Heading into the annual Tonawanda-North Tonawanda football game, there is not a lot of subtlety at the Angelo A. Delsignore Civic Building in Niagara Falls.
Visitors to the building are immediately greeted with a “Beat North Tonawanda” sign. Head upstairs to the chambers of Honorable Justice Frank Caruso, and you might find a dozen more signs celebrating the Tonawanda Timberwolves and urging them to “Beat NT.”
Justice Caruso is a proud Tonawanda alumnus from the Class of 1974. Though he didn’t play on the football team, he has joked that he did make an impact on the beloved annual game as first saxophone in the school’s marching band.
Sitting in his chambers decorated with Tonawanda mugs, tumblers and even pens and notepads with the new Timberwolves logo, a Tonawanda jersey-clad Caruso laughed and joked with Court Officer Mark Krupp and Family Court Judge Kathleen Wojtaszek-Gariano, who both graduated from North Tonawanda High School.
The friendly banter around the Tonawanda-North Tonawanda game has been perfected over nearly two decades, with jokes and one-liners causing all three to break out in infectious laughter.
The rivalry began in the chambers 18 years ago, as Justice Caruso and Krupp discovered they went to the opposing schools.
“He brought up how he played football for NT, and I brought up how I shared the gridiron as well, but on the marching band [for Tonawanda]. And then he started to laugh,” Justice Caruso said. “And we decided to make a bet, a friendly bet, on the T-NT game that year, that whoever loses had to bring a cake in, to say the other team rules. And of course, I brought the cake in. 17 out of 18 years.”
In 2019, Tonawanda beat North Tonawanda, and Justice Caruso got to enjoy the sweet taste of victory that Monday morning in the form of a cake that his colleagues couldn’t help but decorate with mentions of the rarity of a Tonawanda victory.
As they sat in the chambers together, the three shared some of their favorite stories of the courthouse rivalry over the years. Justice Caruso has become a familiar face at DiCamillo Bakery in Niagara Falls to order the postgame cake, to the point that one of the workers got confused when he showed up at the bakery outside of the rivalry week.
“The woman that’s accustomed to seeing him all the time, she says, ‘Oh honey, did they lose again?’” Krupp said. “And he says, ‘It’s not even the game, yet!”.
They also remembered when Justice Caruso stopped at Wegmans to order a Tonawanda-themed cake the Friday of the game, and got confused when it was made in the blue and red colors of NT. He later learned the baker who made that cake was from North Tonawanda.
Just like 18 years ago, Justice Caruso kicks off the rivalry each year.
“I realize it’s the T-NT game because there’s something plastered on my mirror or on my parking spot. He starts it every year,” said Justice Wojtaszek-Gariano.
Over the years, there have been NT parking signs covering up Justice Caruso’s parking spot, Tonawanda signs on Judge Wojtaszek-Gariano’s car mirror and this year, a NT colored stuffed bear sitting near a sign in Justice Caruso’s chambers that said, “Go Jacks! Even our band is better!”
When asked why they continue the tradition every year, their answer was simple.
“The fun, it was fun. It still is,” Justice Caruso said. “It’s a beautiful thing about the T-NT rivalry, it doesn’t end.”