Yearbook predicted he would sit on high court

TRENTON, N.J. — In the red-brick colonial, just outside Trenton, where Samuel Alito grew up, his mother has kept a meticulous record of his rise.

It starts with a scrapbook labeled "Sam 1" and continues through at least two more, packed with certificates, awards and news clippings.

On the first page of Volume 1, Rose Alito has written: "To Sammy, I hope this book will bring back to mind many proud memories of your many achievements — and I know there will be many."

To those who know Samuel Alito, his ascent — from brilliant student to U.S. Supreme Court nominee — has come as no surprise.

Family and friends describe him as hardworking. Smart. Analytical. Principled. Family- and faith-oriented, but no ideologue. And a nice guy.

Having grown up in an Italian Roman Catholic family, Alito, 55, remains devoted to the church. As a child, he served as a lector at Our Lady of Sorrows Church, where his mother still worships.

Alito's parents pushed their son and his younger sister, Rosemary, now a prominent New Jersey employment lawyer, to be their best at everything.

"I said, 'These children are going to be the smartest children' in Hamilton Township. That was my goal," said Rose Alito, 90, a former schoolteacher.

She spent Monday fielding congratulatory telephone calls. "I'm so excited I can't even express myself," she said.

More candid than her son might wish, she said, "I think he was upset that he didn't get there in the first shot, that Miers got it." That was a reference to Bush's choice of Harriet Miers, who has since withdrawn.

Indeed, a phone call from her son brought interviews to a close. "Oh, Sam, there are people all over the house and in front of the house," Rose Alito said when he called. On the other end, Alito was apparently telling his mother not to say anything further and to order reporters out of the house.

If confirmed, Alito would be the fifth Catholic on the Supreme Court. "Of course he's against abortion," his mother said, another comment supporters in Washington might wish she'd held back.

Alito's mother said her boy was a regular kid in many ways. He took piano lessons and loved to play baseball. (He remains a loyal fan of the Philadelphia Phillies, and in his Newark chambers hangs a life-size poster of former all-star Mike Schmidt.)

At Hamilton East-Steinert High School, a classmate recalled that teachers often excluded Alito's scores when they graded on a curve, because he was so far ahead of everyone else. "We all knew A's were not the equivalent of Alito A's," he said.

He was accepted to Princeton, Yale, Harvard and Brown, and finally settled on Princeton for undergraduate studies. "He didn't fool around," his mother said. "He was there to study ... ."

When he graduated from Princeton University in 1972, he was clearly a young man on the move: His yearbook said he would "eventually warm a seat on the Supreme Court."

"My real ambition at the time was to be the commissioner of baseball," Alito said Monday. "I never dreamed that this day would actually arrive."

He got into Yale Law School, and after he graduated in 1975, his father — a teacher who went on to head the state's Office of Legislative Services — helped him get a job at a Trenton law firm. The senior Alito has since died.

The younger Alito left the firm after six months to clerk for Judge Leonard Garth of the 3rd U.S. Court of Appeals, a mentor with whom he now serves on the appeals court. Alito went on to become assistant U.S. attorney for New Jersey in the appellate division.

In 1980, he became assistant to the solicitor general in the Reagan administration and, after a stint in the Attorney General's Office, in 1987 was named U.S. attorney for New Jersey, where one of his assistants was Michael Chertoff, now U.S. Homeland Security chief. In 1990, the Senate unanimously approved President George H.W. Bush's nomination of Alito, then 40, to the 3rd Circuit.

Bob Del Tufo, U.S. attorney for New Jersey when Alito was an assistant, would love to see him move to the Supreme Court. Del Tufo, a Democrat who "can't stand Bush or any of the people around him," said "the public would be well-served" by the jurist.

Alito has been called "Scalito" for conservative views reminiscent of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, but Del Tufo said: "I don't think he's conservative or liberal. I think he's sensible and disciplined and talented. If anyone thinks they've got a market on him, they're wrong. He's his own person."

Friends and neighbors describe Alito outside of work as a regular — if quiet — guy. He, his wife, Martha, son Philip, 19, and daughter Laura, 17, live in a middle-class neighborhood in West Caldwell, N.J., about 20 miles from Newark. The judge is often seen jogging and walking their brown-and-white spaniel. He likes to cook but can't bake. In pursuing his love of baseball, he once spent a week at a fantasy baseball camp. He's also a coffee fanatic; T.M. Ward Coffee near his chambers in Newark created "Judge Alito's Bold Justice Blend" ($7.95 a pound).

Thom Ammirato, whose son played soccer with Philip Alito, said Samuel Alito always showed up to games — with a law book. His wife, he said, would "be cheering loudly, and he'd look up from his law book and say, 'Phil, way to go!' He could never get enough knowledge, I guess."

Material from The Associated Press, Newhouse News Service, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times is included in this report.