35 players have earned FBS scholarships and 18 have earned scholarships from FCS schools – an average of more than four Division One players-per-year since 2009.

Com wrote: Erasmus Hall campus has an enrollment of 1,800 students, and its Federal-style architecture – with large street-side lanterns, owl and gargoyle sculptures and Tiffany-stained glass windows – is juxtaposed with current-day realities; massive metal gates, a metal detector and security guard waving wands and checking the identities and bags of students and visitors.

Players from New York City can cross borough-lines to play for the Dutchmen – and some do.

This year’s championship was a special one for Landberg.

“It was very special for this particular team,” Landberg wrote via text to the Eagle this week. “We made this season all about becoming better people and a closer team. Loving and caring for one another and giving it all for the sake of each other.”

Landberg says his team worked really hard for this and preparation, he said, “became a lifestyle not a practice. And I couldn’t be prouder of a bunch of kids who worked as hard as any of the other teams we’ve had here. Tough as nails – a real brotherhood.”

Perhaps the next step for the 49-year-old Landberg is coaching college football. The opportunities have been there, according to a report in NJ.com – but he says the timing is not.

He’d leave Erasmus, he says, only for an assistant role that would allow him to recruit New York City players and develop them.

That’s not surprising.

Not at all for Allen Leibowitz.

Andy Furman is a Fox Sports Radio national talk show host. Previously, he was a scholastic sports columnist for the Brooklyn Eagle. He may be reached at: [email protected] Twitter: @AndyFurmanFSR