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Twins show the way for Steinert football with team-first mentality BY RICH FISHER It all started with a simple catch in the backyard, but not with a dad or a big brother. Twin brothers Isaac and Isaiah Pate would go out and throw the football with their grandmother, Stephanie King. “Every time we went over to her house, we would always beg her to go outside and throw the football with us,” Isaiah said. Isaac said the catches started when they were 4-years-old and noted: “She had a wonderful arm. I feel like that got me into football.” The main beneficiary of those backyard tosses has been Steinert’s football team, which got major contributions from both juniors in going 5-6, reaching the state playoffs and winning the Joe Logue Trophy by beating Hamilton and Nottingham by a combined score of
72-0 this fall. The Pates’ fingerprints were all over the Thanksgiving win over West, which was no surprise to coach Thaddeus Richards. Despite the fact Isaac is 5-foot-5, 135 pounds and Isaiah is 5-7, 145, every inch and every pound is sheer power. “They’re tough as nails and phenomenal human beings,” Richards said. “They’re two dynamic athletes who found their niche with us. They really believe in the whole ‘team first’ mentality that our program is built around. “You talk about playing above their size, playing out of their weight class... on tape when you see us play, it’s easy to tell they’re two of the toughest kids in our program. They really play the game the right way, intensity and purpose-wise.” In the Hamilton victory, Isaac won the Rich Fornaro Trophy as
Steinert’s MVP by rushing for 227 yards and two touchdowns. In two Turkey Day wins, he has rushed for 343 yards and three TDs. Isaiah played his usual shutdown game at cornerback and also caught a touchdown pass, which pleased his mom, Nicole. “I’m so happy that he got a touchdown,” Nicole said. “I don’t want Isaac just to get all the shine. Before the game I say to him, ‘You’re gonna intercept the ball.’” Isaac was just as happy, quickly running over to his brother and body bumping him as the two leaped in the air. Watching it all in a pouring rain was Nicole, who couldn’t stop smiling. And she had every right, for as a single mom, she made countless sacrifices to make sure they were raised the Steinert brothers Isaac (left) and Isaiah Pate leap in celebration right way and got the chance to for Isaiah’s touchdown catch in the annual Thanksgiving game See PATE, Page 12 against Hamilton. (Photo by Amanda Ruch.)
Towns wrestle with affordable housing deadlines BY BILL SANSERVINO New Jersey municipalities are once again under the gun to build thousands of units of affordable housing thanks to a new state law passed earlier this year. Every town in the state is cur-
rently up against a Jan. 31 deadline to pass a binding resolution to formally adopt their affordable housing requirement over the next decade. The goal is to address a statewide demand for almost 150,000 low- and moderate-income units. Under numbers released by
the state earlier this year, Mercer County towns would be required to rehabilitate a total of 1,800 existing affordable units (mostly in the City of Trenton) as well as provide for the construction of 3,500 new units. Because the construction of these affordable units is often
subsidized through the construction of market rate housing, it could result in tens of thousands of new houses in Mercer County alone. In March, Gov. Phil Murphy and the state legislature approved new affordable housSee AFFORDABLE, Page 8
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