22nd Annual Special Olympics
Plane Pull
Bergen County put it all on the line
Dave Kaczor of Bergen County Sher-
iff’s Local 134 was going to make his first
year as his team’s leader at the Plane Pull
count. In fact, it was a point of pride to
try and outmaneuver the competition.
“You’ve got to be the best…got to be
the strongest!” he told his team, to get
them pumped. “We have a good strat-
egy. We’re twisting the rope harness,
keeping it nice and taut.”
Local 134 President Matt Murray ex-
plained that the strength and size of
Kaczor as anchor, and the rest of the line
working in unison, were the secrets to
their success.
“We tried to crank it out pretty good,”
Murray says. “We pulled that plane pret-
ty fast. We kind of had something where
as soon as the horn went, we knew we
were going to pull, immediately. Every-
one just kept talking to each other, ‘Keep
pulling! Keep going! Keep grinding in,
dig in!’”
The teamwork was also a metaphor
for how this local operates on a daily
basis.
“We always have our brothers’ and
sisters’ backs. We always take care of
each other. We’re a huge family,” Murray
explains. “We have a great group of guys,
and we love doing it and we love coming
down for the children and Special Olym-
pics. We try to get involved as much as
we can. We have great men and wom-
en in this Local that just always want to
give back.”
At the end of the day, he adds, when-
ever his team comes out for the plane
pull, they know that everyone is 100 per-
cent in.
“It’s great, it’s great!” he says enthu-
siastically. “Because we know we did it,
we went all out. We put everything on
the line.”
Pulling together sends Bergenfield members flying
For Bergenfield Local 309 member
Robert Mader, nothing could compare
to the man-versus-machine moment he
and his teammates experienced at the
2018 Plane Pull.
“I mean, it’s the greatest feeling in
the world — that you pulled this giant
plane!” he said with a laugh. “I don’t
know how long we had to pull it for, but
we pulled a plane however many feet.
It’s a good feeling...it’s a good feeling.”
Retired member Frank DaCos-
ta agreed. “I thought maybe I needed
to gain 15 more pounds (to get some
traction). But when it started moving, I
thought that was pretty awesome.”
He added that getting together with
other officers from around the state for
an important cause made the day of fun
even better.
“We all are a blue family, that’s for
sure,” he said. “A lot of guys are involved
68
NEW JERSEY COPS
■ OCTOBER 2018
in lots of different things, whether it’s
the Special Olympics or a Unity Tour.
And you meet people from everywhere.
That’s the best thing about it. Even
though you work in different areas, we’re
all basically one big family.”
That doesn’t mean he didn’t carefully
check out the competition, particularly
the impressively strong team from Pas-
saic.
“I was trying to take a shirt and put it
over that one guy’s head to kidnap him!”
he joked. “We could have used him!”
Mader said that their team — which
competed as a unit for the first time this
year — had a not-so-unique plan going
into the pull. Their strategy? To have no
strategy at all. “Just get out there and
pull!” he said, chuckling.
It worked, because Bergenfield pulled
the plane the 12-foot distance in just
over 10 seconds.
“I think we did an excellent job,” Mad-
er said proudly.