Before starting this essay, I want to make a declaration to Arthur Agee and William Gates. I would love to interview the two of you if you read my essays reflecting on Hoop Dreams. I have my own sports YouTube channel entitled, Big Discussion76 Sports. You are both royalty as far as I am concerned and talking to you would be a dream come true for me personally.
Hoop Dreams: Arthur Agee and William Gates
This piece is another promotional essay for my two-part book project entitled, The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Long before writing my story, I fell in love with the documentary Hoop Dreams produced by Steve James, Peter Gilbert, and Frederick Marx. Hoop Dreams follows the basketball dreams of Arthur Agee and William Gates throughout high school into college. The two youths grew up in the West Garfield Park and Cabrini Green neighborhoods in Chicago, Illinois, respectively.
The documentary inspired me, and there are similarities between their stories and that which I tell in my own project. Arthur and William came much, much closer to the National Basketball Association (NBA) than I ever did, admittedly. I am thus, in no way saying that I was at their level talent-wise. I crafted this piece simply as a fan. Their stories touched me as there were some common themes between us.
There were several subthemes to Hoop Dreams. My previous piece focused on the Gates brothers. It discussed Curtis Gates’ impact on William’s basketball journey. This piece will revisit Arthur Agee’s up and down basketball journey and its significance. Arthur’s story was one of perseverance with unexpected highs and lows and redemption at the end.
As described in my essay about the Gates brothers, I purchased the special deluxe edition of Hoop Dreams. One of the powerful bonus features in it is Arthur and William’s voiceover commentaries. You can also listen to the commentary of the producers.
Optimistically Starting His Basketball Journey at St. Joseph’s of Westchester
At the start of Hoop Dreams we see that young Arthur Agee, Jr. grows up with both of his parents, Sheila and Arthur Agee, Sr. His father is referred to as ‘Bo’ throughout the movie. Arthur is referred to ‘Man’ by the family, a nickname he received as a toddler as he was ‘Daddy’s Man’.
“He has the quickest first step. I will bet you a steak dinner that we will be hearing from him in a couple of years.” Earl Smith discovers Arthur early in Hoop Dreams while ‘beating the bushes’. He is a talent scout for private schools like St. Joseph’s of Westchester (St. Joe’s), where No. 11, Isiah Thomas, played high school basketball. Isiah became a star at Indiana University and then in the NBA for the Detroit Pistons. Beating the bushes was simply scouting talent around the city from certain high schools.
Coach Pingatore and the St. Joe’s Boys’ Basketball Program
“Basketball has to be second to your academics. If you do not get your grades, then you are not going to play. If you work hard with your grades and you work hard with basketball, then I will be able to help you as far as going to college.” The studious looking Coach Gene Pingatore talks with Arthur and his family in a key early scene. He discusses being a student athlete at St. Joe’s. “I cannot guarantee where you are going to go or if you will be a star. But I guarantee that I will help you get into the school that will be best for you!”
“I am making a commitment to you, if you make the commitment to be a part of this kind of program,” Coach Pingatore continues as the Agee family looks on. Earl Smith took them to the school for an introductory visit and a basketball clinic. While there Arthur meets his prospective future varsity basketball coach and ponders the next four years of his life and beyond. ‘Coach Ping’ describes the culture and expectations of the St. Joe’s boys basketball program. He further seeks to develop an early trust with the Agee family.
Arthur Navigates St. Joe’s
“It was strange for me going to a far out school. I saw a rug, flowers, and clean hallways – things I did not see at an ordinary school. I was excited about seeing something different.” Arthur enrolls at St. Joe’s, though the exact terms are not revealed in the film. He makes the hour long commute every day, sometimes in the harsh winter weather conditions. It is like going to new world for him.
Arthur’s talent and abilities are evident as he leads the St. Joe’s freshman team to a winning record. We see the quick first step Earl Smith described in a clip of him hitting the game winner for the freshman team. While Arthur excels on the basketball court, he struggles a little bit academically and indulges in mischief at times. These were not unusual for young men at that age, speaking from personal experience. In general, his prospects at St. Joe’s are positive going forward.
“I had just never been around a lot of white people. It was different because at a black school I could associate with people who talked the way I talked,” Arthur says describing the environment and culture at St. Joe’s. “It is a little hard, but I can adjust to it.” Though it was not discussed as much, William Gates had to make similar adjustments.
“If he is there, I will be shocked,” Arthur says, going to the basketball clinic the day of his initial visit to St. Joe’s. A producer asks him about the prospect of seeing Isiah Thomas in person. His face lights up at the prospect of meeting the Chicago basketball legend.
“It was like a million guys were trying to be better than the other one. But to me, I was better than all of them, except for Isiah!” Arthur describes the atmosphere of the St. Joe’s boys basketball clinic. The producers show the St. Joe’s gym full of boys going through basketball drills and receiving instruction as he speaks. The scene captures the innocence, newness, and structure of learning how to play organized basketball versus street basketball.
“In every neighborhood there is a guy who can really play and shoot the lights out every time down the court.” Isiah Thomas addresses the young basketball players in the stands after being introduced by Coach Pingatore. He wears his Detroit Pistons practice gear. He acts out making three baskets with a swooshing noise. “Then the guy goes to St. Joseph’s High School and the guy gets cut. They say, ‘Tom was real good. Why did he get cut?’ See, Tom did not learn the fundamentals of team basketball, which is what you are learning how to play.”
Arthur Looked Up to Isiah Thomas
“He told my Daddy that he knew I could play, so he had to play me hard,” the young Arthur says. The footage shows him slowly walking onto the court to play one on one with Isiah Thomas grinning in disbelief. He guards the Detroit Pistons star over one of the riveting horn-led instrumentals of the documentary. Bo is shown laughing and enjoying the scene in the stands.
“I was in a daze just looking at him – looking at the logo on his shorts. This is my idol right here! I did not know that I was going to play him though. Looking at him, I just wanted to hit him on the wrist and just swap at him,” Arthur says in his commentary with William Gates.
“I could not believe it. I was just so geeked. Anything he did like a pump fake, I just went right for it. I was turning around smiling. If that had been anyone else, I would have fouled them,” Arthur says. “He might have made it, but I would have fouled him. I did not even touch Isiah Thomas!”
Team Michael or Team Isiah? Chicago’s Two Basketball Heroes and Rivals
“I drew on these with my name, ‘Tuss’,” Arthur says part way through Hoop Dreams. The sequence takes place in his West Garfield Park room. He holds a pair of sneakers up to the camera showing the name TUSS inscribed in red letters. This was a common practice for inner-city kids at the time. “I heard his nickname used to be Tuss, so I just started calling myself Tuss!” The comments are played as a black and white photo of Isiah is shown giving his signature grin at a Dominique Wilkins basketball classic.
In Arthur’s room you can see paraphernalia of both Isiah Thomas and the Chicago Bulls’No. 23, Michael Jordan. While Isiah was a homegrown Chicago basketball legend, his position as its favorite basketball son was arguably usurped by Michael. Their rivalry has been covered extensively in basketball lore. Many of the Chicago natives were likewise torn between the two who became bitter basketball rivals at one point.
“Arthur was always more into Isiah Thomas than I was. I was always into Michael Jordan,” William Gates admits during his commentary. While directly compared to Isiah throughout the film, he was more of Michael Jordan fan.
“When I was playing ball back in the neighborhood, they said if you made a nice pass, you were Isiah Thomas. If you made a nice move, you were Michael Jordan,” William Gates continued. “We lived more in the fantasy of the game than the actual reality.”
Arthur and William came of age during what many called the Golden Age of the NBA. It was the era where Michael Jordan, Isiah Thomas and other stars played the game with an artistry and passion unique to that time. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird spearheaded it, and it caused kids everywhere to dream, realistically or not.
Challenges Off the Basketball Court, Economics and Their Ripple Effect
“I worked for Sarah Lee and got laid off. I worked for Scholars Meat Packing and got laid off. You know. You look around your house and you see your food getting low. Your bills are due here and your bills are due there,” Bo Agee states in front of the Agee home, looking concerned and tired.
St. Joe’s increased its tuition in Arthur’s sophomore year coinciding with Bo getting laid off from several jobs. Arthur’s family paid half of his tuition out of pocket, which was affected by Bo’s loss of employment. The result was Arthur having to leave St. Joe’s and enroll at Marshall Metro High School, a public inner-city school, and a different world.
Several scenes later, Arthur plays pickup basketball at a neighborhood court with his peers. He wears a red Push Excel replica jersey from the famous Chicago professional charity exhibition game. Arthur puts the ball behind his back and scores from the top of the key before confidently trotting up the court. He also developed the ability to play above the rim and dunks the ball off one foot in stride.
“You have got old legs, Dad!” In this riveting scene Bo shows up with his shirt off, dressed in sweatpants and is visibly not himself. He tries dunking the ball like Arthur and his friends and misses. Afterwards, he participates in a drug purchase in the far corner of the court. I debated noting this scene out of respect for the Agee family. It showed, however, Arthur’s growth as a player and some of the adversities he faced during that stretch.
Arthur’s Altered Trajectory
“If I had known all of this was going to happen, Arthur would never have gone to St. Joe’s,” Arthur’s mother, Sheila, says distraught over what happened to Arthur. “Arthur’s tuition was supposed to have been paid for. His books were supposed to have been paid for and none of that happened!”
After his bills not being paid, Arthur had to sit out of school for weeks at a time before finally transferring. The Agee’s experience was not uncommon as many families over the years had to pull their children out of private schools due to economics. I saw similar things in Buffalo. One player I interviewed for my book project, The Engineers, experienced the same thing; Dennis Wilson of Turner/Carroll, and Riverside High Schools in Buffalo.
“I thought Pingatore and them would help me out. I guess he thought I was not going to be that big of a ball player. So why would he just waste money on me staying there?” A despondent Arthur discusses his treatment by St. Joe’s after enrolling at Marshall. He wears Dwayne Wayne-style glasses and a Dominique Wilkins-era Atlanta Hawks jersey. “Or he just thought I was not going to grow. He kept asking me, ‘When are you going to grow?’ I said I don’t know.”
“If he was going out there playing like they had predicted him to play, he would not be at Marshall! Economics would not have had anything to do with him not being at St. Joe’s,” Arthur’s new Coach, Luther Bedford, an older black man, authoritatively states in his base-filled grandfatherly voice.
“Somebody would have made some kind of arrangement and the kid would have still been there,” Coach Bedford continues. “He was not making it like they thought he was going to make it on the basketball court, so he is not there. It is as simple as that, and it does not take no brilliant person to figure that out!”
From St. Joe’s to Marshall and Navigating Academics and Basketball
“Here you have a youngster caught in the middle of two separate school systems. Had he stayed at St. Joseph’s, he would have been able to receive credit for that first semester. It does not seem fair, but that is the system,” says Marjorie Heard, a guidance counselor at Marshall discussing the turmoil created by Arthur’s transfer.
Like a lot of kids, Arthur had to make the transition from St. Joe’s to Marshall. One could argue that his greater adjustment was going out to St. Joe’s initially. Marshall was closer to home, and he had more in common with his classmates there culturally. You can visibly see how different the environments were when the producers follow Arthur around the hallways of Marshall.
Regardless, his love for the great game of basketball continued in the maroon and gold. He continued pursuing his basketball dream at Marshall joining the junior varsity team in his sophomore year wearing the No. 11 in honor of Isiah Thomas. He then earned a roster spot on Coach Bedford’s varsity team during his junior year where the team was marginally successful.
Being a Leader and Navigating Life Off the Basketball Court
Another sub thread that resonated with me from Hoop Dreams was Arthur’s friendship with his buddy Shannon. Shannon moves in with the Agee family due to problems in his home in a short mention in the documentary. They are kindred spirits and inseparable. There are scenes of them sneaker shopping, working at Pizza Hut and of course, playing basketball. They were once teammates at Marshall. Coach Bedford notes that, “Arthur was the lesser of the two evils,” in terms of personality and needing discipline. In a scene during Arthur’s junior year, Shannon is in fact seen in the stands dancing during a game.
“I told Shannon to stop doing that stuff!” The producers capture Arthur lamenting Shannon’s involvement in the drug game towards the end of Hoop Dreams. Arthur eventually distanced himself from his friend for getting involved in the same thing that plagued his father, Bo. The sequence resonated with me because my best friend in Buffalo and I started off playing basketball together. He subsequently went into the streets, forsaking school, and the game. I kept playing basketball like Arthur who showed leadership by staying on his path.
Arthur’s Return to St. Joe’s and Wondering What If?
“I am going to watch a playoff game out at St. Joe’s later. Would you like to come?” Late in Hoop Dreams, Big Earl Smith comes to one of Arthur’s games as a senior at Marshall. He was the scout who took Arthur and his family to St. Joe’s in Arthur’s eighth-grade year. He asks Arthur about going to St. Joe’s to see a sectional game. Arthur agrees after pondering it momentarily.
“I am at Marshall. Our next game is against Crane!” Wearing his gold Marshall Hoop Squad jacket, Arthur walks through the halls of St. Joe’s before the St. Joe’s-Nazareth game. He runs into former classmates and teachers who are all surprised and excited to see him. Everyone is excited to see him, and some teachers do not recognize him because he has grown in stature and matured.
Arthur passes by trophy cases full of pictures and commemorations of William Gates’ successes as a Charger. Along with Arthur, watching the scene you wonder about what could have been had he stayed at St. Joe’s. You wonder how dangerous St. Joe’s could have been with Arthur and William teamed up in the same back court. Arthur had in fact grown and matured as the St. Joe’s coaches had asked about earlier in the documentary. He also became a force to be reckoned with on the court as predicted by Earl Smith.
We Could Have Used You Arthur!
Arthur and Earl Smith watch William’s final game against Nazareth. The game ends in heartbreaking fashion as William misses the game tying-shot in the closing seconds. Coach Pingatore benched him early in the game for arriving late. The loss ends William Gates’ own bittersweet high school basketball career. To read more about this see my William Gates essay.
“Man, I did not think I would go out like this!” Arthur comforts an emotional William after the game who is processing the early ending to his senior season. Though not well covered throughout the movie, Arthur and William knew each other well.
“I am striving for the same things,” Arthur says as his Marshall Commandos are still alive.
“I love you, boy,” William says as the two embrace and part ways.
“We missed you, Arthur! We could have used you! I talked with Coach Bedford, and I will be watching you!” Coach Pingatore lauds Arthur while sipping on a soda immediately after St. Joe’s end of season loss. As you watch that scene, you wonder what Arthur is thinking when Coach Pingatore utters those words. You wonder about his sincerity. You further wonder if he felt regret about not doing more to keep Arthur at St. Joe’s. Finally, you wonder if coaches look back at their decisions regarding players and if they sometimes regret them.
Arthur and the Commandos’ Journey Downstate
“What’s up man? I told you on the phone what I was going to do!” Shortly after defeating Westinghouse in the Chicago public school championship, the producers show Arthur running over to William in the stands of the Chicago Amphitheater. Dressed in his Chicago Bulls jacket, William came out to see the game with his girlfriend and now wife, Catherine.
“I always dreamed of me and William taking them downstate together. When I was at St. Joe’s maybe we could have gone down state and maybe not. But we did when I was at Marshall.” Marshall defeats Batavia at the state semifinal and Arthur’s voice is heard over footage of their unlikely comeback victory. He discusses once dreaming of him and William doing it together. William watches the game at home as Arthur and his teammates come within one game of winning the whole thing.
In both Arthur and William’s commentary, they acknowledge that their high school basketball careers went in opposite directions. While William and St. Joe’s failed to go downstate, Arthur, Coach Bedford, and the Marshall Commandos embarked on a ‘Cinderella run’. They finished with a strong league record defeating King Preparatory High School enroute to winning the city championship.
All the hardcore basketball fans who have watched Hoop Dreams know that King had a player that season named Rashard Griffith who went on to play in the Big Ten at the University of Wisconsin. Likewise, defeating them was no minor undertaking. In the state tournament they defeated Batavia, led by Lamarr Justice, before falling to Peoria-Manual that led by guard, Howard Nathan. They did not walk away with the championship, but they did experience going downstate. The state tournament is something all high school players covet. In any locale and municipality, going to the state championship is a very big deal, and the experience of a lifetime.
Arthur’s Academics Catching Up
“I do not think anybody in their right mind is crazy about school. Do you think if the President offered to cancel school, that students would protest?” In a comical early scene, Arthur laments about having to do schoolwork. Like a lot of kids he does not understand the importance of academics for life and for his hoop dream.
“I really wish he could have stayed here,” Sheila Agee tells Michael O’Brien, St. Joe’s Director of Finance. Arthur graduating from Marshall required release of his academic transcripts from St. Joe’s for which there was an outstanding balance. Not having the transcripts set him back academically causing him to graduate in the late summer. He went on to play his first two years at Mineral Area Junior College.
Arthur matured physically and had developed the skills to play Division I basketball by his senior season. There was only one problem though. It was a problem that has stifled many talented basketball players over the years, his grades. As described throughout the documentary, he had to figure out how to excel academically, something I can relate to at that age. It was also something I did not figure out until college.
Continuing to Chase the Dream
“When I was young, when I was little, all I used to think about was the NBA. I can go. I can go. If I get into a good college, I can go. But if I do not, I am not going to be a drug dealer crying about it, sticking up gas stations or nothing like that. I will probably go into comedy or architecture,” Arthur says at Mineral Area Junior College. I cannot say that I will, and I cannot say that I will not (experience the difficulties of my father).”
At the conclusion of the documentary, like William, Arthur realizes the realities of his basketball dream speaking with a more somber tone. The producers then show footage of Arthur at Arkansas State University, shooting free throws. The riveting clarinet solo track used throughout the movie is playing. He was projected to be a major contributor on that team.
There was a sequel to Hoop Dreams, Hoop Reality. It captured Arthur’s journey post Arkansas State and chronicled the journey of a newer Marshall Commando, NBA player Patrick Beverly. Patrick also led Marshall downstate as a senior. Arthur describes his continued pursuit of the NBA after graduating from Arkansas State at the start of Hoop Reality. He decided to retire after playing in the CBA for several years. He devoted the rest of his life to his business endeavors which included being a motivational speaker and developing his own clothing lines.
Arthur Agee, Jr. Remembers Arthur Agee, Sr.
“You want to see it rain? LET IT RAIN!” In Hoop Dreams, shortly after the Marshall Commandos lose the state tournament, Arthur and Bo play one on one. They are shirtless and their family and friends look on. It was the perfect follow up segment to the earlier footage of Arthur and Bo in the same park during his eighth-grade year. Bo uttered the same words, “Make it RAIN!”
“You want to see it rain? LET IT RAIN! This is what Howard Nathan did to you!” Arthur is now a Division I prospect. He is likewise more than a match for Bo who jokingly taunts him about raining baskets out of the sky.
“And this what I did to him,” Arthur confidently says hitting the game winning jump shot. Bo takes it in stride and jokes with Sheila and the other onlookers. The scene shows that their family had recovered from the tumultuous period following Bo’s struggles. They had come full circle.
In Hoop Reality we learn that Bo grew closer to God. He started a ministry and a church. We see the seeds for this in Hoop Dreams when he returns to the family. In one scene they all attend church together. It was in that stretch where Arthur had to learn to trust his father again. In Hoop Reality we also learn that Bo had a business himself selling sports apparel and sneakers out of the family’s garage. He died one fateful night during a potential sale and robbery. They recovered from everything the family had gone through. In my opinion that was the significance of Arthur opting to share that part of their lives. They had come full circle, which I think was important to share with audiences.
Important Themes from Hoop Dreams, Sports and Life
“When I heard that you were coming to St. Joe’s I felt like I was not going to be the Lone Ranger,” William jokingly notes in their co-commentary of the film. Arthur further speculates that William needed Arthur there for support. William notes that basketball was Arthur’s refuge during that tumultuous time in his life.
As described, had Arthur stayed at St. Joe’s, he and William would have teamed up. The two would have been a formidable pair. The operative words here are, would have. These two powerful words often come up in most sports (and life) conversations. The Larry Bird-led Boston Celtics’ dynasty would have continued had Len Bias not died. The Phoenix Suns would have defeated the Chicago Bulls in the 1993 NBA Finals had Cedric Ceballos not gotten hurt. The Buffalo Bills would have won Super Bowl XXV had their offensive staff adjusted earlier to the New York Giants’ defense. My basketball career would have turned out much differently were it not for my junior year injury.
The latter would have is true for countless athletes who faced adversities and injuries that deterred their sports dreams. The reality is that we never know how things would have turned out had things gone differently in key situations. This is one of the most intriguing things about sports and this is something that touched me about Hoop Dreams. It is also a key theme in my own book project, The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story.
Hoop Dreams’ Biggest Lesson
There is another common theme which you can observe in Arthur and William’s journey as it relates to his knee injury at St. Joe’s. You may have your dream, but there are also circumstances in life that are out of your control. Likewise, when adversities occur the only thing you can do is focus on the things you can control. What happened to Arthur was a perfect example of what can happen to young people in the early chapters of life.
Your life circumstances are often out of your hands. This is one of the most valuable lessons that sports can teach us. This is also why Hoop Dreams touched me the way that it did. It continues to be one of my favorite documentaries/movies to date. I highly recommend it if you have not watched it.
Arthur and William are both on YouTube right now, by the way. They have their own YouTube channel entitled, the Hoop DreamsPodcast. There they discuss basketball, other sports-related topics and life. They are also on Twitter, and I follow them there. Arthur (@tusshoopdreams) regularly tweets about Hoop Dreams. He also tweets about the clothing and paraphernalia he has created to continue his brand. Finally, he continues to encourage others to pursue their dreams.
Closing Thoughts
Thank you for reading this piece. Hoop Dreams is a three-hour documentary. I wrote this fan essay touching upon certain aspects of it and not reproduce every detail. I highly recommend watching it in its entirety yourself, especially if anything I said here resonated with you. The images in this piece are from the booklet accompanying my Hoop Dreams DVD and soundtrack. The cartoon illustrations of Isiah Thomas come from the book BASKETBALL (AND OTHER THINGS). Arturo Torres is the illustrator.
More promotional/teaser pieces for The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story are on the way, both via print and video as I journey through the final steps of completing the book. There is a page here on Big Words Authors for the purpose of giving a background of the book and grouping all the promotional pieces, such as this in one, for interested readers.
On my first blogging platform, the Big Words Blog Site, there are interviews of some of the most accomplished Section VI players from my era including: Jason Rowe, Tim Winn, Carlos Bradberry and Damien Foster. I also interviewed legendary LaSalle Head Basketball Coach, Pat Monti. Finally, there are several other basketball-related essays connected to my book project. If you liked this piece, please share it on your social media and leave a comment beneath this piece.
The Big Words LLC Newsletter
For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. I will protect your personal information and privacy. Click this link and register using the sign-up button at the bottom of the announcement. If there is some issue signing up using the link provided, you can also email me at [email protected] . Yours in good sports. Best Regards.
Big Words Authors was created not only to promote my own literary art. It was created to also help others promote their art. The following is the first ever film treatment on Big Words Authors. It was created and presented by Kevin Bloomfield and collaborators and this is an overview of their new project Forgiven.
SYNOPSIS
CARTER’S PAST- CARTER KNIGHT, aged 30, is in a high security prison. After quickly and brutally defeating a larger inmate in a yard fight, he is knocked unconscious by a guard.
MANY YEARS PRIOR, we see MARCUS WOODS being baptized in a small church. He’s a city man – there is some grit to him. His wife TAMARA and son, MARCUS JR. don’t match the small town either.
That night, Marcus tucks his son into bed, and then is ambushed by armed intruders. Among them is GRIFFIN OWENS, his old crime partner. When Marcus refuses to return to the crime syndicate, Griffin executes him and Tamara. Marcus Jr. witnesses it all from the shadows of his bedroom.
BACK TO THE PRESENT – Marcus Jr. AKA CARTER KNIGHT is released from prison. After a mysterious phone call, Carter meets FBI AGENT FENTON. In exchange for his continued freedom, Carter agrees to work for Fenton. He knows Griffin Owens’ location and sends Carter to observe him.
In Cape Town, South Africa, we’re reintroduced to Griffin. Time has changed him, softened him. He now goes by Pastor Owens and is traveling with a local ministry.
Carter arrives in Cape Town. He soon meets and rescues a young woman named Lisa from street thugs. They sleep together. Carter leaves her apartment the next morning and attempts to assassinate Griffin. He fails, but finally comes face to face with Griffin and his bodyguard, CHAUNCEY.
Carter follows Griffin, and again attempts to kill him at a busy outdoor café. He is unable to pull the trigger when he sees Griffin’s lunch date. It’s Lisa. She is Griffin’s daughter.
CHARACTERS
CARTER
CARTER KNIGHT – Carter is an avenger, trapped between competing ideologies, and is slipping ever closer towards the darker path. He loved his father, but he also fears that he never truly knew him. He fears he may be doomed to repeat this violent cycle, this life of petty crime and pain. But at last, he has found someone who knows the truth about his father, someone who saw it all firsthand. Unfortunately, it’s the same man who murdered Carter’s family and sent him down this sordid path to begin with.
GRIFFIN
GRIFFIN OWENS – When we meet Griffin, he is a killer. He is not without reservations, but he is too cold and calculating to let them hold him back. When we see him again, many years later, he has become something entirely different. He has quite literally gone from creating orphans to adopting them. He is traveling with a ministry and seeking atonement for his past. But at last, that past is catching up with him. And like Carter, he must finally choose what type of man he truly is.
LISA
LISA OWENS – Lisa lives in her father’s shadow. He is charitable and well-respected, but she has always sensed something terribly false about him. The closer he tries to reel her in, the more desperate she becomes to put distance between them. Inversely, she feels drawn to Carter, sensing a similar conflict within him. Their time together helps solidify her autonomous leanings and clears the path for her to finally set out on her own path to discovery.
AGENT MEYER
MEYER – As the catalyst to Carter’s journey, Meyer seems to be a valuable ally. But the very nature of her mission inspires suspicion. Why now? Why Carter? As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that this woman stands at the end of Carter’s darkest path, waving him onward, luring him deeper. And at the climax of their journey, when Meyer’s true intentions are finally laid bare, the cost of Carter’s failure may be more than he can pay.
Before starting this essay, I want to make a declaration to William Gates and Arthur Agee. I would love to interview the two of you if either of you read these essays reflecting on Hoop Dreams. I have my own sports YouTube channel entitled, Big Discussion76 Sports. You are both royalty as far as I’m concerned and talking to you would be a dream come true for me personally.
The Two Stars of Hoop Dreams
This piece is another promotional writing for my two-part book project entitled, The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Long before setting out to write my story, I watched and fell in love with the documentary Hoop Dreams, produced by Steve James, Peter Gilbert and Frederick Marx. Hoop Dreams followed the early basketball dreams of Arthur Agee and William Gates. The two youths grew up in the West Garfield Park and Cabrini-Green neighborhoods in Chicago, Illinois respectively.
The documentary was inspirational for me, and there are similarities between their stories and those which I’m telling in my own project. I must admit, though, that both Arthur and William came much, much closer to the NBA than I ever did. So, in crafting this piece I am in no way saying that I was at their level talent-wise; just that their stories touched me as there were some common themes between us.
Numerous Subthemes in Hoop Dreams
There were several subthemes to Hoop Dreams. I’m going to write something about Arthur’s journey as well. For now, I’ll just share that a powerful aspect of his story is attributed to how his hoop dream was affected many things. They were his father Bo’s decisions, the socioeconomics of Chicago, and finally our country’s economy at the time. Bo worked at Sarah Lee and at a key juncture of the documentary, he got laid off, which led to Arthur having to leave St. Joseph’s of Westchester High School for Marshall Metro High School.
Had Arthur stayed at St. Joe’s he would likely have teamed up in the back court with the movie’s other star, William Gates, the basis for this essay. What happened to Arthur was a perfect example of what can happen to young people, in that your life circumstances are often out of your hands. Again, this piece focuses on William and his older brother, Curtis. Both their stories were up and down journeys that most athletes can relate to, punctuated in the documentary by the emotional clarinet and saxophone solos at its key junctures.
The Next Isiah Thomas or The First William Gates
“If somebody can understand the way William plays, that’ll make me feel better, because they should’ve understood the way that I played!” As just described, the other star of Hoop Dreams was William Gates who started at St. Joseph’s of Westchester High School for the legendary Coach Gene Pingatore; all four of his years in the high school. For perspective, Coach Pingatore coached NBA hall of famer, Isiah Thomas. They went down state a decade earlier to the state finals at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne, a focal point in the documentary. They didn’t win it though, something Coach Pingatore revisits during the documentary. Throughout the story he tries to coach William to be the next Isiah Thomas.
“I think I see it in one kid who is coming here. He flows with the smoothness and confidence and strength that you don’t see in every kid. I think he can become a great player!” Early in the documentary, the studious looking ‘Coach Ping’ discusses William after reminiscing about Isiah Thomas. The producers overlay part of Coach Pingatore’s analysis with footage of his freshman phenom. Young William dribbles towards a netless basket at a local playground as Coach Pingatore talks. He launches off his left foot and dunks the ball with his right hand through the basket. Coach Pingatore further speculates that William will have a career similar to Isiah’s.
The Gates Brothers: Curtis and William
“I just bang him and bruise him. I’m just trying to let him know right now, you’re going to get hit. You’re going to get banged around. You’re going to get knocked around. So you’d better get used to it now!” Another early scene of Hoop Dreams shows Curtis and William playing one-on-one on the same neighborhood court. Wearing a 1980s inner city Jerry Curl hairstyle, gold chains and gym wear, Curtis discusses how he intentionally plays physical with his younger brother by eight to 10 years, because he would experience it at the varsity level. If you listen, Curtis also subtly tells William to develop his hook shot which is thought to be indefensible. My own father and another coach highly encouraged me to do the same thing when I played.
“All those basketball dreams I had are gone now. All I see is that all my dreams are in him now. I want him to make it so badly, I don’t know what to do!” Throughout the documentary amazingly you can see Curtis being the driving force behind William. In the same scene Curtis emotionally shares that his basketball dreams are now in his younger brother, who he talks about almost like a son. This aspect of the movie reveals a key secret to how many of the great basketball players became great; there was someone behind the scenes coaching them and guiding them.
Curtis Coaching William
“Jordan might go 15 out of 40. He might. But see, if you do that, you’re going to hear about it!” In another scene in the movie, William and Curtis are sitting in their wintery Cabrini Green projects watching a Chicago Bulls game. Curtis gives William his version of what’s happening in the game. The scene reveals another key area of growth for younger players, watching the games with someone more seasoned and hearing their perspectives.
“He said the boy is good. He’s got talent. He just doesn’t listen!” In the same chapter, Emma Gates, the mother of both Curtis and William, shared the elder brother’s words on the younger brother, a common dynamic amongst most brothers.
“He’s always telling me I should do this, or I should do that. Everybody is trying to be my coach!” Early in the documentary William laments the constant coaching and guidance his older brother gave him. While he ultimately benefits from it, he sounds disturbed by it at times.
Sleeping in The Stands During Practice
I purchased a special deluxe edition of Hoop Dreams. One of the more powerful extras in it is the bonus feature where William and Arthur give their commentary throughout the documentary. You can also listen to the commentary of producers Steve James, Peter Gilbert, and Frederick Marx. If you don’t have William and Arthur’s commentary, there are some valuable additional pieces you’ll never know. The two shared stories and other nuggets that didn’t make it into the final film.
“It’s time to get up. Let’s go!” At a key juncture, William reveals that it was Curtis who would religiously get him up in the mornings, sometimes wintery Saturday mornings at around 6:00 am, to get him to practice at St. Joe’s which was roughly 90 minutes from their home. William further commented that he would look up and see his brother asleep in the stands during practice.
This impressed me and revealed that William’s success was in large part built on the shoulders of his older brother who pushed him along in numerous ways. After hearing the commentary, I wondered if William would’ve have gotten to those practices without his brother’s support. My research for my project, The Engineers, also revealed that many of the great players in Western New York in my era were pushed by individuals in their respective circles just as William was pushed.
Curtis’ Choices During His Playing Days
“I know a whole lot about basketball. I guess that in so many words, I feel like I’m a pro at that in my mind,” Curtis reflects as he and William watch the Chicago Bulls game described earlier. In the footage he’s looking at the TV with his younger brother, almost enthralled.
“Curtis’ idea of being really good was you don’t follow the rules, you do what you want to do!” Emma Gates candidly shared her eldest son’s behaviors and decisions on the college level described below. “Even if he didn’t play ball, that was a nice university. He could’ve finished school, but he couldn’t handle it.”
In chapter nine of Hoop Dreams, the producers of the film show footage of Curtis playing at Coby Junior College as a 6’2” guard. Looking at the footage 30-40 years later, the things he was able to do as a basketball player were astounding. He played above the rim and dunked the ball in numerous ways at will. In several clips, he effortlessly launched into authoritative 360-degree dunks.
Who Was Better? Curtis Gates or Michael Jordan?
“When Jordan first came to the NBA, they would sit around and argue about which one of them could play the best,” William said about his older brother. This again was a testament to Curtis’ abilities as a basketball player. Not everyone can realistically be compared to Michael Jordan.
Steve James notes in the film that Curtis eventually signed at the University of Central Florida. He didn’t get along with the coach though and rarely played. This key revelation in this section dedicated to Curtis revealed why his own basketball career stopped. It is a reason that many basketball players didn’t make it. Many highly talented basketball players’ careers have stopped and never progressed over the years due to this exact same reason.
“I’m used to everybody in the neighborhood loving me and knowing that I could play. It just seemed like people looked up to Curtis Gates when it came to basketball. Now I’m just a regular old guy on the streets.” Early on in Hoop Dreams, as he’s working his security job, Curtis ironically laments how his life has turned out post basketball.
“When basketball is over, William may not have a friend in the world,” Curtis says working on his car on a sunny but cold Chicago day. The narrator shares that he had been laid off from his security job for four months. “Sometimes I sit around, and my eyes get watery because I ain’t amounted to nothing. I ain’t got nothing and I can’t even go out there to get a job making seven dollars per hour. I be sitting up there telling myself, ‘You ain’t gonna get no better!’”
Curtis Seeing Things William Couldn’t
“It shouldn’t take that long for that type of knee injury to heal.” Like many basketball players and athletes in general, William suffered a major injury during his junior year which altered his basketball trajectory. The first surgeon William saw opted to fix his meniscus tear by sowing it back together. After missing most of his junior season and admitting that his grades fell due to not being able to play, William returns for the remainder of the season. In the regional game against Gordon Tech, William reinjures his knee. When listening to William and Arthur Agee’s commentary, William reveals that it was his brother Curtis who identified that something was wrong with the way the doctor was handling his knee injury. The opening quote of this paragraph was Curtis’ observation.
It’s worth noting that later in the documentary, Curtis and Williams’ brother-in-law, Alvin Bibbs, was able to use his connections to get William diagnosed by the Chicago Bulls’ team doctor. He determined that the best course of action would be to simply remove the torn piece of meniscus. William subsequently recovered quickly. Curtis was also present and asking key questions of Marquette University’s Coach, Kevin O’Neill, when he visited the Gates family to discuss William’s potential basketball scholarship. The point of all this is that it took another set of eyes to question the handling of Williams’ injury, how to get him the care that he needed, and his basketball future.
William’s Biggest Fan and His Greatest Critic
“He’s going to need to show me something. He hasn’t shown me nothing,” Curtis said, looking on from the stands in one of William’s first games back from his injury in his junior year.
“It was like my injury was making him look bad. I always felt like Curtis should not be living his dream through me,” William says in response his brother continuing to live his hoop dream through him, and his seeming lack of regard for the difficulties of recovering from a serious injury.
“That ain’t no excuse! He got out there. So as far as I’m concerned there wasn’t nothing wrong with him! If he was hurt, then he shouldn’t have gotten out there!” Following St. Joseph’s season ending loss to Gordon Tech in the ‘super sectional’ (the regional) in William’s junior season, the producers catch Curtis’ relentless criticism of his younger brother. The winner of the super sectional earned a berth to the state tournament at the University of Illinois.
William battled back from a knee injury that sidelined him for most of the season. In the final quarter of the game, his knee started bothering him. He could only watch at St. Joe’s lead disintegrated. After hobbling back on the court, he missed two free throws with no time left on the clock. The shots would have won the St. Joseph’s the game. After the game, William is shown crying in his mother’s arms. Curtis looks on shaking his head.
“It was bad coaching. This wasn’t no time to be teaching no lesson!” William’s high school career ended with a loss to Sean Pearson and Nazareth the next year. Curtis criticized Coach Gene Pingatore afterwards for his disciplinary action. Curtis and another individual admitted to getting William to the game late. William cries in his mother’s arms after his last game as a Charger. Coach Pingatore opted to teach his star guard a lesson by not starting him. It was was a lesson that may have cost them the game. I had experienced something similar during my playing days and watched that scene in amazement.
Pushing His Younger Brother
William loved his older brother who was arguably his biggest fan despite how Curtis pushed William, sometimes excessively. William went on to play at Marquette University. At the end of the movie though, he arrives at a place where making it to the NBA is no longer the most important thing for him. He became a father at that point. Furthermore the rigors of pursuing his dream, his injury and seeing the realities of the athletics altered him.
William tried out for the NBA after college. He got one last shot at the dream in his late twenties. That also ended with an injury. He revealed this once again in the special commentary with Arthur. I believe he eventually dedicated his life to his faith and became a clergyman, but I could be wrong. He didn’t appear in the sequel to Hoop Dreams, Hoop Reality starring Arthur Agee and Patrick Beverly. The booklet for the my copy of Hoop Dreams revealed that Curtis passed away. William mentioned it in his commentary as well. Despite what they went through, William loved his older and was thankful for what he did for him.
Emma Gates: Maybe the Most Important Unsung Hero
“Do you think he’s going to stay in there? I think he’s going to stay.” One of the many touching sequences in Hoop Dreams is when both players go off to college. Both them and their families share tears as they get in the cars and leave. The producers share footage of Emma Gates with her screen door half open optimistically speculating on whether William will complete his schooling at Marquette. As described above Curtis had his struggles at the college level and didn’t finish.
Emma Gates was yet another unsung hero in William’s journey in Hoop Dreams. It’s depicted that both Curtis and Coach Pingatore pushed William hard and to his limits. It wasn’t shared though if Ms. Gates ever told Curtis to back off a little bit. What was shared was that while her sons loved basketball, their education was her priority. Furthermore, she was always there to comfort William after his games. She was also there with him during his knee surgery speculating on his future and hoping for the best.
The Realities of The Dream
“Four years ago, I used to dream about playing in the NBA. I don’t dream about it anymore. Even though I love playing basketball, I want to do other things with my life too. If I had to stop playing basketball right now, I think I’d still be happy. I think I would,” William says at Marquette University over the emotional clarinet solo played throughout the documentary. “That’s why when someone says, ‘When you get to the NBA and all that stuff, don’t forget about me.’ I should say what if I don’t make it, are you going to forget about me?”
William is captured in his dorm room at the end of Hoop Dreams contemplating his love for the game just as his collegiate career is starting. He has a new perspective on basketball and on life after everything he experienced at St. Joe’s. He listens to a recording from his from wife Katherine and his daughter. He realizes there are some things that are more important than the great game of basketball.
“William may not have a friend in the world after basketball,” Curtis says during the Hoop Dreams thinking about his own life. Years later we know that is not true as William is both beloved and revered in basketball circles and beyond.
Several Stories Within One Story
I realized that there were other essays I could have written about William Gates’ half of Hoop Dreams as I finished up this one. This essay did expand beyond the original draft my mother edited. I could have written about his knee injury and how it altered the trajectory of his hoop dream. Another aspect of his story involved his view of the game changing from the start to the ending of the movie. Another essay could have involved a more extensive look into his and Arthur Agee’s complex relationship with Coach Pingatore. In short there were several stories within the one story like my book project The Engineers. It is one of fascinating things about Hoops Dreams, sports, and life itself.
The interaction between William and Curtis fascinated me though for reasons described in this essay. In my short basketball journey and in my journey throughout life, I have learned that those around us can greatly impact our success. The same is true for our failures. The transfer of knowledge is critical as well (or the lack of). It certainly helps to have someone in your circle who has walked the path you have embarked on. They can guide you and save you time. Without them, you might have to spend time reinventing the wheel as they say. This is also a key them of my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story.
A Recommendation For Hoop Dreams in 2022
The images in this essay come from the booklets accompanying the DVD and CD soundtrack of Hoop Dreams. I both own and I encourage you to watch the documentary if you haven’t. I guarantee that it will touch you and teach you something. That applies whether you have a sports background, or you don’t. The documentary chokes me up inside every time I watch it. I can relate to the stories in my own way like a lot of boys from the inner city who once dreamt of the playing the great game of basketball, realistically or not.
Hoop Dreams takes place in the late 1980s and early 1990s like my project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. William’s and Arthur’s senior seasons interestingly coincided with that of our 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team. My story is largely based upon that team in terms of my motivations at that time. That was a magical era for basketball, one very different than this modern era. It was a different world altogether and a less complicated one.
Closing Thoughts
Arthur and William are both on YouTube right now by the way. They have their own YouTube channel entitled, the Hoop Dreams Podcast where they discuss basketball and other sports-related topics. They are also on Twitter, and I follow them. Arthur (@tusshoopdreams) regularly tweets about Hoop Dreams and the abundance of clothing and paraphernalia that he has created to continue the brand.
Thank you for reading this piece. I intend to create more promotional/teaser pieces for The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. They will be both via print and video as I journey through the final steps of completing the book. I created a page here on Big Words Authors. There is an in depth background of the book. I have also compiled all the promotional pieces, print and video.
On the Big Words Blog Site, there are interviews of some the most accomplished Section VI players. They include Jason Rowe, Tim Winn, Carlos Bradberry and Damien Foster. I also interviewed legendary LaSalle Head Basketball Coach, Pat Monti. Other basketball-related essays related to my book project and also there. If you liked this piece, please share it on your social media and leave a comment beneath this piece.
The Big Words LLC Newsletter
For the next phase of my writing journey, I have started a monthly newsletter for the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words and select print and video pieces. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. I will protect your personal information and privacy. Click this link and register using the sign-up button at the bottom of the announcement. If there is some issue signing up using the link provided, you can also email me at [email protected] . Yours in good sports. Regards.
“Basketball taught me that your hard work isn’t always recognized. But that doesn’t mean you give up working, because somewhere down the line, it’s going to have a benefit to you.”
The following are quotes from the many contributors to my two-part book project entitled, The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story who were gracious enough to each tell their stories. The contributors will also be acknowledged in the books themselves and these are being shared for promotional purposes. To tell this story the way I wanted to tell it with depth and substance, I couldn’t have done it on my own. Telling this story was a long process and there were times when I felt self-doubt and wondered if this was a big waste of time. Each contributor reminded me in their own way that I was creating something worthwhile and to stay the course. Thank you all again.
Adrian Baugh, Player, Buffalo Traditional High School
“It was all new to me, just the process. I’ve had people tell me, ‘If I had you,’ like when they had Jason, Damien and Malik (Campbell), there’s no telling where I’d be, and I believe that. When we played St. Joe’s, we never beat them. In my three years of playing at Traditional, we never beat them and that’s because of the fundamentals part of it. We didn’t have it. St. Joe’s had it, we had way more talent than them, but fundamentally they were better than we were at that time!”
The 6’6” Adrian Baugh was one of the key cogs in the Jason Rowe– and Damien Foster-led Buffalo Traditional Bulls teams. He was also one of their unsung heroes. The Bulls literally took a stranglehold of the Yale Cup partway through my time as a Hutch-Tech Engineer. In this excerpt from our interview, Adrian described how he gradually learned about organized high school basketball at Buffalo Traditional. While they were extremely talented, he discussed how the Bulls didn’t fare well against fundamentally sound teams like the perennial powerhouse from the Monsignor Martin League, the St. Joe’s Marauders.
Carlos Bradberry, Player, LaSalle Senior High School
“My senior season was satisfactory, but I hate to lose so that last game wore on me for a long time. I probably sat there for a week or two and thought of every play I could’ve done differently. I still remember it to this day. We lost by three points, and I missed five or six free throws. I said to myself, ‘If I’d made those six free throws, we would have won the game!’ For me it was bitter-sweet because we got there and showed well, but I thought we could’ve gone one step further. What made it worse was, I think Hempstead either won or had a very close game with Mount Vernon. I thought we could’ve been the state champs if I’d played a little bit better.”
No. 50 Carlos Bradberry was one of the many great guards in the LaSalle basketball dynasty. He had been a LaSalle Explorer for several years and emerged as the leader of the team as a junior. I first saw him play in a lopsided loss they handed our Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team in December of 1991. His Explorers team broke through and advanced to the final four in Glens Falls his senior season. There they fell short against Hempstead from Long Island by a narrow margin. In this excerpt Carlos lamented the free throws he missed in his final game. They likely would’ve helped them advance to the state final game against Mount Vernon.
*To read the full interview, see parts one and two.
Curtis Brooks, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“I wasn’t an Alpha Dog. Just growing up, I knew Pep was athletic. I knew Chuck was the big man. I knew Frankie and all of them. We grew up in Central Park. Central Park was four streets away from me. I used to cut over the tracks and play at Central Park and I used to go to my old School 68. It is called Westminster now. I just knew what I could do, and I grew up with everybody. So I just had to trust that, you know I’ve got the ball, and if a teammate is open, I’ll give it to him on the fast break, and then let’s play D! But I wasn’t an Alpha Dog at that time.”
No. 13 Curtis Brooks was one of the leaders of the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team, one of the bases for my story. That season he was one of the statistical leaders of the team in terms of points and assists and hit several big shots for them. I considered him to be the engine that drove that team. I was still in awe of him 20 years later when I interviewed him. Only seeing him play from the sidelines as a freshman, I never got to know him personally. When we talked about those times, he was both humble and wise. That season, he made the Buffalo News’ All-Western New York Second Team. In this snippet from our two-part interview, he shared that he didn’t consider himself to be the star of that team and didn’t look to be. He was a pass first point guard who looked to set his teammates up first offensively.
Adonis ‘AD’ Coble, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“That was a great feeling being around a group of guys who played together and really liked being around each other. Those guys were great, they were great teammates as well as great guys off the court. They were a very close-knit group that were friends as well as teammates (the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team).”
The first player I interviewed for this project was No. 23 Adonis Coble. Adonis was one of the seniors on the Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team for the 1991-92 season, my first season. He and the Class of 1992 seniors showed a lot of leadership that year. Interviewing Adonis led me to several other players and Coach Jones himself. He was also a member of the 1990-91 team. One of my questions involved what being on that team was like. His answer described some of the secrets of championship teams, camaraderie and togetherness. This was a recurring theme throughout my interviews. While important parts of the equation, talent and skill aren’t always enough to win consistently.
Ryan Cochrane, Player, Cardinal O’Hara High School
“Being a part of the team is everything, whether its basketball or the team I have at work. It’s a team. I can go back to my O’Hara team in my junior year. There were plenty of teams that were way more talented than us. Turner-Carroll, St. Joe’s and Lackawanna were more talented than us. But as a team putting all of our pieces together and putting the team first, that was what got us winning the championship. It’s weird because you can take not all, but some of us – some players may not have started on another team, but our team together as a whole, we were way better than anybody else.”
No. 12 for the Cardinal O’Hara Hawks, Ryan Cochrane reached out to me on Facebook after publishing my Jason Rowe interview. Knowing of his legend, I immediately asked to interview him to which he agreed. Prior to the 1993-94 season, I hadn’t heard of Cardinal O’Hara, Ryan Cochrane or Calvin Price. I became quite familiar with him that year though. He led the Hawks on a magical run through the Monsignor Martin League and in postseason play his junior season.
Samuel ‘Quinn’ Coffee, Player, Kensington High School
“It taught me that your hard work isn’t always recognized (playing on the Kensington Boys’ Basketball Team). But that doesn’t mean you give up working, because somewhere down the line, it’s going to have a benefit to you. I never gave up, I never slacked in practice, I never missed practice!”
I met Coach Quinn Coffey my first and only year at Brockport State College. He played at Kensington and was a member of the Class of 1992, two years ahead of me. We reconnected on Facebook years later, and I knew that I wanted to interview him for my book project. He loved the game and now coached both boys and girls in the Baltimore era. As a coach, he wanted all the kids he touched to get the most out of their playing experience. This is something he questioned about his playing days at Kensington. His quote gets to the essence of my book project. Everyone’s playing experience was different depending on your coach, teammates, and your overall life circumstances. In life, your hard work may not always be appreciated initially. Somehow you must find ways to keep going as someday it might.
Maurice ‘Modie’ Cox, Player, LaSalle Senior High School
“We were very familiar with them (Ritchie Campbell and Marcus Whitfield from Burgard) because we felt like second class citizens. We were not getting the respect that the Buffalo basketball players were getting. So, whenever we came to Buffalo, we knew that it was going to be different. It was going to be a track meet and we were going to show what Niagara Falls was all about. I know that at least for myself, I played with a chip. I knew that when we went to Buffalo, we had to come with a certain mentality and a certain attitude. Again, we looked at Buffalo as the big city and we are little Niagara Falls and nobody knows about Niagara Falls basketball. We do not get the big headlines and we do not have the big players that they had in Buffalo, so we were well aware of the players in Buffalo. And when we had the chance to go to Buffalo it was straight business!”
Of the great guards to play in Head Coach Pat Monti’s LaSalle basketball dynasty, perhaps the greatest guard was Maurice ‘Modie’ Cox. Like many players in Western New York, I only heard of Modie’s legend and never saw him play. Modie was the leader of the LaSalle dynasty between the Eric Gore and Michael Starks-led 1988 Class B Federation Championship Team and the Carlos Bradberry led teams of the early 1990s. This excerpt comes from Modie’s visit to my sports YouTube channel Big Discussions76 Sports.
Francis Daumen, Coach, Hutch-Tech High School
“The game (basketball) by nature brings out the bad in people. It requires you to be violent. You’re required to be a team player. You’re required to run, and hit, and smash into one another – to jump and run and to be physically and mentally exhausted – and that’s only practice. The games are fun, it’s the practices – the day-to-day grind. It’s a tough sport!”
Coach Francis Daumen took over for Coach Jones my senior season at Hutch-Tech. I didn’t know how to handle the coaching change and struggled through that year. I don’t think we understood one another that 1993-94 season. When I interviewed him 20 years later, we shared what was happening in each other’s lives and it all made sense. His approach to the game was different than Coach Jones’. This snippet from our interview reveals how he viewed the game of basketball, battle.
Demoan Daniels, Player, Seneca High School
“I scored 11 points in the first game which was cool. I could have done better. His guy Karl got hurt in the second game and in comes me. We are playing Riverside with Ed Harris and Ben Rice. That was the year Riverside won the Yale Cup. They also had Walter Gravely. We got destroyed. We lost by 42 and it was the worst loss I ever had playing organized basketball in my life. I told Ricardo Jackson, ‘Ric this is the last time we are going to lose like this. We have to turn this around.’ Ric was like, ‘Yeah we have to turn this around.’ I scored 25 points in the next game we played I believe. I took off after that. My confidence was up. Now it is affirmation. After that I had all kinds of 30-point games. I had 30 against Grover. That’s the year I had 38 and 22 against Kensington. I had 27 against Emerson and just took off. Being young, I told Knozz, ‘SEE I should have been playing last year. I could have contributed to the team last year!’ He said, ‘I didn’t see it.’ He said, ‘You’re going to go as far as you and Ricardo take us. You two are our best players.’ We were not good that year, but we made progress.
No. 32 Demoan Daniels emerged as the leader of the Seneca Indians in the 1992-93 season, his senior year. Daniels gradually ascended as a player in the Western New York high school basketball scene and reached his apex in his senior year. He learned about the complex but exciting world of high school basketball gradually like a lot of Yale Cup basketball players. He packed a lot into his time playing and was 35 points short of the 1,000-point milestone. Demoan discussed getting onto the court for the Seneca Indians and getting meaningful minutes for the first time in this excerpt. Once he got started, he and his teammates never looked back.
Dewitt Doss, Player, LaSalle Senior High School
“We did not have a lot when Coach Monti finished his last book my junior year. Monk kept all the stats and he passed away. I always wondered what happened to the last book. They never finished the last book. When you put all the numbers together, I think Tim Winn is first, followed by Carlos Bradberry, Elon McCracken, Carlos Davis and then it was me. Or it was Eric Gore and then it was me. Coach Monti had books starting from 1984, which I think was his first year as head coach. It had points per game, points per season, assists per game, assists per season. If you were in there three to two times starting from your freshman season, you were in there. Everything was in there from what you did your sophomore year, junior year and senior year. He had you ranked based upon where you finished. He tracked rebounds, steals, assists, blocked shots.”
No. 11 Dewitt Doss was the last of the great guards in the Niagara Falls LaSalle Senior High School basketball dynasty. He was on the last LaSalle Explorers team before the school permanently closed its doors in the late 1990s. He was the last great guard, and he was mentored by the players that preceded him and was trained by them. A pillar of solid basketball programs is the statistical records kept. The Niagara Falls LaSalle Basketball Dynasty was no different. Dewitt Doss discussed Coach Monti’s tracking of his players’ statistics and where he ranked in the pantheon of great LaSalle boys’ basketball players in this excerpt.
Carlton Ford, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“That’s something that was never really clear to me from varsity practices. I don’t recall Coach ever saying, ‘Take that shot. You could’ve taken that shot at the top of the key!’ On the junior varsity (JV) team it was a different story. I was in double figures scoring, and it was known that I could score and get to the basket. On the varsity team, there was never a green light given. I just think that over time, I realized that I would take this shot and there would be no complaints and I would just get back on D. But I think by senior year I learned how to play in that offense.”
Carlton Ford was a two-year teammate on the Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team. A member of the Class of 1993, he was a year ahead of me. We were similar in terms of temperament and personality. Our interview revealed that we viewed our first year on the varsity team similarly, a learning year. I discovered later that some kids looked at their first year differently. They demanded to get on the court and play immediately. He was a mature and unselfish pass-first guard who like me, had to learn to play in Coach Jones’ fundamentals-based offense.
Damien Foster, Player, Buffalo Traditional High School
“I’ve heard it 1,000 times! Coach Cardinal heard it 1,000 times and we all heard it. Most of the time you’d hear it from the suburban coaches and schools. My opinion on that is that Cardinal wasn’t trying to be something he wasn’t. Cardinal was more so a father figure to us. He was there for us. We could come to him for anything, and he’d give us advice whatever the case may be. You’re dealing with city kids – kids that come from single parent homes. You’re dealing with a lot of things and lots of these kids don’t have structure in terms of playing organized basketball, so they come to the city schools and play on these teams. With their attention span, you draw up a play and they get in the game, and they might forget the play. Or they might not have that discipline to run a play.”
Damien Foster and Jason Rowe seemingly burst onto the scene together the 1992-93 season as freshman. They had prepared for a while, and only those who were unaware of them were astonished by their brilliance. It was always whispered that their coach, the late Joe Cardinal wasn’t much of a coach. He simply inherited talented players every year and let them go while he sat back and racked up the wins. According to Damien though, he cared about his players and looked out for them as best he could. Furthermore, he knew what and who he was in terms of coaching and didn’t pretend to be something else.
*To read the full interview, see parts one and two.
Dion Frasier, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“Anwar. You know it’s one of those deals where I talk about it – when I talk about a team, when I talk about buying into a system, when I talk about leadership, when I talk about being a part of something that’s bigger than yourself, when I talk about everybody has to play a role. I talk about that season (the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team). That’s my go to sermon, and it’s so engrained in who I am and it’s a matter of me knowing I played a vital role on that team and so it’s something that’s extremely special.”
Reverend Dion Frasier was a junior on the 1990-91 Yale Cup and Section VI Class B championship teams. He was a senior my first year on the team, the 1991-92 season. In my book project, I credit Dion and two other seniors for helping keep the 1991-92 team together. It was a tough season which could’ve easily come off the rails. He and his peers were sorely missed once they graduated. In our interview, he discussed how the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team regularly comes up in his Sunday sermons 30 years later.
Jermaine Fuller, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“I know that Coach Jones always suggested that we ‘get in shape’ and maybe lift weights, etc., but nothing was ever mandatory or scheduled. Schools today I have actual WEIGHT PROGRAMS, something we did not have at Tech (maybe it did not exist at any Buffalo Public Schools?). I do agree that Jones kept us aerobically conditioned during the season. He did keep us running, etc. And I always appreciated the early morning free throw shooting. Until this day I remember that and think that was an excellent practice.”
No. 30 Jermaine Fuller and I were teammates for the 1991-92 and the 1992-93 seasons. I didn’t interview him verbally as I did most of the other players. He graciously answered the questions I shared with him electronically though. He pointed out that Coach Jones indeed highly encouraged us to lift weights and get stronger. “A good strong player is better than a good weak player,” Coach Jones told us all the time. There was however no formal weight training program for us though. This meant that most of us were left to our own devices and had to figure it out, if at all.
Carlos James Gant, Player, City Honors High School
“If I could do it over again, I would – I think one of the things I personally conceded was – it had to be the system. I think the system helped us be successful. What I learned more in my senior year is that you still have to be you as an athlete as well. As an example, there were times when you had to sacrifice parts of your game for the team and I’m all for that. But I think you can also get lost in that. There were times when I could’ve been more aggressive offensively and defensively. We played within the system.”
When I was at Hutch-Tech, the City Honors Boys’ Basketball Team followed a similar trajectory to our 1990-91 team. They improved every year and matured into a competitive team by the time the core of their team were seniors. One of them was Carlos James Gant. In our interview he spoke to something that I didn’t figure out during my short window playing the game. That is figuring out how to play in a system versus just playing and then switching between the two. It’s something many players struggle with and don’t figure out until they’re done playing.
George Gayles, Player, Bennett High School
“After the Festival of Lights game, Veronica (Coach Larry Veronica) said I had a nice arc on my shot. He said, ‘I have him because he shoots really well.’ My shot was terrible at that time. He also may not have had enough people, and he saw that I had an eagerness for the game and a heart and a willingness to learn. Students like that, you can’t not let them on the team. I would rather have ten kids like that than a couple who have a horrible attitude and are uncoachable. The two people we had on our team that year were really good. Years later when I met up with them at Shoshone Park, one asked, ‘It’s like that now?’ I was able to keep up with them now and it wasn’t like that in high school.”
Like Coach Quinn Coffey, I met George Gayles at SUNY Brockport. George played for the Bennett Tigers under Coach Larry Veronica. George described himself as a ‘project’ in high school like me at Hutch-Tech. He wanted to play but was undeveloped and learned where he could. In our interview, he described how Coach Veronica saw that he wanted to play and had a willingness to learn. George further went on to discuss how he looked for coachable players himself years later. He further talked about how he met up with two of the best players on his Bennett teams years later and had grown to their skill level. Our growth as players continues often times beyond our organized playing days.
Anthony Harris, Player, Burgard Vocational High School
“But back then when we were juniors, there were some pretty good ball players. Emerson had a good team. They had Glen Mayfield, Paul Tolbert. As a matter of fact, do you remember Bernie Tolbert? The FBI guy? His brother played basketball. He was a guard. Paul Tolbert, he was sweet. They were some pretty competitive dudes back then. As a matter of fact, Phil came out after me and was playing. I think he got rookie of the year on the freshman team at Bennett. As a matter of fact, he might’ve cracked the varsity team when he was a sophomore. I’m not sure but oh yeah, they were pretty competitive back then. And then Lafayette had this guy named George Stevens, a dark skinned brotha. He was bad!”
A part of my story is discovering key information about family by accident and after it’s needed. I didn’t discover that my Uncle Anthony Harris was himself an accomplished basketball player back in his day. He played alongside Eugene Roberson at Burgard and even matched up with Bennett’s Bob Lanier during those years. During our interview, we discussed the Yale Cup and Buffalo basketball from years past. It was the era of the Buffalo Braves and when there was only one court at Delaware Park.
Ed Harris, Player, Riverside High School
“I went to camps every year. Russ made sure of that. Most of all of us went to the local camps, the Canisiuses, the University at Buffalos and the Buff State camps. We all went to those. I don’t know if Russ and those local colleges had some sort of agreement, but we were all at those and I can’t say that was the case for all the other city schools. Like I said, we were one of the only schools that had a 20-game schedule. Russ did a little bit more than the other coaches did. I think he knew the significance of it, I would say – to get that exposure, to get us out into those games to see those different environments which helps when you go away for school. You’re not just out in the city playing city games. You’re experiencing their culture, the suburban culture.”
The 1991-92 Riverside Frontiersman won both the Yale Cup title and Section VI Class C Championships. One of their leaders was the versatile Edmund Harris. Like a lot of teams, the Frontiersman ascent was gradual. During our discussion, Harris’ description of Coach Bill Russell reminded me of Coach Ken Jones. They were both students of the game. They cared about their players, gave thorough instruction and meticulously their schedule their games each year. In both instances, their efforts weren’t always appreciated at the time.
Frankie Harris, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“Mike Brundige had a lot of talent. He also had a little attitude, you know what I mean? He was about 6’5”. And he can still get up and down the court right now. In the 40 and over league, he can get up and down, and I think he can still dunk! But he didn’t always buy into what Coach Jones was trying to do. With Coach Jones you had to be disciplined in terms of being a team player and sometimes he would just get on you. And he didn’t handle that well. So he had his days, but he was a good basketball player. Jerome Freeman and Ed Lenard, they came off the bench. They gave us defense and energy. They were defensive stoppers. Jerome and Ed were quick! They were team players.”
My essay discussing the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team and their magical acknowledged two groups of players. I acknowledged those who took the court that season. I also acknowledged those who were instrumental in building the program but graduated before the championship years. That happens with many championship teams. One of the players was Frankie Harris whom I met at Coach Jones’ funeral service. In our interview, we talked about a player named Michael Brundige. He was physically gifted but butted heads with Coach Jones regularly due to his attitude and temperament. Mike was 6’5” and very athletic though. Many coaches face the dilemma of keeping highly talented players even if there will likely be personality conflicts.
Keith Hearon, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“It definitely taught me that nothing comes for free (the game of basketball). You have to work hard. Your dues must be paid for the benefit, and nothing is going to come for free. You have to work hard if you want the success. And then really life and basketball are not too far disconnected. That’s something that kind of stayed with me. They go hand in hand. Every lesson in basketball is a lesson about life.”
Keith Hearon was a teammate on the Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team for the 1991-92 and the 1992-93 seasons. A member of the Class of 1993, he was a year ahead of me. “Stretch” as Coach Jones referred to him my junior season was mature and even keeled personality-wise. He was a wiry 6’5” and played center for our team and was very reliable. This quote from him once again captures the essence of my book project. Hard work is involved in most anything worthwhile activity or goal in life. Finally, basketball and life are interrelated. The game teaches you about life.
Derrick Herbert, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“I think he (Coach Jones) and I got along because I was that guy who was always on the floor diving for loose balls and taking charges. Whenever ‘Ice Cream’ (Marcus Whitfield), or Nigel (Bostic) who were some of the best players in the city at the time in the public school system, when we played those teams, I had to guard them – and I got lit up a lot too. But I think that he appreciated that I was willing to take on that challenge because I would dive for the loose ball, this, that and the third and our relationship was pretty cool. It did have its contentious times. But for the most part we had a good relationship. I pushed back a little bit, but he would always have his ways of getting his point across and in hindsight, he was always right.”
“You have to talk to D-Herb!” Jerrold ‘Pep’ Skillon told me that I needed to talk to a senior from the 1989-90 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team at Coach Jones’ funeral service. I had only seen Derrick Herbert in pictures like the other members of his class. I acknowledged them in my essay dedicated to the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team. They helped lay the groundwork for the 1990-91 championship season. In our discussion, Derrick talked a lot about Coach Jones, and their relationship. As with many of the players, it wasn’t a 100% smooth all the time. He ultimately appreciated Coach Jones, his coaching and his teachings though.
Reggie Hokes, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“Yes, I knew I wanted to play varsity basketball right away. I knew about Ritchie Campbell and Cliff Robinson. I heard about Christian Laettner. Trevor Ruffin because we had a park called 75 and they would come down and play and they’d call it ‘Live at 75’, and they used to have games down there – Ritchie and all of them would have summer league games. Ritchie actually stayed around the corner from me. He stayed in the Willard Park Projects, about five blocks from where I stayed on Emslie.”
I first saw No. 22 Reggie Hokes play basketball at the William-Emslie YMCA. He was a pass first point guard, and I was amazed at his ability to assist the ball like Magic Johnson in the open court. I enjoyed playing with him as he always looked for you in the open court on fast breaks. He came to Hutch-Tech during a bit of a youth movement where underclassmen fought to play right away. This was in large part inspired by the University of Michigan’s Fab Five. In all my interviews, I asked the guys who their influences were. Some names came up regularly in terms of the Buffalo basketball. One of them was the great Ritchie Campbell as was in Reggie’s case.
Earl Holmes, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“He (my father) said my grades weren’t up to par so he didn’t let me play anymore that year. He told me if I couldn’t keep a GPA and play, then something had to go. That sophomore year was the same and first year I played football too. So, he was like, ‘If you’re gonna play all these sports, you’d better make sure these grades are up to par. As of right now, basketball is off the shelf. Nothing can be done about football because the season is over with, but if these grades don’t improve during the school year, then you won’t be playing football either. I was an A student all my life. It was normal teenage rebellion and I chalk it up to that. I was having some success, so I felt like I didn’t have to work as hard and I wasn’t putting all my effort into my elective courses.”
Earl Holmes was an outspoken multi-sport athlete from the Hutch-Tech’s Class of 1995 (football and basketball). We were teammates on the 1993-94 boys’ basketball team. We were almost teammates on the 1992-93 team. His father “Big Earl” took him off the team because his grades slipped below the Honor Roll level. This always stood out to me because I didn’t have a stringent requirement academically in my home. My grades were average my entire four years, and I wouldn’t have made the standard in Earl’s house. Academics tripped up a lot of players, me included that year. Some parents mandated their kids not just do enough to get by, but to excel academically. That was the case with Mr. Holmes.
Ronald Jennings, Player, Campus West and Turner/Carroll High School
“My first two years I was playing both football and basketball. I was playing freshman-junior varsity ball with coach Fred Bachelors. Fred is now the head coach at the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore. And then, in my junior year, I dedicated myself to football. Actually, my first two years, I played football, basketball and baseball. And then my junior year, I just played football and baseball.”
Reverend Ronald Jennings was my first ever point guard in an organized basketball setting. We were teammates for two years on the Campus West/College Learning Laboratory Bengals Boys’ Basketball Team in middle school. I looked up No. 21 and was in awe of him. I didn’t know how to develop so that I could play alongside of him and contribute to the team. This is a key theme throughout my journey/story. Ronald coincidentally assisted my first basket in an organized game, something I can still see in my mind today. While I went off to Hutch-Tech for high school, Ronald went off to Turner/Carroll. There he played football, basketball, and baseball before focusing completely on football. Afterwards, he focused completely on his Christian faith and ministry.
Brandon Jones, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“Neither of my parents were athletes, so they were like, ‘You’re playing basketball, we’ll come to the games.’ They weren’t necessarily coaching me up. So, he (Coach Richardson) was the first one to see something in me that I didn’t see in myself yet. And he rode me hard. I was not allowed to play in gym class as a senior. He’d say, ‘I want you jumping rope! I want you doing this or that. You’re good enough to play at the next level, and I think I can get you there, but you’ve got to want it. Stop being lazy!’ He was really hard on me and at the time I thought, ‘Why in the hell is he doing this?’ And now 20 years later and I can’t believe I was saying that. I can look back and say, ‘I know why he was doing that.’”
I didn’t overlap with Brandon Jones in terms of playing on the Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team. Brandon was a versatile front court player who could put the ball on the floor and shoot it from long-range. I wanted to know what the basketball program was like at Hutch-Tech after Coach Ken Jones retired. Coach Francis Daumen (above) took over for my senior year and then stepped down, opening the way for Coach Richardson. Thus, it was educational to talk with Brandon to understand what things were like under Coach Richardson’s leadership. Like a lot of players, Brandon didn’t understand why Coach Richardson was hard on him. The same was true later with Coach Dick Bihr at Buffalo State College who yelled at him constantly. Later, like a lot of players, he realized that it wasn’t out of contempt or malice. It was done to get the best out of him.
Quincy Lee, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“Curt Brooks? It was his first time making the team, sophomore year. He had a chip on his shoulder because he didn’t make it freshman year. Curt Brooks was vicious. Curt Brooks was going to go the distance with anybody. He was dedicated and the thing is, I ended up moving with my father in my sophomore year and moving around the corner from Curt Brooks. Me and Curt Brooks, you go to the park and play every day, winter time, it didn’t matter what temperature it was or what was going on, we would play every day just trying to get better to make sure the team was better. Curt Brooks never stopped trying to get better. EVER! He was a worker and definitely motivated. Jones loved him too. He loved Curt. Curt earned it though. He was a hard worker, and he was 100% into basketball.”
No. 11 Quincy Lee was one of the seniors on the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team. Coincidentally he also attended Campus West but was four years ahead of me. He agreed to be interviewed after reaching out to him on Facebook. He told three of the other seniors what I was doing and opened the door for me to interview them. I looked at the 1990-91 team as a utopia. Quincy revealed that playing for Coach Jones wasn’t a bed of roses which was helpful to learn for perspective. He loved the game and wanted to play though and toughed it out. The support of his teammates and faculty members helped as well. He eventually settled in and got back to playing his game. In addition to discussing Coach Jones, he spoke very highly their point guard No. 13 Curtis Brooks (discussed above).
Pat Monti, Coach, LaSalle Senior High School
“Everyone was there – Mike Kryzewski (Duke) and Digger Phelps (Notre Dame) – all the bigtime coaches. It was a game for the ages. I can still see it as if it was yesterday, and it was 1988. Nobody led by more than four – they didn’t take us for granted this time – they were very well coached. It was back and forth, back and forth – just an incredible high school basketball game. I think that with about a minute or so left, we might’ve been up four. They came down (Christian Laettner’s Nichols team), scored, called time out and cut it to two. I only had one time out left and I’ve always taught my young coaches to save your time outs for the fourth quarter. If you know, you’re going to be in a tight ballgame, don’t waste time outs. It’s amazing how simple it sounds and how important it is in coaching.”
My first-time seeing Coach Pat Monti’s LaSalle Explorers play was in a lopsided loss they handed our Hutch-Tech team. It was in the 1991 Festival of Lights Tournament in their gym. They were in the middle of a 10-year run in which they dominated the Section VI Class A playoff bracket. They were our area’s regular Class A representative in the Far West Regional game with the Rochester area champion. At stake was a trip to the Final Four in Glens Falls. Coach Monti saw many great players over the years on his bench and his opponent’s. This excerpt from our interview discussed one of LaSalle’s many matchups with Christian Laettner and his Nichols teams. LaSalle won the New York State Class B Federation Championship after defeating the Vikings.
“I started playing basketball when I was about 10 and I thought I was pretty good. It wasn’t until meeting Adonis Coble for the first time and getting cremated by him and two others in a game of three on three, that I became serious about improving my game.”
Roderick ‘Spanky’ Peoples was a first-year player along with me and others on the 1991-92 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team. He played football as well and had quite the motor, bringing a fearlessness and intensity to our team. Like a lot of guys from his Class of 1993, he had a bit of a mischievous side. I admittedly didn’t know what to make of him at times. Going into the 1992-93 season, his senior year, and my junior year, he developed significantly as a basketball player. I don’t think that season turned in a way either of us expected. In hindsight, he taught me a lot about competition and toughness.
Brian Reith, Player, Hamburg High School
“But then when the season was over, we’d pick up our baseball gloves and jump into baseball season and play baseball. And then summer would come and then there would be this interesting mix between summer baseball leagues and then pickup basketball and there was always this combination. And when fall would come, some kids played football or soccer. I played volleyball, I was one of the few people and I loved that I did that. I wasn’t allowed to play football. My body wasn’t big enough to play and wasn’t going to do much good if I did, but we played three different sports and we didn’t stick with basketball all year round. So, when it came back to basketball season, some of us were lacing them up for the first time in months, which I’m sure made it more difficult for our coaches.”
Brian Reith was the only player from one of the Erie County Interscholastic Conferences (ECICs) that I interviewed. He reached out to me after reading my Carlos Bradberry interview. He and his Hamburg Bulldogs were quite familiar with the LaSalle Explorers in those days due to their many sectional matchups. It was big to talk to him because I wanted to know what it was like to play in one of the suburban conferences. I had driven past Hamburg numerous times but had never stopped there. Most of the suburbs of Buffalo felt like distant worlds to me. In this excerpt from our interview, Brian discussed what he and his teammates did in the basketball offseason. While other kids worked on their basketball games in the offseason, they played other sports. They didn’t give basketball a serious look until the next winter.
Phillip Richardson, Coach, Hutch-Tech High School
“The thing is I knew Reggie’s father. I knew Earl’s father. I knew Brian’s mother and father. His mother’s brother was married to your Aunt Melva. That was the connection. So, when I made them stay after to run wind sprints, nobody said nothing about, ‘You’re killing my kid!’ No, they already knew that I wasn’t a knucklehead and wasn’t trying to be mean. So, I knew their fathers and some of their moms, and they knew that I had their best interests at heart.”
A central theme to my project The Engineers is benefiting from the knowledge sets within your family (and not). Coach Phil Richardson is a second cousin on my mother’s side. I didn’t spend a lot of time around him in my youth prior to high school due to life circumstances. I thus didn’t learn about his vast sports history until he arrived at Hutch-Tech in the fall of 1993. In hindsight, I could’ve benefitted from his knowledge years earlier. He didn’t assume the reigns of the head basketball coach until the fall of 1994 after I graduated. He inherited a talented crop of players the 1994-95 season. Based upon similar backgrounds, he was the most well-suited coach to teach and motivate them of the coaches they’d had.
Jason Rowe, Player, Buffalo Traditional High School
“Jordan, Isiah and Magic were the guys that I idolized in the NBA. In college I looked up to Kenny Anderson, Jason Kidd and Chris Jackson. Locally, I looked up to my uncle, Trevor Ruffin, and Ritchie Campbell. I looked at them and felt like I could do something. They were guys I could watch every day in a ‘hands on’ type of way. Trevor grew up across the street from me and he was like a ‘big brother’. He played at the University of Hawaii, and he went on to the NBA, but I didn’t look at him that way. This was the guy who, when he was in the NBA, would pick me up to go work out with him. We had that type of relationship where he was my big brother, and I was going to the house and watching TV with him.”
I had already conducted several interviews by the time I got to talk to Bishop Timon’s Coach Jason Rowe. I told him that his interview was ‘the big one’ as it lent credibility to what I was doing. We still laugh about it today. He, Damien Foster and the Buffalo Traditional Bulls became a force to be reckoned with in Western New York, across the state and beyond. In all my interviews I asked the guys who their influences were. Each had players they looked up to at the college and professional levels. Jason came from a basketball family, but he also looked up to two great guards from our area. They were Trevor Ruffin and Ritchie Campbell, two of the greatest guards to ever play in the Yale Cup.
*To read the full interview, see parts one and two.
Bill Russell, Coach, Riverside High School
“My priority was defense. We spent a lot of time practicing that. We played primarily a lot of man- to- man, or a man- to- man trapping defense, not very much 2-3 zone. It was my least favorite defense, and we didn’t play a lot of that. Defense was my biggest priority. I think we did a good job. When I say defense, I don’t just mean man-to- man or each player was good defensively, but we really worked on the team concept of man-to-man defense. We spent a lot of time with that in practice. Offensively I had some structure. We worked really hard on having some structure. We also worked hard on having a team concept, team practiced fast breaks, so that was a big part of our philosophy as well. Our team worked on a lot of fast break offense, but we also had some structure to what we were doing offensively. Our team spent a lot of practice time on that too. Defense was a priority, but I thought we paid attention to some other details as well.”
One of my final interviews for The Engineers was with Coach Bill Russell who guided the Riverside Boys Basketball Team when I was a player at Hutch-Tech. I didn’t know much about the Frontiersman besides their clinching the Yale Cup title by beating us my sophomore year. Coach Russell turned out to be a student of the game and a basketball junkie like Coach Jones. He also cared about his players and wanted to make sure they had the best experience under his leadership.
Jermaine ‘J-Bird’ Skillon, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“I used to go on the bus trips with them when they would play in the holiday tournaments. I used to scrimmage with them. So, when I came in, Mr. Shae knew me. The seniors then, Kev Roberson, he was from my hood, so I knew them. Flash, I went to their tournaments, and I played with him, so I knew them. When I came in, Shae said, ‘There’s a new coach.’”
Jermaine ‘J-Bird’ Skillon played on the Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team for three years. He was a member of the Class of 1992 like Reverend Dion Frasier (discussed above). He’s the younger brother of Jerrold “Pep” Skillon discussed below. He played football and basketball and had lots of game on the basketball court. We didn’t overlap as teammates. You’ll have to read my story to learn about that but talking to him was valuable. It gave me a balanced perspective of the Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team under Coach Jones’ watch, like Quincy Lee’s account. It wasn’t always necessarily the utopia that I thought it was when looking on from the bleachers.
Jerrold ‘Pep’ Skillon, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“Hey, I have a quick question for you. Did you watch John Calipari’s 30 for 30 on ESPN? Well, what he said made sense. Sacrifice so your brother can succeed too. How can you be mad? If everybody wins off of it – I thought that was big when I saw that from Calipari. That does make sense. How many players felt like I held it back? But again, you sacrificed to win, and you sacrificed so your brother can receive. That’s what makes LeBron good. LeBron is unselfish to a fault. There’s no question he’s the best player out there, but he wants to see his teammates succeed, and that gives them the confidence to certain things to help them win. Don’t get me wrong. I get it if people think they could’ve don’t better, I get it. I get it. Would I sacrifice that senior year to have a better individual career and to go to a better school? HELL naw, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t, and I don’t know about them. I wouldn’t.”
Arguably the most fun of all the interviews I conducted was that of Jerrold ‘Pep’ Skillon. Pep was a key piece of the 1990-91 Yale Cup and Class B sectional championship teams. Like his brother, he was a two-sport athlete (football and basketball). You could hear the enthusiasm about those times in Pep’s voice throughout our discussion. In this excerpt from our discussion, Pep shared a little-known secret in athletics and life. In many instances, you must give to get. Winning in basketball involves buying into the team concept and sacrificing for your brothers in this context. The stars on most teams all learned this at one point or another.
Christain J. Souter, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“When I went to college, I played Division III at the Coast Guard Academy. I didn’t play varsity, but instead played on the equivalent of our JV squad. We played against a bunch of junior colleges and prep schools. I’ll say that I was able to shoot the ball a lot more. I look back though, and I think if we were able to play defense like we did in high school, we would’ve been able to keep up with a bunch of those teams. So, shooting the ball wasn’t always the best policy. I would’ve liked to have scored more, but from a personal thing, I valued winning over scoring. If I could’ve scored, I might’ve finished my career 10 points a game my senior year. If I scored 15 and it takes points from someone else or leaves time on the clock – I’d rather win than get mine, and I still think some guys, they also wanted to win too, but they wanted to get theirs. And that’s a hard thing to balance when they’re 15, 16 or 17 years old.”
No. 44 Chris Souter was a member of the Class of 1992. He was one of the seniors my sophomore year on the Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team. In opinion, he was part of the glue that held our 1991-92 team together. In our interview he had many insightful things to say about his time playing under Coach Ken Jones. Like most of Coach Jones’ players, he teaches the same lessons and drills to his kids. This excerpt from our interview goes back to the principle of sacrificing for the team to win. He further discussed the complexities of getting a group of teenagers to buy into a common vision, especially today.
Darris Thomas, Player, Niagara Falls Senior High School
“We had motion. We had plays. He would draw it up but think about it (Coach Vazanni). The key thing in anything is adjustments because when you run a play for four quarters, they know it and they adjust. He meant well, but he wasn’t a good adjuster. When the defense adjusted, he didn’t have the smarts to adjust like Pat Monti. You knew Carlos (Bradberry) was the guy and you came out with a box and one on Carlos. Guess what, he specialized in getting Carlos open still (laughing). He didn’t just say, ‘Carlos is locked up, so we’ll go to Tim or Jody. No, I’m going to free Carlos up. I don’t care if you have a box and one. You know what I mean? That was the difference in Pat Monti. He was more daring, ‘Okay. You think you’re going to stop me, but I’m going to draw something up!’ So, what did he do? He brought Carlos off two or three screens. I remember. A box and one, you have to get through two to three screens and by that time, the defender is tired. Just strategies.”
My research for The Engineers revealed that Niagara Falls was a breeding ground for great basketball players. It turned out that LaSalle and Niagara Falls Senior High Schools had a Duke vs North Carolina-type of rivalry. LaSalle won most of those matchups, but the games were like wars. All the kids knew each other and competed in the Biddy Leagues. Darris Thomas starred for the Power Cats while I was at Hutch-Tech. His opinion was that the teams weren’t very different talent-wise. The difference was that LaSalle had Coach Pat Monti who both loved the game and cared about his kids. It wasn’t that way at every school.
Charles ‘Chuck’ Thompson, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“He knew what he wanted. You had to work hard. It was natural for us because we already had good skills and just needed to be molded into that direction in which we needed to go. It was a way of weeding out the players from the not so good players, but more so for us, especially me, Pep, Curt and Quincy. We already had that background in terms of being good players. We just needed that right connection in terms of putting us all together and Coach Jones had that.”
The 6’5” Chuck Thompson was the center for the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team. He also attended Campus West for grade school and was a two-sport guy (football and basketball). He led the 1990-91 Engineers in rebounding and described himself as the “black hole”. When the ball was thrown into the post to him, it wasn’t coming back out. Chris Souter recalled how Thompson was clutch from the free throw line and had a soft touch for a bigger guy. In this excerpt from our interview, he discussed how Coach Jones effectively molded their group into a winner.
Dennis Wilson, Player, Turner/Carroll High School and Riverside High School
“Nah, he wasn’t a yeller (Coach Fajri Ansari). He would yell, but he wasn’t a – Faj is a good guy, I really can’t say – he was a good coach. We always kind of – and I don’t know if this is a public school thing or an African American thing, but we always had problems with St. Joe’s because we didn’t understand the Xs and Os of basketball. They were good athletes – they were probably as good athletically – we were probably a little bit more athletic, but they just understood the game. They just understood the game period. There’s a lot of fine details you have to understand as you go along in any art. Like blogging, I’m sure there’s some dos and some don’ts in terms of techniques that you use, and once you understood those, you became a better blogger. Some people just have the gift of writing, but they still have to learn the process and the craft, and for a lot of basketball players, they understand how to play, but the mental aspect of it, you have to learn and for some reason, we’re just a little bit slow in learning those things.”
Dennis Wilson played at both Turner/Carroll and Riverside High Schools. As such, he got to experience high school basketball in both a private school and a public school. In this excerpt from our interview, Dennis discussed the importance of understanding basketball as a craft. He observed that the teams at Turner/Carroll frequently struggled with the perennial power St. Joe’s. Because St. Joe’s was always proficient in terms of Xs and Os, they were able regularly best more athletic teams.
Tim Winn, Player, LaSalle Senior High School
“We all grew up playing in the Biddy League, so you were already cool with these guys. So the transition to being their teammate on the Varsity was seamless, because we were already like brothers. I lived two houses down from Carlos when I was in high school. Before I became a varsity player, I was at his house everyday playing video games. That’s the environment we were in – most of the guys who played varsity hung out together. You grew up playing against the older kids, and a lot of those guys were the older kids. So to become their teammate was almost expected, and that we would all eventually play together.”
As described in my discussion about Darris Thomas above, most of the players at LaSalle and Niagara Falls Senior High Schools knew each other before they got to high school. They not only knew each other’s games, but they also knew each other personally. This created an increased camaraderie and chemistry later. In this excerpt from our discussion, Tim Winn discussed knowing Carlos Bradberry before getting to LaSalle. This probably had something to do with the immediate success experienced once joining the Explorers that winter of 1992.
*To read the full interview, see parts one and two.
The Pictures Used In This Offering
The pictures used in this offering come from several different sources. Some came from the late Coach Ken Jones. This project wouldn’t have been possible without the vast basketball records he kept. Some pictures came from Coach Pat Monti. At least one came from Laura Lama, a classmate from Hutch-Tech high school who still had all her yearbooks. Some came from my own records. It wasn’t clear what pictures to use and as you can see the final lineup is an assortment of pictures of players, box scores and visuals from some of Coach Jones’ materials. Some are location shots from Western New York.
Just like the players and coaches I interviewed, the pictures are a snapshot of that time and era in the Western New York high school basketball scene. I think this is appropriate because my book project, The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story is just one story in the entire fabric of that time. Likewise, during that time, I looked around and saw other players teams either excelling or going through the same struggles I experienced (or some mixture of the two) during my own unique journey.
While I attempted to give each interviewee a picture that related to them, I also sprinkled in pictures of other notable players of the time whom I didn’t interview. Some of them include Fredonia’s No. 24 Mike Heary, Kenmore East’s No. 22 Mike O’Bryan and Cleveland Hill’s No. 23 Carlton Holder. The thumbnail for this piece is Cardinal O’Hara’s No. 12 Ryan Cochran whose team went on its own magical run during my senior year. Interestingly, I hadn’t heard of Cardinal O’Hara High School until that year. This offering also features the first image of myself that I’ve used in any of these writings. Can you identify me?
Closing Thoughts
The opening excerpt/quote for this piece comes from Coach Samuel ‘Quinn’ Coffey. I highlighted it because I think captures the essence of my book project and life itself. One of the ingredients to being successful in the great game of basketball is hard work. Depending upon your circumstance and situation, your hard work could go unrecognized. You must figure out how to push forward though. And just because your work is unrecognized in that moment, it doesn’t mean it always will be. It also doesn’t mean that it won’t pay off at some point.
Thank you again to the other coaches, players and teammates who shared your stories with me. This project would not have been possible without you. This was a long process, and with each interview I gained the strength to keep going and resolved within myself that I was doing the right thing.
More Related Content
I’ve created other promotional/teaser pieces for The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story, both via print and video as I journey through the final steps of completing the book. I created a page here on Big Words Authors for the purpose of giving a background of the book and grouping all the promotional pieces such as this in one place for interested readers. On my first blogging platform, the Big Words Blog Site, there are interviews with some the most accomplished Section VI players from my era including Jason Rowe, Tim Winn, Carlos Bradberry and Damien Foster. I also interviewed legendary LaSalle Head Basketball Coach, Pat Monti. Finally, there are several other basketball-related essays related to my book project. If you liked this piece, please share it on your social media and leave a comment beneath this piece.
The Big Words LLC Newsletter
For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Your personal information and privacy will be protected. Click this link and register using the sign-up button at the bottom of the announcement. You can also email me at [email protected] to register as well. Regards.
“As a freshman, I’m sitting on the bench watching Ritchie and Damon Rand go at it at Burgard, and he has the flu. He literally gives us 38 points and he’s falling and coughing and laying out. This dude literally put up 38 points on us and he’s got the flu!”
This story is another promotional piece for my book project entitled, “The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story”. One of the bases for my story is the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team and their magical run. In my freshman year at the school, they won our city league, the “Yale Cup”, 13-0. They then won the Section VI Class B sectional and came within one game of a berth in the state final four in Glens Falls. It was amazing to witness. There were many more stories surrounding the Yale Cup and Section VI basketball however. Only those who were a part of them, witnessed them, or did the research would know them.
Depending on your vantage point, what the 1990-91 Engineers did wasn’t that big a deal. In terms of public schools, the former LaSalle Explorers, and the Buffalo Traditional Bulls, were regular visitors to the state tournament in Glens Falls. St. Joseph’s Collegiate High School (St. Joe’s), in the “Mognsinor Martin” league was regularly the team to beat amongst the private schools in our area. From my vantage point at the time though, what the Engineers did was a big deal, and I dreamt of being just like them. Whether that got done is a different story. For those curious to know, what happened is revealed in my book project.
As described on the page I designed for the book, and the numerous pieces I’ve created surrounding it, I interviewed 30-40 players and coaches from Section VI. My research revealed several interesting facts. I learned quite a few back stories and about the players and runs of other teams from Section VI. I learned about players whom I’d only known and seen from a distance. As described in my Cliff Robinson piece, some names came up repeatedly. One of the most notable ones was the great Ritchie Campbell.
Ritchie Campbell’s Legend
One of the pieces I’ve published reflected on the Yale Cup, its history and some of its most notable players. One player whom I highlighted was Ritchie Campbell who played at Burgard Vocational High School. Even before setting out to write The Engineers, I’d heard of the legend of Burgard’s No. 13, Ritchie Campbell but never saw him play in person.
There might have been murmurings of Ritchie from the Class of 1992 seniors our 1991-92 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team my sophomore year. They saw him play and shared the court with him. Interestingly though, I didn’t start hearing about him in a meaningful way until graduating from Hutch-Tech, a recurring theme in my book.
It was at the SUNY College at Brockport. During my one year there, there were several other former Yale Cup players whom I befriended. I played intramural basketball with some of them. One was former Kensington “Knight”, Samuel “Quinn” Coffey, who went on to coach both boys and girls himself in the Baltimore area. He, along with everyone else who saw Ritchie Campbell play, spoke of him like a God.
He Could Do Whatever He Wanted To On The Basketball Court
“I saw Ritchie play and saw why they said he should’ve gone to the NBA,” said Adrian Baugh. No. 30 Adrian Baugh was one the unsung heroes on Jason Rowe and Damien Foster’s great early 1990s Buffalo Traditional Bulls teams. Everyone said these types of things about Ritchie Campbell. Personally, I’ve only seen clips of him playing here and there on video, in addition to hearing about his play through word of mouth. Thanks to the scrapbooks created by my first coach at Hutch-Tech, the late Dr. Kenneth Leon Jones, I was able to read up on Campbell’s playing days.
He originally played high school basketball at a Catholic school which no longer exists called “DeSales”. My research for The Engineers revealed that there was a whole lineup of private schools in our area in the 1970s and 1980s that closed over the years due to the declining economics of the region. Aside from DeSales, other schools that closed included “Cardinal Doherty” and “Father Baker”. My late cousin, Al Richardson, played for Father Baker and was a star on the basketball court.
Burgard’s Dynamic Duo
“Ritchie and Marcus (pictured above) were the two guys I’d always hear about in the seventh grade when I started playing for LaSalle. Those dudes were amazing!” During my research, I learned that Ritchie Campbell’s legend reached up to nearby Niagara Falls into the LaSalle basketball dynasty (and probably beyond). One of the players on the Explorers’ Mt. Rushmore of great guards, No. 50 Carlos Bradberry noted hearing about Campbell’s brilliance starting in middle school.
Ritchie Campbell eventually enrolled at Burgard Vocational High School where he teamed up with No. 32 Marcus “Ice Cream” Whitfield. Ice Cream is also considered a legend. The tandem wreaked havoc in the Yale Cup and Section VI under Coach Don Brusky for two to three years. During the 1987-88 season, they led the Bulldogs out to Glens Falls and into the Class C State Final Four. They finished their careers on the All-Western New York First Team. Both had the abilities to play far beyond the Yale Cup, but ran into personal difficulties off the court.
Elite Basketball Company
In my first year on the Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team we made the Class B-1 section final. There we all complimentary sectional programs recognizing all the playoff participants. In the back of the book, Section VI captured the all-time Western New York scoring leaders courtesy of the Buffalo News’ Mike Harrington. That was the 1991-92 season.
I’m certain the records and rankings have changed since then with all the players who have competed over the years. In any case, at that time, the number one and two players were Ritchie Campbell and Marcus Whitfield with 2,355 and 2,285 points respectively. The rest of the list was a who’s who of Western New York high school basketball with names including: Christian Laettner (Nichols), Damone James (Turner/Carroll), Ray Hall (McKinley) and Eric Eberz (St. Joe’s), again to name a few.
Hearing About Ritchie’s Legend Late
If it sounds strange that I had lofty dreams of repeating our 1990-91 team’s successes but didn’t learn about players like Ritchie Campbell until after the fact, this underlies one of the key threads in my story. That is I’ve learned that our lives are often a matter of circumstance. I would’ve jumped at the chance to go to the high school games and learn about Section VI basketball while I was in middle school. Unfortunately though no one in my ecosystem was there to point me in that direction. Had I seen players like Campbell play early on for myself, it would’ve shaped me as a player.
Another key piece to this puzzle is that Coach Jones, my first coach at Hutch-Tech, didn’t talk about players like Ritchie Campbell much. I suspect it was because he didn’t like or teach the isolation/one on one, street-style of basketball. He taught us a disciplined style on both end of the floor. Likewise exposing us younger players to phenoms like Ritchie Campbell might’ve been counterproductive. I’m just speculating here though.
Everyone Spoke of Ritchie with Reverence
In working on these promotional essays for The Engineers, I’ve stated that I’ve interviewed 30-40 players. Going through my notes I realized that many of my interviewees mentioned Campbell in their stories. In addition to Adrian Baugh’s and Carlos Bradberry’s comments above, the following are excerpts from my interviews where Ritchie’s legend came up.
Ryan Cochrane, Player, Cardinal O’Hara High School
“I’ve got a funny story about Ritchie Campbell. I didn’t know Ritchie at all. After getting on the Dewey Park team, Coach Dean would talk about him all the time, ‘Ritchie Campbell, Ritchie Campbell, Ritchie Campbell.’ I would say, ‘Who is this guy Ritchie Campbell?’ He took me to go watch Ritchie Campbell. He said, ‘Ritchie Campbell is going to score 50 points in this game.’ I think he had 15 points at half time, and I said there’s no way this guy scores 50 points and I think Ritchie wound up scoring 45 points in the second half which got him around 60 points.
“They would say, ‘Oh, Ritchie would dog you,’ and I’d say, ‘Ritchie can’t beat me.’ So, one day Coach Dean called Ritchie and we drove to this gym to play one on one. We got there and the gym was closed. So that’s a running joke to this day.”
Damien Foster, Player, Buffalo Traditional High School
“You had no choice but to study the players before you. I heard about Ritchie Campbell and I saw him play one time. That was when him and Trevor Ruffin went head-to-head in “The Randy”, the Randy Smith League. I was young. I want to say 13 years old maybe. But I remember that game. I just remember seeing Ritchie come down and just ‘letting it fly’ – two steps across half court and just letting it fly. I was like, ‘Wow, who is this guy?’ Ritchie Campbell never really came through the Boys Club. Neither did ‘Ice Cream’ (Marcus Whitfield). They played more so downtown. They were down at ’Live at Five’.”
Dion Frasier, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“I think we went 3-15. It was miserable in the sense that you never want to be part of a losing team. That was the year – I played against Ritchie Campbell, Marcus Whitfield – we played Burgard at home that year and I think we lost by 60 points (laughing). Man, these cats – Ritchie was throwing it off the backboard and ‘Ice Cream’ was catching it and dunking it. They KILLED us!”
Ed Harris, Player, Riverside High School
“I met Ritchie my freshman year. I didn’t know Ritchie like that, and I don’t know Ritchie that well to this day. But shit, as a freshman, I’m sitting on the bench watching him and Damon Rand go at it at Burgard and he has the flu (Ritchie). He literally gives us 38 points and he’s falling and coughing and laying out. I’m like, this dude literally put 38 points up on us and he’s got the flu. He could barely run around and I’m like, this guy is amazing. I’m looking at Ritchie – the way he can just shoot and command the game – as a young boy I’m looking with a star struck look at him like, this dude is unbelievable.”
Reggie Hokes, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“Yes, I knew I wanted to play varsity basketball right away. I knew about Ritchie Campbell, Cliff Robinson and those guys, and I heard about Christian Laettner. I was familiar with Trevor Ruffin because we had a park called 75 and they would come down and play and they’d call it “Live at 75”, and they used to have games down there – Ritchie and all of them would have summer league games. Ritchie actually stayed around the corner from me. He stayed in the Willard Park Projects about five blocks from where I stayed on Emslie.”
Frankie Harris, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“I think my best game a was a game we lost to Bennett at the buzzer. I think I had 19 points. Another good game was in my senior year against Burgard and we lost that one too. Ritchie Campbell was player of the year. I remember that being a good tough close game. I remember he made some free throws at the end. We played good. I remember Curt played real good against him.”
Quincy Lee, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“We got destroyed by ‘Ice Cream’ our sophomore year, I believe. They destroyed us, but junior year, we were actually in that Burgard game until the end. I got benched the whole game and he (Coach Jones) asked me to go in with 20 to 30 seconds left and he asked me to go in to shoot threes to try to win the game. I didn’t get a shot off, but that’s how that game went and it was that close – a couple of three-pointers and we would’ve won. Ritchie was good and I believe at that point, it was the last game that we lost because junior year. We couldn’t afford to lose another game, because it would’ve been our seventh loss and we had to win the last two.”
Jason Rowe, Player, Buffalo Traditional High School
“Locally, I looked up to my uncle, Trevor Ruffin, and Ritchie Campbell. I looked at them and felt like I could do something. They were guys I could watch every day in a ‘hands on’ type of way. I grew up watching those guys so I idolized Ritchie, Nigel Bostic, and Marcus Whitfield. I vaguely remember Ray Hall. My experience with him was in the summer leagues. But as far as the big-name guys who were in the Yale Cup, I knew them because my cousin, James, was eight years older than me. So, he grew up in that era and took me to those games because he played at Lafayette. I was able to get my experience watching those games as well.”
Christain J. Souter, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“So, freshman year I played anytime we were getting blown out. I think coach did set up a couple of scrimmages, but I can’t recall any of that or any detail on that. Mostly it was, you would go play these guys and you go out to Burgard and there was Ritchie Campbell, and he’s still in the game and they’re up by 30 and he’s getting his points. Here comes the skinny white kid out there and it’s me, Dion and Mike, and everybody is trying to get into the score book and trying to get their first points and play defense; then you realize that you’ve got some different athleticism to deal with. Most of the time as freshman it was garbage time. That is what it is, I guess.”
Dennis Wilson, Player, Turner/Carroll High School and Riverside High School
“No. You just read about them in the news at that time and see the ‘Super Seven’. I didn’t have transportation at that time, so I didn’t see Ritchie play really until Randy Smith, and then when I was at Turner, he actually came and practiced with us. Fajri knows everybody. Ritchie was out of school at that time, and he came one Saturday morning.
“That was obviously the highlight for a lot of us at the time. Him and Trev (Trevor Ruffin), I got to play with him at the Boys Club. This is when he was in Junior College in Hawaii and then I played against him a couple of times when he was a pro, so I got to see what a pro player looked like. Coach Russell at Riverside knew basketball. He was a great historian. We went over his house on winter breaks. We got pizza and we’d be watching old clips of Cliff and Ritchie and everything. I don’t know if he was the head coach with Cliff, but I think he was on the staff.”
Tim Winn, Player, LaSalle Senior High School
“I remember Ritchie Campbell coming to Niagara Falls to play against Modie (Cox) in an All-Star game. That was the first time ever seeing him play. I was in awe because he was one of those rare talents that you never see come through your area. From that point it made me pay attention. I wondered, what else was happening in Buffalo? It made you start paying attention to things outside of your neighborhood. Modie was a pure point guard – a pure leader, and I thought Ritchie was the kind of player who could just do anything. I don’t think there wasn’t anything Ritchie couldn’t do as a basketball player. He could shoot and make it from half court, and his ability to get assists was just as effective.”
Other Yale Cup Phenoms I Learned About Through Their Legends
It’s worth noting that Ritchie is just one of many Yale Cup legends, many of which I didn’t learn about until after I was finished playing. I played against the above-mentioned Damien Foster and Jason Rowe. Trevor Ruffin, Jason Rowe’s “big brother” and mentor’s name came up in numerous discussions as well, and if I had time, I could arguably write a piece on him. He was one of the few Yale Cup players to make it to the NBA. The former Bennett Tiger did it by way of the University of Hawaii.
There was also Campbell’s backcourt mate Marcus “Ice Cream” Whitfield. I coincidentally met Marcus recently at a cigar lounge in Maryland. Buffalo is a small city so you can quickly distill out a person’s history when meeting them. He was surprised that I knew of his and Ritchie’s legend.
I had never heard of him (a recurring theme), but McKinley’s Ray Hall came up in a discussion with a former Niagara University “Purple Eagle” player named Greg. It was at a gym in northern Virginia. He wasn’t from Western New York, but Ray Hall made so much noise on the court at McKinley that the area college players heard his name regularly. There was also Bennett’s Curtis Aiken, and then later Cliff Robinson from Riverside. Mark Price was another Riverside alum who made lots of noise after I graduated from Hutch-Tech, and I think went to play at Siena. I describe others in my Yale Cup piece.
The Night I Saw and Met Ritchie Campbell
If you’ve never played a competitive sport, you might not understand why someone like Ritchie Campbell holds God-like status for me and others. In a way he’s kind of like a Benji Wilson-type of figure from Chicago’s Simeon Vocational High School in the early 1980s. That’s a very moving documentary and story if you ever get the chance to watch it by the way.
Unlike Benji Wilson, Ritchie Campbell is still amongst the living, and I saw him a couple of years ago. It was Saturday, November 24, 2018. I had just come from the Buffalo Wild Wings Restaurant on Niagara Falls Boulevard. There I watched my Michigan Wolverines lose once again to the Ohio State Buckeyes in a lopsided game 62-39, which we were favored to win.
Afterwards the Park School hosted the University College High School from Rochester. Carlos Bradberry’s son, Jalen, transferred to the Park School and started for them. That night he treated us to one of the nastiest dunks I’ve ever seen.
On this particular play he advanced the ball up the floor with only one Rochester kid to beat. The kid mischievously shook his head looking to stop Jalen from scoring as both converged on the basket. They both rose up to the basket. Jalen leapt up off one foot and authoritatively slammed the ball through the basket on the kid causing the entire gym to erupt. I looked down for a brief second, but still caught most of it.
The Legend Walks In
Bishop Timon’s Head Coach and Buffalo Traditional legend, Jason Rowe, was there in the crowd among others. Later in the game, Ritchie Campbell walked in. We had never met, but I recognized him immediately. He was a little older and graying just like all the guys in our age group. He wore a bit of a beard and athletic gear, a sweatshirt, and jeans, I think. I looked on in awe, and everyone greeted him like the royalty he was.
After pondering it, I approached him, gave him my card, and asked to interview him. He smiled and thanked me for the compliments I gave him. He probably got asked for interviews all the time. We never talked afterwards which wasn’t surprising. After all, who was this scientist from out of town wanting to interview him and claiming to write a book? I got to shake his hand though and acknowledge his legend.
Burgard’s Next Great Guard after Ritchie: A Biblical Prophet’s Namesake
My research for The Engineers, revealed that years before Ritchie Campbell and Marcus Whitfield teamed up at Burgard, there was another duo. My uncle Anthony “Tony” Harris teamed up with Eugene Roberson for the Bulldogs in the 1960s. Shortly after Ritchie Campbell finished at Burgard, there was a guard-big man duo who teamed up in the red, white and blue. They were No. 11 Jeremiah Wilkes and the 6’7” No. 55 Shareef Beecher.
The pair coincidentally ended my middle school basketball team’s season my eighth-grade year at Campus West in the “Gold Dome Tournament”. They also both joined the 1,000-point club in my final Yale Cup game at Burgard my senior year. I don’t know that Jeremiah got the notoriety that the other great Yale Cup guards got, but those of us from that era remember him and his game. I wanted to acknowledge him in this piece.
Ritchie had that ‘Mike’ in Him!
“I saw Ritchie for the first time when I was a freshman! There were a lot of talented kids in Buffalo who didn’t leave, like Ritchie!” In addition to our talks at SUNY Brockport, Ritchie’s name came up again in my interview with the above-mentioned Coach Samuel “Quinn” Coffey decades later for my book. He saw Campbell play when his Kensington Knights, coached by Bob Mitchell (see my Yale Cup piece) matched up with the Burgard Bulldogs in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
“He (Ritchie) and Damon Rand had one of the best halves of basketball I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m going back to how they traded three-pointers back-to back-to back. Ritchie would come down and hit a three. Damon would come down and hit a three and get fouled,” Riverside’s Ed Harris said reflecting on witnessing Ritchie Campbell play for the first time. “It was literally high school basketball at its finest at that time and I was like, ‘I’m really in the right spot!’
“Ritchie had that ‘Mike’ in him because he could put that ball in the hoop. He definitely could put it in the hoop! My first time seeing him play was in the Pepsi Tournament when he had – it was him and the Pat dude – I can’t remember his name (Pat Jones). He threw the Pat dude an alley-oop and I was like, ‘OH!’”
Closing Thoughts on Ritchie Campbell’s Legend
Throughout this essay I hyperlinked Ritchie’s name to a feature from WGRZ in Buffalo which is still online. It goes into Ritchie’s entire story on and off the court. It also discusses the documentary that was made about him. In the feature it said that he had started coaching at one of the local high schools. In fact, when Ritchie walked into the game at the Park School, I recall one of my teammates from Hutch-Tech addressing him as “Coach”.
When I think of Ritchie Campbell, I think about a lot of things. In addition to not witnessing his brilliance as a basketball player, I think about the importance of studying your craft. No matter what you set out to do, it’s important to know the history of what you’re doing. In this instance if you want to be a basketball player, you must know the history of basketball. This applies beyond the basketball court though. It applies to business, music, politics, etc.
Studying your craft and knowing the history of it. It’s a theme that personally applied to my science training as my graduate advisor at the University of Michigan reminded me of it repeatedly. It’s also a key them in my book The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Thank you for reading this piece. If you have memories of Ritchie Campbell or thoughts on anything I’ve said, please leave a comment under this essay.
More Related Content
Thank you for reading this piece. The images used in this essay came from an archive of Section VI basketball, carefully assembled over the years from issues of the Buffalo News. This archive was created by my first Coach at Hutch-Tech High School, Dr. Kenneth Leon Jones. Coach Jones was a mentor, a father figure, and is a central in my story. None of this would’ve been possible without him.
I intend to create more promotional/teaser pieces for The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story both via print and video as I journey through the final steps of the book’s completion. I created a page here on Big Words Authors for the purpose of giving a background of the book and grouping all the promotional narratives such as this in one place for interested readers. On my first blogging platform, the Big Words Blog Site, there are interviews with some the most accomplished Section VI players from my era including: Jason Rowe, Tim Winn, Carlos Bradberry and Damien Foster. I also interviewed legendary LaSalle Head Basketball Coach Pat Monti. Finally, there are several other basketball-related essays related to my book project. If you liked this piece, please share it on your social media and feel free to leave a comment.
The Big Words LLC Newsletter
For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Your personal information and privacy will be protected. Click this link and register using the sign-up button at the bottom of the announcement. If there is an issue with the form, you can also email me at [email protected] . Regards.
“Everyone expects you to have a huge following, to look a certain way – like the Instagram models, to be the right complexion to get the protection that you need.”
The fourth poem published on Big Words Authors once again comes from poet Tamara Coleman. It is one of her many creations and involves conforming to the expectations of others. It is entitled, The Poem Of The Day. Tamara’s bio and contact information are immediately after her poem.
No Matter If You Don’t Fit The Description
No Matter If You Don’t Fit The Complexion
No Matter If You Don’t Fit The Weight Requirement
No Matter If You Don’t Have A Huge Social Media Following
No Matter If You’ve Been Told You Don’t Have The Qualifications
GOD Qualifies The Unqualified And Puts Them In The Right Position
Author’s Post Poem Reflections/Thoughts
This poem to me was about fitting in, and especially in this day and age. With everything being digital and with social media. Everyone expects you to have a huge following, to look a certain way – like the Instagram models, to be the right complexion to get the protection that you need. In terms of work, just because you don’t fit the description that they’re looking for doesn’t mean you can’t apply because you might be able to fit into a different job as an example. I’ve learned not to disqualify myself. To apply anyway. The light-skinned and dark-skinned comparisons, that’s colorism. The shade of your skin shouldn’t matter. Everyone has their own preferences, but that shouldn’t be the only factor when applying yourself to something, or even in a relationship. That shouldn’t matter.
About the Author
I am CREATIVELY CREATING CREATIVE DESIGNS. I am POETICALLY thinking. I am POETICALLY speaking. I am a POETIC being. I don’t CREATE to impress, I CREATE to express! Tamara Coleman is a talented poet and graphics designer from Buffalo, NY. To see more of Tamara’s poetry, go to Poetess Tamara Coleman on Facebook. Tamara can be contacted at [email protected].
“But then years later when Clifford was retired from the NBA, the kids at Riverside didn’t even know who he was. I was shocked at that. The kids so much are living in the present. Players from two or three years ago, it seems like it’s of no interest to them. More today’s players.”
This story is another promotional piece for my two-part book project entitled, The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. It looks back one of the few basketball players from Buffalo to make it to the NBA, Riverside High School’sCliff Robinson. As described on the web page I created for the book, and the numerous pieces I created surrounding the book, I interviewed 30-40 players and coaches from Section VI. My research revealed several interesting facts. As described below, several names continued to come up during my research.
One of the bases for my story is the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team. During my freshman year at the school, the team went on a magical run winning our city league, the Yale Cup 13-0. They then won the Section VI Class B sectional, coming within one game of berth in the state final four in Glens Falls, one of many basketball stories from our area over at that time. The pictures used in this essay come from an archive of Section VI basketball. It was assembled over the years from issues of the Buffalo News by my first Coach at Hutch-Tech High School, Dr. Ken Jones.
The Power of Interviews and Research
One of the most powerful aspects of conducting interviews is that you get to hear multiple points of view. In doing so you get to hear commonalities to your own experiences, and differences with others. There were several recurring themes in my interviews for The Engineers such as playing at Delaware Park, the conditions we played in within the Yale Cup league of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the importance of coaches who genuinely cared about the players. Certain names came up consistently including Ritchie Campbell and Marcus “Ice Cream” Whitfield (Burgard), Trevor Ruffin (Bennett) and finally, Cliff Robinson (Riverside), to whom this piece is dedicated.
I decided to write this narrative after the final interview for The Engineers. It was with one of Cliff Robinson’s coaches at Riverside High School, Coach Bill Russell, who coached the Riverside “Frontiersman” during my time at Hutch-Tech. Under Coach Russell’s leadership, the Frontiersman led by players including Ed Harris, Billy Nelson and Walter Gravely won the Yale Cup and the Class C sectional in 1992.
Ours was a fun interview which lasted two hours. During which Coach Russell, a true student of the game like my coach, Ken Jones, mentioned Cliff Robinson regularly. Throughout my research Coach Russell was the only one to refer to Cliff as “Clifford”. This essay is going to thus revisit my memories of the late Cliff Robinson as a distant onlooker, as well as present excerpts from players who remembered him, and one of his coaches.
My Memories of Cliff Robinson
Just like Christian Laettner who went on to become a superstar at Duke University from Western New York before playing in the NBA, I didn’t learn about Cliff Robinson until he was drafted by the NBA’s “Rip City” Portland “Trailblazers” team. That 1989-90 season he was a rookie on a veteran laden team with players including Clyde ‘The Glide’ Drexler, Jerome Kersey, Buck Williams, Terry Porter and Kevin Duckworth. They were a fun team to watch.
Coach Rick Adelman’s Trailblazers made it all the way to the NBA Finals that season before falling to the Detroit Pistons in five games, a ‘back-to-back’ championship for the Pistons, “The Bad Boys”. I vividly remember Robinson wearing the No. 3, flying down the lane in the open court dunking the ball with authority that season and in the playoffs. As time went on, he developed his entire game and began regularly shooting the ball from beyond the three-point arc.
Also etched into my memory is Cliff looking on painfully in the background wearing a red headband, as Michael Jordan trotted up the court with his palms in the air acting confused about his iconic Game 2 offensive performance. It was the 1992 NBA Finals, and he was in the process of burying the Trailblazers with a barrage of three-pointers. The Chicago Bulls went on to win that series in six games.
From Riverside to UConn
As described in The Engineers, I didn’t discover the Western New York high school basketball scene until I got into high school and was attempting to make the team there. So, I missed seeing players like the above-mentioned Christian Laettner, Cliff Robinson, and a host of others. Cliff wore No. 53 for the Riverside Frontiersman and was a key factor in their successes in the 1980s. His final year, the 1984-85 season, he earned All-Western New York honors at Riverside. I likewise missed Cliff’s career at the University of Connecticut (UConn) where he was credited with helping to put the school’s basketball program on the map. There he wore No. 00.
Cliff started his professional basketball career with the above-mentioned Portland Trailblazers, but he played for numerous clubs. I think one of Cliff Robinson’s final stops in the NBA was coincidentally with the above-mentioned Detroit Pistons in the early 2000s. He was a veteran in the league at that point and played for several teams over his 18-year career. I was in graduate school at the nearby University of Michigan so his getting signed by the Pistons had a special significance for me. It was a few years before the 2004 season when the Pistons assembled their next championship unit, and they were cycling veterans on and off the team, trying to find that right chemistry.
“It’s time to say goodbye to Uncle Cliffy!” I’ll always remember the famous sportswriter, Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press, declaring his opinion that it was time for the Pistons to move on from Cliff. The 2002-03 season was his last one with the Pistons. From there he made stops in Golden State, Toronto, and New Jersey (now the Brooklyn Nets). I had stopped following the NBA closely by the time he retired, and the next time I recall hearing his name was when he died late in the summer of 2020. It turns out that he passed away at age 53 from lymphoma, and not Covid-19.
Stories about Cliff Robinson from My Research
As described when I conducted interview after interview for The Engineers, Robinson’s name continuously came up. The following are excerpts from my interviews where Cliff was mentioned.
Ryan Cochrane, Player, Cardinal O’Hara High School
“There was talk about Cliff Robinson. My stepmom was friends with him, and I still remember him pulling up in his black sports car, cheesing ear to ear. We wound up going to Delaware Park and playing a couple of games there. I couldn’t believe that I was playing with a caliber of player of Cliff Robinson, a legend in Buffalo.”
Ed Harris, Player, Riverside High School
“I cried when Michael Jordan retired, but as far as local talent, Trevor Ruffin was the guy that I loved to guard. Trevor brought the best out of me. Going up to Delaware Park – they were some of the best battles that you could ever have playing in the city of Buffalo. Guys like Trevor, Cliff (Robinson) would come back and play, and just the battles and all the kids and players who were in college at that time, they were just some of the best battles.”
Frankie Harris, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“From my junior to senior year, I was playing with those guys and they dogged me out, but that’s how you got better! Cliff Robinson used to come to the park and he and his brothers could play too. Nigel Bostic, Leonard Russell – all those guys could play, and I could only get better because I’m playing against them every day. I see kids today, they don’t have that, especially in Buffalo, kids are running the streets and there’s too much other stuff going on.”
Keith Hearon, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“First, Cliff Robinson, his sister used to live on the street after me. His sister was a big baller, so I used to go over their house to hoop in the back yard and she used to come down and play and talk about him. My uncles used to talk about him.”
Reggie Hokes, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“Yes, I knew I wanted to play varsity basketball right away. I knew about Ritchie Campbell and Cliff Robinson, all those guys. Also I had heard about Christian Laettner. I was familiar with Trevor Ruffin because we had a park called 75 and they would come down and play and they’d call it ‘Live at 75’, and they used to have games down there – Ritchie and all of them would have summer league games.”
Earl Holmes, Player, Hutch-Tech High School
“I actually knew about them because Cliff Robinson lived on my street. In the summertime he used to take me to Roosevelt Park in Langfield to play with him and his sister. I used to play with them all the time. They lived three houses down from me! That’s my guy right there.”
Bill Russell, Coach, Riverside High School
“We had previously had some talented players. That team Clifford Robinson was on, that was a talented team. We had the unfortunate destiny of seeming to have to play Lackawanna every year. We played them several times and Lackawanna was a legendary and successful program. There were several state championships and then a few years later there was a Niagara Falls team that seemed to overpower teams. And we seemed to have to play Lackawanna in those years, several times in the sectionals. We lost to a very strong Lackawanna team. We might’ve won a state title that year. Despite having Clifford, we lost in the first round. Lackawanna would always be seeded No. 1 and undefeated!”
Dennis Wilson, Player, Turner/Carroll High School and Riverside High School
“Oh, absolutely. He knew basketball (Coach Russell). He was a great historian. We went over to his house on winter breaks. We got pizza and we’d be watching old clips of Cliff and Ritchie (Campbell) and everything. I don’t know if he was the head coach with Cliff, but I think he was on the staff.”
My Brother’s Cliff Robinson Story
On my sports YouTube channel, Big Discussions76 Sports, I recorded a voice-over video shortly after Cliff died in 2020 (embedded below). Sometimes when you record things, you listen to the playback and you realize that you misspoke. Or someone points it out to you. My brother, Amahl, had a funny story about Cliff. It involved when Cliff Robinson and his family visited the Homestyle Family Buffett. It was in Tonawanda, NY on Niagara Falls Boulevard in the early 1990s.
Legend has it that my brother, who worked at the restaurant (his first job), approached Robinson for an autograph. The 6’10” star replied, “I’m eating!” The story makes me laugh every time. If you check out that video, I state that my brother approached Robinson for an interview. He quickly corrected me in that it was an autograph. Robinson’s reaction was not surprising. Athletes, celebrities and entertainers often get approached and may tire of it. Cliff was a big deal for Buffalo kids like us at the time who did not know him growing up. It was likewise a big deal to see him anywhere around the city.
An Addendum Discussing Cliff’s Business Activities Post Retirement
When I originally published this piece, I was unfamiliar with how Cliff spent his years between his retirement from the NBA and his death. This essay received a lot of engagement/support in some of the basketball groups in Facebook that I’m a member of. There one of the other members pointed out that like many retired professional athletes, Cliff entered the realm of entrepreneurship.
Specifically, his interests were in the cannabis industry where he started a company called “Uncle Cliffy”. He partnered with a company called “Pistil Point Cannabis” out in the Portland area where he started his professional career. He was particularly passionate about increasing awareness that players could use marijuana-related products medicinally to help them through injuries for example. Robinson controversially used marijuana during this NBA career admittedly for anxiety, and to increase his personal focus. This conflicted with league policy.
Final Thoughts on Cliff Robinson
This concludes my piece on Cliff Robinson. Going back to the images used in this piece, they’re all from the Buffalo News. You’ll notice that he was pictured a couple of times with another notable Robinson, Grover Cleveland’s Keith Robinson. To my knowledge the two weren’t related. They were both notable players in the Yale Cup and Section VI at that time though. They were both taller front court players and went on to play major Division I basketball. As described, Cliff went on to UConn and Keith went on to Notre Dame shortly afterwards.
The opening quote for this piece was from Coach Bill Russell who had nothing but fond memories of Cliff. If you have memories about Cliff, whether they be from Buffalo, UConn, or the NBA, please feel free to share them below this essay. By the way, Buffalo is admittedly a small city, but it’s interesting how many of these stories led back to Riverside High School which, by the way, is my mother’s alma mater. There are excerpts from my discussion with Coach Russell throughout this piece. I’m going to conclude this essay with on more which speaks to what Cliff accomplished at the professional level.
“Clifford grew up by the Erie County Medical Center (ECMC), near Delevan and Grider. Those are kids that grew up with us. Clifford played 18 years in the NBA, 18 years. Even for people in the city – Clifford is not really a hero in the city as much as I thought he would be,” Coach Russell said. “About a year ago, or two years ago, James Harden passed 20,000 points and they made a big deal out of it. Harden hits the 20,000-point mark.
“I made a little statement on Facebook. I said, ‘Harden just passed 20,000 points and exceeds Clifford Robinson’s total which was 19,950 or something.’ There were a bunch of follow up comments saying, ‘Oh, my God, I never knew that Clifford scored that many points in his career!’ That’s true because nobody knew how significant a player that he was. Because it’s a big deal when somebody scores 20,000 points in the NBA. Clifford never had 1,000 points in high school, but he almost got 20,000 points in the NBA. That’s crazy!”
Related Content to My Book Project and this Essay
Thank you for reading this piece looking back at Cliff Robinson. I’ve created other promotional/teaser print and video pieces for The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. I’ve created a page here on Big Words Authors for the purpose of giving a background of the book. There I’ve grouped all the promotional pieces such as this in one place for interested readers. On the Big Words Blog Site, there are interviews of some of the most accomplished Section VI players from my era. They include: Jason Rowe, Tim Winn, Carlos Bradberry and Damien Foster. I also interviewed legendary LaSalle Head Basketball Coach, Pat Monti. Finally, there are several other basketball-related essays related to my book project. If you liked this piece, please share it on your social media and leave a comment beneath this piece.
The Big Words LLC Newsletter
For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter. It will be for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words and pieces from both my blogs. I will also share select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Your personal information and privacy will be protected. Click this link and register using the sign-up button at the bottom of the announcement. If there is an issue with the form, you also email me at [email protected] . Regards.
“Don’t get me wrong. I get it if people think they could’ve done better (individually). I get it. Would I sacrifice that senior year to have a better individual career and to go to a better school? HELL NAH! I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. I don’t know about them. I wouldn’t!”
Some of the pictures used in this essay come from an archive of Section VI basketball. It was assembled over the years from issues of the Buffalo News by my first Coach at Hutch-Tech High School, Dr. Kenneth Leon Jones. Other pictures were taken from yearbooks from Hutch-Tech High School from the early 1990s. Coach Jones is discussed throughout this piece and is hyperlinked to a previous essay. Finally, a video about him from my sports YouTube channel is embedded at the end of this essay.
The Story Of The 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Varsity Basketball Team
“That was a great feeling being around a group of guys who played together and really liked being around each other!”
During my freshman year at Hutch-Tech High School, the 1990-91 Engineers went on a magical run winning our city league, the “Yale Cup” with a record of 13-0. They then marched through the Section VI Class B playoff bracket to win that championship. Their season ended one game short of a berth in the State Final Four in Glens Falls, NY, which I’ll discuss later. From my vantage point at the time, it was a very big deal. Afterwards I dreamt of doing what they did.
Interestingly, my research revealed multiple points of view on that magical season. It also revealed the significance of the 1990-91 team’s accomplishments relative to those of other Section VI teams of that era. In my book project, there is an entire bonus chapter dedicated to the 1990-91 Engineers. However, I also wanted to create a promotional/teaser piece just dedicated to them.
We Didn’t Do Anything That Spectacular! A Perspective On The Story
“When I heard you wanted to interview me, I was thinking, ‘Man, we weren’t a special team. We didn’t do anything that spectacular,’” said No. 13, Curtis Brooks (pictured above guarding Mike Mitchell of Williamsville South High School). He was the starting point guard and one of the leaders of the 1990-91 team. It was a summer-fall day when I interviewed him in downtown Washington, DC at L’ Enfant Plaza. We sat outside at lunch time, and you could hear the flurry of government workers and contractors walking by as well as the commuter trains coming and going in the background.
One of the most exciting interviews for me was that with No. 13. In The Engineers, I describe him as the ‘engine’ that drove the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys Basketball Team during its magical season. Interestingly, while I looked back at Brooks, his teammates, and their accomplishments with reverence, he surprisingly wondered what they had done that was so special.
Keep in mind that we were both in our 40s at the time. We both travelled the country and had many experiences outside of Buffalo. Furthermore, in all honesty, when you think about high school state championships, NCAA championships and NBA world championships, how big a deal is it to win your city league and sectional championships in high school? In comparison to the former three accomplishments, maybe it isn’t that big a deal. However, for a freshman just coming into the school with little understanding of the game and its multiple contexts and layers, it was a very big deal.
We Still Don’t Know How Ya’ll Did That!
“We weren’t the most talented team, but we knew each other. What that team had been through with Jones (Coach Ken Jones), we were comfortable with the system, and everyone had gotten better. We had played together,” Jerrold “Pep” Skillon said regarding the 1990-91 team’s championship run. “To this day, some of the players from the other the Yale Cup teams still say, ‘We still don’t know how ya’ll did that!’” I laughed at this revelation by Skillon as I could imagine the disbelief of players from the other schools continuing years later. How did Hutch-Tech of all the 14 Yale Cup schools do that?
“We did have some good players but even if you were better talent-wise, we had better team chemistry! That goes back to what you were saying in terms of the teams you played on – they didn’t have that chemistry. It was like everybody for themselves,” Skillon continued contrasting his experience with mine. “Well, we didn’t have that! These were my boys. We all came up in high school together, and we hung out after games. We were boys!”
Going 13-0 In The Yale Cup
By the way, how common was it to go 13-0 in the Yale Cup? In some of our last talks, our late coach, Dr. Kenneth Leon Jones, a central character in my story, asked me to investigate who had done it before his beloved 1990-91 team. Approximately four years earlier, the Trevor Ruffin-led Bennett “Tigers” did it on their way to the State Class B Final Four in Glens Falls, NY.
I believe the Buffalo Traditional Bulls, led by Damien Foster and Jason Rowe, did it in their magical senior seasons in 1995-96 (all their seasons were magical in my opinion). It also turns out that Hutch-Tech had done it back in the 1970s. Someone on Facebook who commented an earlier Engineers team had done it when I shared the overview page for The Engineers in the group, “You know you’re from Buffalo, NY if……”. Regardless, it was a head scratcher for many at the time that the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team got it done in the fashion they did.
Losing To Buffalo Traditional By 49 And Marcus Whitfield Scoring 50 Points
“I’m not going to lie and say that I wasn’t embarrassed. I remember to this day, the Traditional game sophomore year. They beat us by 49 points. I never lost a game like that game in my life! We were embarrassed. My cousin went there, and Traditional had a bunch of pretty girls,” Pep Skillon said reflecting on a lopsided loss to Buffalo Traditional his sophomore year, Coach Jones’ first year. “We go in there and everybody’s got their hair cut, all that. We got stomped!
“Don’t get me wrong, they were one of the best teams in the area at the time. They went on a run to the states that year, whatever, but I remember that. They stomped us. I’ll never forget that game, they stomped us out. That was an embarrassing game sophomore year.”
“Marcus Whitfield, he scored 50 points on us! We were losing but we were like, ‘He’s not going to get 50 on us,’ but then he got 50 on the nose. We did have some pride, but we didn’t have the horses,” Skillon continued. “I remember that Burgard game where they blew us out because he scored 50 and the Traditional game. Those games stood out because that was the first time, I was embarrassed on the basketball court. We didn’t fight hard. Traditional beat us by 49 points and he put up 50 points again us (Whitfield).”
Experiencing Sobering Losses Early On: Iron Sharpening Iron
“I think we went 3-15. It was miserable in the sense that you never want to be part of a losing team. That was the year – I played against Ritchie Campbell, Marcus Whitfield – we played Burgard at home that year and I think we lost by 60 points (laughing),” said Reverend Dion Frasier of his freshman season. “Man, these cats – Ritchie was throwing the ball off the backboard and ‘Ice Cream’ was catching it and dunking it.
“They KILLED us! Ice Cream was Marcus Whitfield. They waxed us but that was a memorable game for me because that was the first time, I ever played in a varsity game. I got in the game because we were getting blown out and that’s when I scored my first two points. It was miserable, but it was fun!”
These two excerpts from my discussions with Pep Skillon and Dion Frasier, were fun to listen to and educational as well. The core players of the 1990-91 Engineers not only grew up in Coach Jones’ system together, but they also experienced several difficult losses early on which helped galvanize them as a team. Furthermore, they got experience playing against some of the Yale Cup’s all-time greats including Ritchie Campbell and Marcus Whitfield. I’d heard about the legend of Ritchie Campbell before, but this was my first time hearing about Marcus Whitfield’s brilliance.
The “Risk Factor”: A Key Ingredient To The 1990-91 Team’s Success
There were several keys to the 1990-91 Engineers’ magical season. One was the hands-on experience against some of the area’s greatest players just described. The term “The Risk Factor” came also back to me as I was writing this essay. Coach Jones shared the term with me when we discussed his beloved 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys Basketball Team. As I’ll describe, it involved one of his key basketball teachings, disciplined ‘man to man’ team defense.
“We were small,” said Reverend Dion Frasier reflecting on the 1990-91 season, his junior year. The 1990-91 Engineers weren’t the biggest or most physically talented team that ever took the floor in the Yale Cup. A part of their secret to success though was the disciplined and staunch man to man team defense that they played, particularly their backcourt.
In addition to the above-mentioned No. 13, Curtis Brooks, there was also No. 40, Paul Saunders. Neither guard was taller than 6’2”, but they were stellar defenders. In fact, Coach Jones attributed the team’s success in large part to No. 13’s and No. 40’s defensive tenacity. Their long arms and quick feet allowed them to take ‘risks’ or anticipate/gamble for steals. Likewise, they recovered easily whenever they anticipated incorrectly. Their play created lots of easy baskets for the team, a key ingredient to its success that season. This was one of the ways they were able to score 100 points or more multiple times that season (or close to it).
Was It The Chemistry?
“It was the chemistry that made that team successful, NOT the coaching!” Most of the content I’ve created surrounding my project has lauded Coach Ken Jones. In fact, there are many of us who still look back on him with gratitude and reverence. That said, as described in my piece entitled, Lasting Lessons Basketball Taught Me: Different Things To Different People, he did have his share of detractors and critics. Some of them sat on the bench with him wearing the maroon gold Hutch-Tech uniforms. To learn some more about Coach Jones and his legacy, once again see the embedded video at the end of this essay.
The last quote regarding the team’s chemistry came from a player whom most of us knew around school as ‘J-Bird’. J-Bird was No. 34 Jermaine Skillon, the younger brother of the above-mentioned Pep Skillon. His was another one of my favorite interviews due to the levity in our discussion. J-Bird was yet another talented player on the 1990-91 team, and he was from my brother’s and the above-mentioned Dion Frasier’s Class of 1992. Let’s just say that J-Bird didn’t always see eye to eye with Coach Jones. Looking back, he believed it was the chemistry amongst the core of the 1990-91 team that led to its success that season and not the coaching per se.
I’ve shared this not to stir controversy, but to note that for a given piece of history, there are often multiple points of view, and I think J-Bird’s is worth considering. I experienced the importance of team chemistry during my short basketball journey, and what happens when you don’t have it. It’s also something I’ve witnessed play out in sports as a spectator years after high school. This spans across all levels: high school, college, the pros and even in the Olympics. It even plays a role in work settings.
Playing Both Yale Cup And Fundamental Basketball
“On defense you ANTICIPATE, and on offense you REACT!” This was one of Coach Jones’ most fundamental teachings. Other players in fact attributed the 1990-91 team’s success to Coach Jones’ fundamentals, principles, and his system. As described in many of my writings and videos, Coach Jones’ hallmark teachings were fundamentals, team defense, and both disciplined and unselfishness on offense. He encouraged taking good shots on offense and ‘working’ the ball for uncontested layups. Having played under him for a brief period, and after conducting my many interviews, my conclusion is that the 1990-91 team’s success was a mixture of both the team’s chemistry and Coach Jones’ system.
J-Bird’s brother, Pep, acknowledged that the 1990-91 Engineers were equipped to play multiple styles of basketball. They could play a more ‘up and down’, ‘racehorse’ style of game that the Yale Cup was known for. They were also trained to play the slower more disciplined suburban-style which involved set offenses, often to counter zone defenses. Many Yale Cup teams played zone defenses to prevent penetration and to avoid individual players getting into foul trouble. Many of the suburban teams also played zone, but for the purpose of countering the more athletic style played by most Yale Cup schools.
When necessary, the 1990-91 Engineers were trained to methodically ‘work’ the ball to find good shots for the team. They routinely did this instead of hoisting up the first available shot or driving to the basket with ‘reckless abandon’ as they say. Working the ball was a term Coach Jones used for patiently finding quality shots on offense, and not taking a shot early in a possession if unnecessary. Likewise, many of the suburban teams were astonished to see a Yale Cup school play this way as it was out of character for our league.
More On Chemistry, Competitive Will And Killer Instinct
Again, the chemistry was critical too. If you look throughout sports, the players on most championship teams enjoy being around one another. They often hang out together in their spare time. They unselfishly accept their roles within the unit even if it means not being in the spotlight. If certain players within the team are struggling, the others have a way of encouraging them. Carlos Bradberry, of the LaSalle Explorers, noted this in my interview with him regarding team chemistry.
“Curt Brooks was a warrior! He was at the park every day in the summer before our senior year practicing in a weight jacket,” said another senior from the 1990-91 team, No. 11, Quincy Lee. Brooks was humble about this as well when I asked him about it. It was something he did for a competitive edge and to make up for the hours he spent at his job that summer of 1990, and away from the basketball court.
This is significant because as I learned in my own basketball journey, regardless of how thorough a coach’s system is, it can’t completely cover up a lack of talent and ability, bad team chemistry and a lack of camaraderie. It can sometimes cover up for injuries and having lesser talent. It also can’t give players a sense of drive, killer instinct, or passion. The core of the 1990-91 team had these qualities.
The “Mighty” Hutch-Tech
“On the news at nighttime they called us ‘The MIGHTY Hutch-Tech’!” I was a freshman that 1990-91 season so I didn’t witness all the fanfare surrounding the team. A low grade in one class prevented me from participating in the program early that season as their momentum gradually built. I just watched a few games from the sidelines and listened to the morning announcements, not understanding the significance of everything. The above-mentioned Quincy Lee, one of the seniors on that team shared with me during our interview that one of the news stations gave them a special nickname as they continued winning that season.
“I can’t believe they had us ranked third in the state,” Coach Jones said in my first year on the team (the 1991-92 season) and then years later. After two early season losses to the Willie Cauley-led Niagara Falls Senior High School “Power Cats”, they went on a 17-game winning streak, during which it seemed they couldn’t lose again. That winning streak included going 13-0 in the Yale Cup. They won four more games in postseason play in route to the Section VI Class B championship. They knocked off teams including: Maryvale, Clarence, Kenmore East and Williamsville South. By the way, for all of you basketball junkies out there, Willie Cauley turned out to be the father of the University of Kentucky’s and the NBA’s Willie Cauley-Stein. One of the players from the 1990-91 team revealed this to me in our talks.
Doing It A Different Way
As described earlier, other teams had gone 13-0 in the Yale Cup and went on to make deep runs in postseason play. I’m thinking about the above-mentioned Bennett High School, in addition to Burgard Vocational and Buffalo Traditional High Schools. It was probably how Coach Jones, and his 1990-91 team did it that season that was so impressive. And again, as a novice at the time I didn’t understand everything I was seeing. Researching the entire series of events years later though, it was remarkable in my opinion.
Again, most of the players on that team admitted that athletically, they were small in terms of size. Their tallest player, No. 55, Charles “Chuck” Thompson, was 6’5”. They also didn’t play a flashy style of basketball with lots of high-flying dunks and no-look passes like you would see in some of the old And1 Mixtape Tours, by players like Rafer Alston, best known as ‘Skip 2 My Lou.
A Winning Formula
Instead, they played a patient and disciplined style as described above using fundamentals, disciplined man to man team defense, methodical offensive sets and unselfishness across the board. They talked on defense, boxed out and rebounded the ball, and created an abundance of easy baskets for one another.
“Games are won and lost on the free throw line!” They were also a solid free throw shooting team, one of Coach Jones’ other basketball gospels. They didn’t win every game decisively and it was their free throw shooting which secured some of their close victories. Some victories required late timely baskets by No. 13, Curtis Brooks, from close range or out beyond the three-point arc. Others were due to team efforts where there were balanced point totals, assist and rebounds.
Unselfishly Putting The Puzzle Pieces Together
“Basically, it’s like I said. Everything was a piece of the puzzle. Like me for example. They used to call me the ‘Black Hole’, because they knew that if they threw the ball down to the me that I was going to shoot it! That’s the way that I was when I got the ball,” said Charles Thompson, the center for the team.
“Not everyone had that scoring mentality. I had it, Pep had it, Curt had it. Quincy was the outside three-point shooter. Everybody was learning how to play their role to get us to a point to play better,” Thompson continued. “Because after Frankie (Harris) left, it was just us there, the original people that came in that freshman year. The entire starting five, we could now work together, and we did good.”
It Wasn’t A “Star” System: No One Was Looking To Be A Star
“So that’s what his structure was. We didn’t really have – it really wasn’t like a pro-offense. It wasn’t about dumping the ball down to one person. It was like that, but it wasn’t designed for that,” Curtis Brooks said during our interview. “He (Coach Jones) never said, ‘Get the ball. I want you to SHOOT! SHOOT! SHOOT!’ He’d say, ‘Move the ball and if you’re in that area, that’s your shot!’ It wasn’t a star system!”
Of the many fascinating aspects of my discussions with Curtis Brooks, none was more fascinating than that of Coach Jones’ offensive philosophy. Still a novice and a ‘project’ at the time, I didn’t understand everything. In a nutshell, Coach Jones taught a team-oriented style of offense where no one player was featured. The focus was on moving the ball and creating good shots for everyone, especially “uncontested” layups. He also encouraged easy baskets off created turnovers.
This arguably conflicted with players who wanted to play “isolation-style” basketball which we learned by default on Buffalo’s playgrounds. It also conflicted with what I call in The Engineers, the ‘Fab Five Era’. It was the era where highly talented younger players came in and immediately demanded to play based upon their talent levels, but not necessarily embracing the coach’s culture and teachings.
A Special Group Of Players
“Jones was looking for a certain kind of kid, a coachable kid!” I could attribute this quote to a single player, but because multiple people stated it, I consider it a recurring, underlying theme. Coach Jones was in fact not looking for the most talented kids, but instead kids who would submit to his coaching and culture, and sacrifice for their teammates.
Keep in mind that this was all at our city’s lone technical high school which required an entrance exam for admittance. In writing my story, I’ve pondered that while Coach Jones knew his fundamentals and was a “true student of the game”, he also gathered a special collection of players at the right time. Interestingly, many of these players decided to attend the school before he got there (see my Kevin Roberson piece). They were coachable, driven, had good chemistry as described above, and they loved playing the game. The latter point is important because some of them went through hard times and pondered quitting but didn’t.
That said, Coach Jones gathered those players in such a way that they all grew up together in his program. They stayed together, and this created a bit of a family. It wasn’t a smooth ride for every player, but they loved each other and the game enough to persevere through the early losing they experienced. They also persevered through their knowledgeable, but at times onery coach, who admitted that if he could go back that, “I would be just as demanding, but more understanding!” He ran the entire program by himself with no regular assistants and no formal modified or junior varsity program feeding him trained up players. Again, remarkable.
“You have to be good to be lucky and lucky to be good,” Coach Jones said to his players often among other things. Arguably, there was a bit of luck and circumstance in what the 1990-91 Engineers accomplished. A bit of a ‘vacuum’ was created in the Yale Cup that 1990-91 season. Super stars like the great Ritchie Campbell and Marcus Whitfield from Burgard, Trevor Ruffin from Bennett, and Chris Williams from Buffalo Traditional had graduated. This left the championship “up for grabs” as my Uncle Jeff used to say. The next year in the 1991-92 season, the Riverside Frontiersman won the Yale Cup with a record of 11-2. The year after that, the McKinley Macks and the Seneca Indians shared the title with a similar record. The Buffalo Traditional Bulls dominated the league for the next three years.
The Difference One Team Can Make
“It was a nice chapter.” As described in the opening of this piece, Curtis Brooks, the engine who powered the 1990-91 Engineers initially felt that what they did wasn’t that big a deal. I interviewed him twice. The second time we spoke, he acknowledged that for our school at that time, it was in fact a big deal. While they were in Coach Jones’ program doing what they had been groomed to do the previous two to three years, others of us looked on in amazement. When you’re in a little fishbowl like a high school and one of your sports teams is winning in dominant fashion, it is a big deal. It also means something when you see the guys on that team up close around the hallways of the school in between classes. You can start to dream of doing it yourself.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ve never forgotten the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Engineers. I learned of them two to three years before getting to Hutch-Tech through my brother Amahl’s yearbooks. Once I got to the school, I wanted to be just like them. I first saw them play in their 93-90 thriller they pulled out against the Grover Cleveland “Presidents”. That day they wore their white tank tops, and their maroon and trunks. They mostly wore black sneakers like the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls. Yellow ribbons were pinned into their laces in tribute to our military servicemen and women fighting in the Persian Gulf (Operation Desert Storm).
Did I accomplish that goal of being just like them? Well, I would encourage you to check out my book project once its finished. I’ll just say that it was a lot harder than it looked for a number of reasons. The 1990-91 Engineers did, however, inspire me to strive for something for the first time in my young life. They helped teach me a set of lessons that arguably carried me through the rest of my life into multiple arenas.
The Class Of 1992 Seniors: The 1990-91 Team’s Unsung Heroes
“I loved Michael Mann. His head was always in the game!” I couldn’t finish this essay without acknowledging the 1990-91 team’s unsung heroes. On any championship team, there are players in the background contributing who may not get as much recognition.
The times I saw the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team play, I observed that Coach Jones kept a ‘tight player rotation’. He typically subbed in three juniors: No. 21 Michael Mann, No. 24 Dion Frasier, and No. 44 Christain J. Souter. They had been in the program since day one when Coach Jones took it over two years earlier when they were freshman. Like the Class of 1991 seniors, they literally grew up in the program.
Michael Mann usually spelled Curtis Brooks at the point guard position albeit not for long. In our discussions Coach Jones always spoke of Michael Mann affectionately. He always noted that, “His head was always in the game even if he wasn’t on the floor.” The next year I found that he also supported his teammates even when he was sidelined by injury and unable to play. He always kept a positive attitude, something not easy to do.
Chris Souter and Dion Frasier got in to play defense and took the occasional open shots that year. The three of them were the tri-captains, the next year for the 1991-92 team, my sophomore season and first year on the team. They were arguably the last remnants of the culture Coach Jones originally established when he got to Hutch-Tech.
It Was The Culture
“It was the culture. Jones set the culture,” Pep Skillon said discussing the basketball program Coach Jones created at our school. In hindsight it was a mini-college program. One of the main pillars of that culture was perseverance. That is staying focused and hopeful during adverse stretches. The 1991-92 team likewise experienced struggles that the 1990-91 did not. Somehow though, it rebounded for a deep sectional run of its own. In my opinion, this was due in large part the above-mentioned tri-captains, and things weren’t the same once they graduated.
“That was a great feeling being around a group of guys who played together and really like being around each other. Those guys were great. They were great teammates as well as great guys off the court – a very close-knit group (the 1990-91 team). They were friends as well as teammates.” The second opening excerpt for this piece is from No. 23 Adonis Coble who played on both teams. He was also a member of the Class of 1992. His words expressed the importance the culture of that 1990-91 team. He led our 1991-92 team in his own way during some difficult stretches the next year.
Their Final Game: The 1991 Far West Regional
The 1990-91 team’s final game was a lopsided loss to the Newark “Reds” from the Rochester area. It was the 1991 Class B Far West Regional or the Super-Sectional. There the winner earned a trip to Glens Falls. The Reds were a physically bigger, stronger and more experienced team. They defeated the Kensington Knights also from the Yale Cup in the same game the previous year.
As often is the case in sports, there are multiple explanations for what happened. There were rumors of the core the 1990-91 team staying out late the night before the game. My research revealed that this wasn’t altogether true. It further revealed that the team was late getting to Rochester’s War Memorial Stadium. There was an accident on the I-90 expressway. They started changing on the bus and got to the arena with little time before tipoff to settle in before the challenge at hand. It was a loss that Coach Jones lamented until his last days.
How Would They Have Fared Against The Dominant Buffalo Traditional Teams?
One of the most fun (and nerve-wrecking) parts of sports is speculating on matchups that we’ll never see. In the movie Rocky Balboa, there’s a scene where a sports network simulates Rocky matching up with the current much younger champion, Mason “The Line” Dixon. The computer likewise predicts Rocky knocking out the younger fighter, setting up the movie’s plot. Likewise, we speculate on how Mike Tyson would’ve fared against Muhammad Ali. We speculate on how players like LeBron James and Stephen Curry and their teams would’ve fared in the 1980s NBA when the game was more physical. We speculate on how today’s NFL champions would’ve fared against the more physical 1980s and 90s teams.
I’ve likewise wondered how the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team would’ve matched up with the above-mentioned legendary Damien Foster– and Jason Rowe-led Buffalo Traditional teams which dominated the Yale Cup from 1993 to 1996 (and other notable Yale Cup champions). The Bulls were athletic, tall, and highly skilled. Most of their players could shoot the ball from long-range and they eventually made two trips to Glens Falls, winning the federation championship the second time. It would’ve been an interesting matchup as the 1990-91 Engineers had a level of athleticism and physicality of their own. They were fundamentally sound though on both ends of the court. Many would give the advantage to Coach Joe Cardinal’s Bulls, but I predict the 1990-91 Engineers would’ve been a formidable foe for them.
The Players Who Contributed To That Season But Graduated
The Damien Foster– and Jason Rowe-led Buffalo Traditional teams seemed to instantly ascend as champions. In contrast the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team gradually built up to that point. As described, there were numerous lumps along the way leading up to that season. For many teams that evolve to become champions, there are often players who contribute along the way who don’t ultimately get to hoist the championship trophies.
For the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball team there was Adrian Brice of the Class of 1989. The lone senior on the 1988-89 team, he played point guard the year Coach Jones took over the program. He came up in numerous interviews, and his nickname was “Flash”. From the Class of 1990, there was Ed Lenard, Jerome Freeman, Frankie Harris, Derrick Herbert and Michael Brundige. One of Coach Jones’ favorite stories to tell us was that of Frankie Harris passing up uncontested layups. He embellished the story for humor, and used it as a teaching tool.
Closing Thoughts On The 1990-91 Engineers
“Curt Brooks’ work ethic was unbelievable. He would wear a weighted flap jacket during basketball practice. Although he was ‘the star’, he didn’t slack off during practice, or during the games,” said Jermaine Fuller, one of two sophomores on the 1990-91 team. His words reflect the lasting impression No. 13, Curtis Brooks made, and it reminds me of a quote that Brooks shared with me that Coach Jones told them all the time. That quote said, “Every person can make a difference, and everyone should try!”
I also want to acknowledge the other players on the team that I didn’t mention. In the book, the names are changed for those who didn’t agree to be a part of this work. For historical completeness however, I want to mention the other guys here. They are Jason Parrish and Juno Patterson both from the Class of 1992. There was also Andre Huggins from the Class of 1993. The 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team was very close to Coach Jones’ideal make up of a team. This consisted of five seniors, five juniors and two sophomores.
I’ll divulge that it’s a rule that he bent his final two years at Hutch-Tech. To learn about that and how those of us who tried to continue what the 1990-91 team’s success fared, you’ll have to read The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. I’ll just say that it turned out to be a lot harder than it looked for everyone. And again, there were a number of reasons for that.
I spoke of Coach Jones numerous times throughout this piece. If you want to learn some more about him and his importance my story and my life, take a look at the at the video below from my sports YouTube channel. If you watch it, please give it a like and leave a comment.
Acknowledgements And Final Words
The opening quote for this piece is from the above-mentioned Pep Skillon, which I think underscores a major theme of this account, unselfishness. I want to acknowledge a lot of people without whom this essay (and others) would not have been possible. Thank you to the players and coaches I interviewed. There is also Coach Jones and the Jones family. Finally, I’d like to acknowledge all the team managers who were critical parts of the basketball program during those years.
I also want to acknowledge Laura Lama from my Class of 1994. The second picture of the 1990-91 Engineers as a team is from our 1991-92 yearbook the next year, which Laura kindly shared with me. There was a back forth to get the image just right, and she had more important matters to deal with at the time. It’s missing one player, but it was always one of my favorite pictures of the team. You can see the old and antiquated gym we played in which no longer exists. Finally, I want to thank the previously mentioned Michael Mann for the visual of his gold jacket he shared from the 1990-91 team’s championship season.
Thank you for reading this piece. I intend to create more promotional/teaser pieces for The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. These will be both via print and video as I journey through the final steps of the book’s completion. As described, I created a page here on Big Words Authors for the purpose of giving a background of the book and grouping all the promotional pieces such as this in one place for interested readers.
On my first blogging platform, the Big Words Blog Site, there are interviews of some of the most accomplished Section VI players from my era including: Jason Rowe, Tim Winn, Carlos Bradberry and Damien Foster. I also interviewed legendary LaSalle Head Basketball Coach, Pat Monti. Finally, there are several other basketball-related essays related to my book project. If you liked this piece, please share it on your social media and leave a comment beneath this piece.
The Big Words LLC Newsletter
For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter. I will be for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. I plan to share numerous things. They include inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. I promise to protect your personal information and privacy. Click this link and register using the sign-up button at the bottom of the announcement. You can also email me [email protected] to subscribe. Regards.
“It’s an altogether different picture from when you played at Tech to when I played, and it’s even more of a different look for the kids who are playing in the Yale Cup now. Back then the Yale Cup was not represented in Section VI. There was no state title representation or anything. This was in the late 1960s. I think they went to Section VI in 1971. Our group of athletes and the kids the year after me, we were really upset that in 1971 or 1972, they allowed the Buffalo Public Schools to play in Section VI and compete for the state championship. It was around 1971 and 72 or something like that.”
“That was one of the downfalls or pitfalls which kept our schools from being recognized because there were quite a few kids who could’ve played Division I football or basketball that were not seen at the time. You either had to be a Bob Lanier or a Gil Harmon, who were the biggest and the most athletic – Bob Lanier was 6’9” in high school; or like Marty Cott who went to Tech the same year that I did. He ended up playing baseball for the Houston Astros.”
The Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team: My Introduction To The Yale Cup
This story is another promotional piece for my two-part book project entitled, The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. The previous piece paid tribute to the late Kevin Roberson. I’ve created a page here on my writer’s blog for the book, if you’re curious to learn some more about it. In the numerous pieces I’ve already created surrounding the book, I’ve shared that I’ve conducted 30-40 interviews for the project. These discussions with former players and coaches from Section VI have revealed several interesting facts.
One of the focal points for my story is the 1990-91 Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team. Our school nickname was the Engineers, for which the books are named. During my freshman year at the school, they went on a magical run. They first won the city league championship, the Yale Cup, with a 13-0 record. They then won the Section VI Class B championship, coming within one game of a berth in the Class B State Final Four in Glens Falls. From my vantage point at the time, it was a big deal, and I dreamt of doing what they did.
The Yale Cup And Section VI
While my story focuses on the Hutch-Tech Engineers, it also involves other teams from Western New York. Many of the teams are from our league the Yale Cup. It also tells the stories to a lesser extent of some of the other teams in Section VI. Even today, Section VI is the western most section of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA). There are 12 total sections spanning from the Great Lakes to the Adirondack Mountains and finally down to Long Island.
Section VI of the late 1980s and early 1990s was comprised of many city and suburban public high schools and leagues. They were located in the numerous Western New York State counties including Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, Erie, Niagara, and Orleans. Our league was called the Yale Cup. It was a 14-team league comprised of schools within the Buffalo Public School System. At one point the Yale Cup was considered the best high school basketball league in Section VI. However, like the City of Buffalo and our region in general, it went through hard times which were arguably rooted in the loss of steel industry. This essay is a tribute to the Yale Cup as I and others knew it, and to a lesser degree Section VI.
Oh, by the way, the private school teams played in the Monsignor Martin League. I must mention them because they had some of the best players and teams in Western New York every year. Some of the schools included Cardinal O’Hara, Canisius, Turner/Carroll and St. Joseph’s.
A League Named After An Ivy League School But Wasn’t Ivy League
One of the more interesting things about the Yale Cup, was its name. I don’t know who named the league, but it seemed to have been named after the prestigious Ivy League institution of higher learning in Connecticut, Yale University. Coincidentally, our city football league was named the Harvard Cup, I guess after Harvard University. The girls’ basketball league was called the Canisius Cup, most likely after Canisius College. I don’t know who named the leagues and why, but ‘The Yale’, now affectionately referred to by some of its former players, was anything but Ivy League in quality as I’ll describe.
14 Schools Of Varying Sizes
There were 14 schools in the Yale Cup of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The lineup of schools in general changed over the decades. Like the private schools, some of the Yale Cup schools were closed or consolidated for economic and logistical reasons. I think the core line up of schools remained the same though. During my youth, I heard numerous stories of an East High School. During my teen years, it was converted into the Buffalo Vocational and Technical Center (BVTC). City Honors (described below) played its home games there. The schools comprising the Yale Cup of the late 1980s and early 1990s, their nicknames and school colors were as follows:
• Bennett: The Tigers, orange and blue • Burgard Vocational: The Bulldogs, blue and white • Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts (aka Buffalo Arts or Performing Arts): The Cavaliers, black and gold • Buffalo Traditional: The Bulls, navy blue and gold • City Honors: The Centaurs, burgundy and gray • Emerson: The Eagles, red and white • Grover Cleveland: The Presidents, green and white • Hutch-Tech: The Engineers, maroon and gold • Lafayette: The Violets, violet and white • Kensington: The Knights, lime green and gold • McKinley Vocational: The Macks, orange and black • Riverside: The Frontiersman, purple and gold • Seneca: The Indians, dark green and white • South Park: The Sparks, red, black and white
If you watch the documentary Hoop Dreams or its sequel Hoop Reality, both take place in Chicago. Watching them, you’ll see that most metropolitan areas have city leagues where most of the student athletes are black. The bigger cities actually had multiple conferences within their boundaries. With Buffalo being a smaller city, there was only one conference.
Three Phases Of The Season
“What’s about to start after the New Year is the meat and potatoes of the season! Our non-league schedule was just the gravy!” In my first year on the Hutch-Tech Boys’ Basketball Team, our coach, Dr. Kenneth Leon Jones told our team this after a lackluster start in the ‘non-league’ portion of our schedule. He further told us that our Yale Cup league play was the most important phase of the season. It brought with it the potential for a league championship. Our league record would also dictate our qualification for post season sectional play. There the final destination were potential state and federation championships for the truly elite teams.
During the next three years, as I learned about high school basketball on the fly, I realized something interesting. We only played our opponents once in league play. That is the location of the games would alternate yearly. In my first year on the team for example, Hutch-Tech hosted Riverside in our gym and that was it. This was the game that clinched the Yale Cup title for the Frontiersman that 1991-92 season, coincidentally. The next season we played in their gym.
Playing Each Other Once A Year In Conference Play
In the private and suburban school leagues, the teams played home and home series meaning that each team played in the other’s gym during league play. Likewise teams would play each other twice in one season. In some leagues, there was also a potential championship game where the top two teams in the league would battle it out for the league title. With the Yale Cup, you only got that one shot at your opponent in league play and that was it. In those days the final records determined the champions as well. This was probably because of the size of our 14-team league.
If you were in the same preseason tournament, scheduled a nonleague game or were in the same sectional class, there was the possibility of seeing certain teams again. If you were a Class A or B team in Section VI though (described below), you only got one shot at teams like Buffalo Traditional. The Bulls were the perennial power in our league who played in Class C sectional. It wasn’t ideal, but it’s what we had at the time.
The Gyms We Played In
Another aspect that made our league unique were the gyms in which we played. Most of the gyms were less than stellar compared to our counterparts in private and suburban schools. City school gyms were old and antiquated. While many of us look back on it with nostalgia; the gym at Hutch-Tech was essentially a box with a shortened court. It amazingly transformed into an electric venue during games and when fans filled it. It was a less than ideal facility though. The backboards were solid white with non-breakaway rims and the seating was minimal.
At Hutch-Tech, we also had a ‘small gym’. It was a smaller box with one basket which you could barely cram 15-25 student athletes into. Our boys’ basketball team practiced there for the first hour or so of practice after school. The girls’ basketball team used our ‘big gym’ (described above) for the first hour of practice and then we swapped.
It was nothing like the modern facilities at my alma mater right now. Today there is a regulation-size court, window backboards and breakaway rims. Nor was it anything like the three gyms at my best friend’s high school, Cleveland Hill in Cheektowaga. Cleveland Hill High School was in one of the suburban conferences, the Erie County Interscholastic Conference VI (there were four of these conferences). Still, there was something special about our little old gym, and the Hutch-Tech gym was not alone, or the worst.
Playing In Older And Antiquated Gyms
“You play in some of the gyms in some of these schools and it was like you were playing in a bowling alley (laughing)!” In my interview with Buffalo Traditional legend Damien Foster, we discussed the gyms we played in for Yale Cup play. I think the gym he was referring to was at Performing Arts. It was the most unusual of all the gyms in the league. It didn’t have a regulation width, so it didn’t have a complete three-point arc. The floor was concrete-like, and it was in a room very similar to a theater. Other high school gyms, like those at Lafayette and South Park, had those cumbersome tracks overhead. They were similar to the East Ferry YMCA, so you couldn’t shoot the corner three-point shots.
The largest gyms at that time were at Grover Cleveland, McKinley, and Seneca High Schools, and maybe Emerson. This is probably why Coach Jones always had to host our Hutch-Tech Tip Off Tournaments at other schools. Safety and security were reasons why we couldn’t host sectional games. This would have involved teams and families from the suburbs coming into Buffalo at nighttime. All these factors are why it was amazing to go into the college, private school, and suburban gyms as a player and see how well equipped they were. They had bleachers on both sides of the gym, window glass back boards, breakaway rims and complete three-point arcs.
Playing In Uniforms With No Name
Now admittedly you must typically go to the Division I level to get players’ names put on the back of their jerseys like in the pros. Typically, in the lower levels, you would at least get the school’s name and/or nickname on the front of the uniforms. Except for City Honors, Grover Cleveland and South Park, most of our uniforms in the Yale Cup, it wasn’t that way.
“It takes a little bit more to be a Champion!” The uniforms in the late 1980s and early 1990s were made by the sports apparel company Champion. The only thing that differentiated them between the schools were the school colors. Because the pictures in the Buffalo News were black and white, you couldn’t tell the teams apart without reading the caption when the teams were featured. If you were familiar with the teams and players, you knew who was who. The uniforms all had the same block numbers and were all made with the same thick polyester or nylon, non-mesh fabric. I have fond memories of our old maroon and gold Hutch-Tech uniforms though.
A Lack Of Feeder Systems For The Varsity Teams
In my research for The Engineers, the above-mentioned Coach Ken Jones and I talked about was the lack of a feeder system for the Yale Cup varsity basketball teams. The Buffalo News coincidentally wrote about this a season or two after I graduated from Hutch-Tech. Simply put, there were no official modified or junior varsity (JV) programs to feed the varsity programs. Thus, most of the players had to make the varsity team and learn on the fly if they weren’t receiving any training outside of school. See my interviews with Jason Rowe, Damien Foster and Tim Winn. That said, the best team in any given year could have been the most athletic team, the most talented or the healthiest team (or some combination of the three).
Some of the coaches at the time, including Coach Jones, attempted to create ad hoc JV teams and the games. They did this for the most part with no extra pay, and there was thus no official JV league. Most of the games were likewise played on Saturday mornings. All our classmates were still at home sleeping or doing something else, and thus few people saw them. For suburban schools the JV games were often scheduled and played at night before the varsity games. This was significant becasue classmates, relatives and the entire community could come out and support them which was a big deal as a player.
One Of Many Legendary Yale Cup Coaches
“You don’t know who Romeo McKinney is?” One of my interviewees for this project was Carlos James Gant from City Honors. City Honors was the other ‘academic’ school in the Yale Cup. They experienced their own basketball resurgence during my four years with players like Gant himself, Shaun Nelms, and their highly talented big man Larry Gilbert. During our discussion, Gant shared with me that the legendary Romeo McKinney helped coach their team during the 1992-93 season. He taught them a trapping style of defense which contributed to their increased level of competitiveness that season. By their senior year, they had an exceptional team, but they ascended at the same time as the above-mentioned Jason Rowe– and Damien Foster-led Buffalo Traditional Bulls.
I believe Coach McKinney was the coach of the South Park team that was involved in the infamous fight with Christian Laettner’s Nichols team at the Buffalo’s Memorial Auditorium. I think he finished out his coaching career at Kensington. Carlos Gant was surprised that I didn’t know who he was. A recurring theme of my story is that I only started learning about Section VI basketball in the early 1990s, and even then, my coach never talked about him. There were several legendary Yale Cup coaches over the years just like Coach McKinney.
Varying Qualities Of Coaching
My coach at Hutch-Tech, Dr. Kenneth Leon Jones, called himself a ‘true student of the game’ and was in fact a basketball junkie. His program was an extension of himself and was very organized and textbook. The suburban and private school coaches were likewise amazed by the disciplined style of basketball Coach Jones’ majority black rosters played. The Yale Cup teams had developed the reputation for not playing defense or with structure of any kind. It was considered a ‘renegade’ league as stated by Adrian Baugh, another key contributor on the above-mentioned Buffalo Traditional teams.
From the interviews I conducted I learned that the quality of coaching in the league also varied from school to school. While researching The Engineers, I found that not every coach in the Yale Cup was in fact a trained coach, who approached the game as a craft. Some of them were simply faculty at their schools or gym teachers. Likewise, not every coach taught the game and treated it like a craft. Not every coach genuinely cared about his players, or what happened to them once they left the doors of their schools. The coach you got was arguably a matter of fortune and luck.
Playing Different Numbers Of Games
“We were one of the only city schools to play a full 20 games. Remember, at that time there were 14 high school teams in the city, and you only played those 13 teams if your coach didn’t give you another 6-7 games to fill out your full 20 games. Russ did that,” said Ed Harris, a star guard from Riverside’s above-mentioned Yale Cup and Class C Section Team in our interview. Ed attributed his Coach Bill Russell’s dedication to his playing development. “He had us playing the Frontiers, the Oleans, the Fredonias – going out there and playing John F. Kennedy (JFK), Williamsville East, South and North.”
Harris’ words described the fact that not every Yale Cup coach scheduled games outside of their 13 Yale Cup league games. This meant that their players didn’t get exposure to other styles of basketball and may not have started playing games until the new year. After interviewing Coach Russell, he turned out to be a lot like my coach at Hutch-Tech in that he put together a complete non-league schedule. He also cared about his players and did extra things for them like getting them into summer leagues and taking them with him to scout opponents.
Our League Games Were Immediately After School
Another interesting thing about the Yale Cup is that our games were immediately after school. If students were allowed into the games, this was advantageous for the home teams. Students weren’t allowed into games at every school though, due to safety considerations.
But what about the players on the teams; the visiting teams in particular? If you were the visiting team, you had to leave your last class early, which I’m sure none of the students took issue with. Unfortunately, none of the city schools had their own buses so players had to catch public transportation to the opposing school. This meant that team members could trickle in at varying times, sometimes after the games had started unless the coaches had a way of transporting the entire group.
Another consequence of this was the difficulty for many of the parents and relatives to come to our games. Many were still working at 3:30 pm in the afternoon. If they worked a 9-5 job, many parents could not get out of work early. As a player, having relatives in the stands can be very, very important psychologically.
Visits From The Trainer Once A Week And Wasted Talent
As described, none of our schools had their own individualized transportation. Nor did we have our own athletic trainer. We had a student trainer who came in from Canisius College to check on injuries once a week. It was better than nothing, but if a student athlete didn’t have the proper specialized medical care at home, injuries could linger and destroy whole seasons altogether. I experienced something like this during my journey.
Some of the players I interviewed suggested that there was a lot of wasted talent in the Yale Cup of the late 1980s and 1990s. The lack of a feeder system was mentioned earlier in this piece, but there was also academics. Some of the more talented players also didn’t receive the proper academic guidance to prepare to play at the next level. Specifically, some players weren’t prepared to take and achieve competitive scores on the standardized tests (SATs and ACTs). As a result, they never went on to play college basketball, and if they did, they had to play in junior college first. Some of them didn’t get to play at the Division I level at all, which they may have had the talent to do.
The Players That Emerged
The opening excerpt for this piece was from my interview with my cousin, Coach Phillip Richardson. When we spoke, it was amazing to hear that he and his peers didn’t compete in Section VI postseason play. Thus, they didn’t have the opportunity to compete for the state or federation championships. They simply put their basketball uniforms away and prepared for baseball or track after a league champion was determined. A few years after Coach Richardson graduated from Bennett High School the rules changed. Competing in Section VI’s postseason play was commonplace for the Buffalo Public Schools 20 years later when it was time for me to go to high school.
In this snippet, Coach Richardson stated that there were several talented players who didn’t get the opportunity to play Division I basketball because of the lack of exposure. Some players did make it though over the years. Among them were Bob Lanier (Bennett), Ray Hall (McKinley), Curtis Aiken (Bennett), Lester Rowe (Lafayette), Cliff Robinson (Riverside), and Keith Robinson (Grover Cleveland). There was also Trevor Ruffin (Bennett), and Jason Rowe and Damien Foster (both from Buffalo Traditional). After I graduated, there was Damone Brown (Seneca) and Mark Price (Riverside). There were also numerous Yale Cup players who played at the Division II and III levels.
I also must acknowledge a couple of guards. There was the great tandem of Ritchie Campbell and Marcus ‘Ice Cream’ Whitfield (Burgard). There was also Antoine Sims (Grover Cleveland and Turner/Carroll) and Jeremiah Wilkes (Burgard and Cheektowaga Central). I don’t know where their paths led after high school. They all played at a high level though. There were so many players and I may have missed some names. If so, please mention them in the comment section below.
Competing In Section VI
In my era, Yale Cup schools competed in Section VI Classes A, B, C in postseason play. Again, the letters designated the size of the school. Classes A and B designated the larger schools and C the smaller schools. The Buffalo News made a similar distinction in its weekly ‘Cage Polls’. None of the schools competed in Class D.
Postseason sectional play was arguably the most magical part of the season because we were now competing with the suburban teams and potentially teams from places like Grand Island and Niagara Falls in a one-game elimination format. This post season play could ultimately lead to a game with the Rochester area champions in the Far West Regionals. There a trip to Glens Falls was at stake. Only a few teams ever made it that far.
A Look Back At The Yale Cup Of Years Past From A Former Burgard Bulldog
“But going back to the junior year, when Gene exploded onto the scene and made All-High and Honorable Mention All-Western New York, the scouts came out and whatever. As a matter of fact, when Gene was a junior, we were playing Tech. The scouts came to scout a guy named Roger Brown because he was Mr. Everything that year. Gene played a good game, but we lost to Tech.” One of the most powerful interviews for The Engineers was with my Uncle Anthony (Tony) Harris. Uncle Tony played at Burgard in the 1960s with the legendary Eugene Roberson and corroborated much of the same information shared by the above-mentioned Coach Richardson.
“Tech had the Cott brothers, Orv and Marty Cott, back then and they had a couple of other stars. Gene had a spectacular game, but we lost.” My Uncle got excited talking about those days and I became equally excited listening to him reflect. As a part of my story, I learned that our family patriarch had a basketball history himself – he was All-High Honorable Mention! This is an important part of my story. I found out about it after my playing days.
“I mean there were some bad people (in a good way) back then. There were a couple who were really good like Bob Lanier. Bennett just ran over everybody, and East had some really good players too. Bennet’s team was so strong that all five guys should have made All-High, but they couldn’t.” Uncle Tony continually emphasized the number of strong players in the Yale Cup season he played in, and you could just feel it when he spoke. We spent a lot of time discussing Bob Lanier and the Bennett High School teams, and so many others.
“My main claim to fame was that Lanier was averaging 26 points per game, and I held him to 24 (laughing),” my uncle joked. “Of course, they took him out, so he sat on the bench in the last quarter. He almost sat out a whole quarter.”
Section VI’s Basketball Diamond In The Rough
“I always wanted to play against each of the city schools. When I was a ‘youngin’ just learning how to play the game – if you go back to when I was a freshman, I can tell you every school had a guy or two guys that could ball. At South Park, you had Damone Solomon along with those Hutchinson boys,” Riverside’s Ed Harris enthusiastically said about the Yale Cup during our era. It was like what my Uncle Tony said about his era 20 years earlier.
“You go to Emerson, and you’ve got Shawn Cunningham. You go to Burgard and you’ve got Ritchie (Campbell) and you got the Pat Jones kid. Each of those teams had guys on them that could play,” Ed Harris continued. “That’s when city ball was city ball. You had a chance to do something, and I looked forward to playing those guys, you know?”
Celebrating The Yale Cup
I’m hoping that this piece came off more as a tribute to our beloved league and not a pity party. I personally still get butterflies thinking about those games in the old gyms, our uniforms, and the school colors. We played in lesser conditions than our counterparts at the private and suburban schools. Still, there was nothing like that feeling of competition no matter where it was and who it was against. Those were fun times.
Again, the Buffalo News covered much of this in writings by Jerry Sullivan, Mike Harrington, the late Allen Wilson and others. While working on this ambitious project it was necessary to revisit the Yale Cup and all its aspects. As a writer, promotion is a major consideration. You also must set the story world for your readers, and the story world for my project is the Yale Cup and Section VI.
Playing Yale Cup Basketball
I’m closing this piece out with one more Yale Cup coach some of you may be familiar with. Bob Mitchell (pictured) was the Head Coach of the Kensington Boys’ Basketball Teams in the early 1990s. Just as in the picture, the times we played Kensington, I remember him wearing suits and being a fiery coach. Names I think of when I think of those Knights teams are Taka Molson, Radaun Hill and Kilroy Jackson who were all stars on their squads. The Knights were generally athletic, long, physical and tall. They played zone defenses and liked to get out in the open court and run like racehorses. Furthermore they liked to score the ball in transition via dunks and layups. They played Yale Cup basketball.
One of my many interviewees likewise played on the Kensington Boys’ Basketball Team, Coach Samuel “Quinn” Coffey. I thus got a feel for what it was like to wear the green and gold. In another promotional piece for The Engineers, I plan to discuss the difference between coaches who set out to build basketball programs versus simply assembling teams. As described earlier in this piece, it was different for all of us, depending upon which schools we attended, and which coaches we played for.
Closing Thoughts
Thank you for reading this piece. As you’ve seen, I’ve used numerous pictures from the Yale Cup and players from the 1980s and 90s. These images came from an archive of Section VI basketball, carefully assembled over the years from issues of the Buffalo News. Dr. Kenneth Leon Jones, my first Coach at Hutch-Tech created this archive. Coach Jones was a mentor, a father figure, and is a central in my story. None of this would’ve been possible without him.
While this piece focused on the Yale Cup and Western New York high school basketball in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the themes are universal. They thus may apply to the basketball league you played in as a youth wherever you grew up. Thus, feel free to share your high school basketball experiences and memories in the comments section below. And especially if you played in the Yale Cup, please share any of your experiences below.
More Promotional Pieces On The Way
I’m creating more promotional/teaser pieces for The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. These will be via print and video as I journey through the final steps of the book’s completion. I created a page here on Big Words Authors for the purpose of giving a background of the book and grouping all the promotional narratives such as this in one place for interested readers. On my first blogging platform, the Big Words Blog Site, there are interviews with some the most accomplished Section VI players from my era including: Jason Rowe, Tim Winn, Carlos Bradberry and Damien Foster. I also interviewed legendary LaSalle Head Basketball Coach, Pat Monti. Finally, there are more essays related to my book project. If you liked this piece, please share it on your social media and feel free to leave a comment.
The Big Words LLC Newsletter
For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter. It will promote written and video content from the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. If you sign up, I promise that I will protect your personal information and privacy. Click this link and register using the sign-up button at the bottom of the announcement. If there is an issue with the sign up form, you can also email me at [email protected] . Regards.
The genus and species for the pig whose meat ends up on our dinner tables is “Sus Linnaeus”. As a scientist, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to add the scientific name of the pig to the opening of this piece. It’s classified as an “Omnivore” which means it eats both animal and plant matter itself. The meat I referred to in the opening sentence is the “other white meat”, pork. I’ve actually never considered pork to be in the company of poultry, but a commercial from earlier this century described it as such. Throughout my life, the other white meat has stirred numerous emotions in those around me and has frequently been a discussion piece. With Thanksgiving 2021 approaching, it will likewise serve as the basis for this humorous reflection/story.
Pork In Children’s Media
“Th-Th-The…..Th-Th-The….THAT’S ALL FOLKS!” Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this piece, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the celebration of pork in pop culture. Perhaps the most famous cartoon pig is none other than “Porky Pig” from Warner Brothers “Looney Tunes” gang. Porky’s iconic ending for the cartoons featuring the famous cast of characters came to mind as I was close to preparing this piece for publishing.
There’s also “Ms. Piggy” from The Muppet Show and the “Pigs In Space” skit. “Piglet” was also one of “Winnie the Pooh’s” sidekicks. There was also the popular children’s story Charlotte’s Web about a pig which was eventually going to be used for a meal and a spider it befriended.
Perhaps my most memorable pig caricature didn’t come from TV though. It came on a summer visit to Atlanta, GA. My eldest cousin and an auntie had one of their many legendary dust ups while a bunch of us stepped out. When we returned to the house there was a picture of a cartoon pig in a colorful plaid shirt covering up a hole in the dry wall. Whatever the conflict was, my cousin unleashed her frustrations there. Ahhhhh family.
Pork In The Movies
“My God. You killed a fucking pig!” In one of my favorite movies of all time, the original Predator movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as Dutch Schafer, a pig became the topic of discussion. Late at night while trying to trap the alien predator hunting them down, a wild boar sprung one of the traps created by Dutch’s gradually shrinking elite special missions team. “Poncho” played by Richard Chavez observes that “Mack” played by Bill Duke has bludgeoned and killed the wild boar, instead of the alien he has become obsessed with.
Breathing heavily Mack returns a f-bomb to Poncho as “Billy” played by Sonny Lanham bellows out his characteristic laugh. The pig in this movie was more of a supporting character if you will, but there are also movies where the animal was featured in the title. Two examples are Wild Hogs starring John Travolta and Ray Liotta. There’s also silly early 1980s film Porky’s.
“We have some tomatoes, sausage and nice CRISPY bacon!” This classic line is from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring movie. In this iconic scene, the four Hobbit protagonists camped out at “Weathertop”. They were in the early stages of the quest to destroy the one ring. Frodo played by Elijah Wood wakes up to see Merry played by Dominic Monaghan (quoted), Pippin (Billy Boyd) and Sam (Sean Astin) preparing a hearty snack which unfortunately alerts the Nazgul (the Ring Wraiths) to their presence.
“I want to eat some of those HOG MAWS! I want to eat some of those PIG FEET!” This final iconic movie scene that I’ll cite comes from Ice Cube’s classic comedy, Friday. In this early scene in the movie, Craig (Ice Cube) is in the refrigerator foraging for food. Mr. Jones played by the late John Witherspoon, finds Craig and mischievously chastises his son for eating up all the food and for losing his job.
Hail The Hogs And Hog Heaven
This may all sound absurd to you as the reader, but pork has also been celebrated in the sports world. During the former Washington Redskins championship run under Head Coach Joe Gibbs, their offensive line was nicknamed “The Hogs”. They were large and imposing and ‘hogged’ the line of scrimmage to the benefit of their many great running backs. While many people lamented the Native American symbolism, many passionate Redskins fans also wore pig snouts in the stands to show their support for their beloved franchise.
Finally, the University of Arkansas-Fayettville’s sole national championship on the basketball court was nicknamed “Hog Heaven” by Sports Illustrated. The school mascot for Coach Nolan Richardon’s Arkansas basketball team was the “Razorback” which is basically once again a wild boar. An avid college basketball fan at the time, that was a memorable championship for numerous reasons. One of the biggest was President Bill Clinton, an Arkansas native and his wife Hillary attended the national championship game. Okay now I’ll get on with the main discussion of this piece which involves pork as a food.
Our Early Diet And Proteins
Mom, who cooked for us most of the time, never prepared or served pork to my brother and me when we were growing up. That said, we could have it on occasion, particularly on our pizza (pepperoni) on Friday nights. Those Friday nights in Buffalo, which I have fond memories of, were our designated eating out nights where the cuisine was either Burger King, Chinese food or pizza and wings.
For those of you who don’t know, one of Buffalo’s signature cuisines is pizza and wings. You can get them on pretty much any of the main arteries of the city. My brother and I readily ordered pepperoni on our pizza and it’s still something I order on my pizza these days, along with mushrooms.
If you ever go to Buffalo, by the way, you must get the pizza and wings with blue cheese. Most any restaurant will do, but some of the bigger pizza restaurants are the Anchor Bar, Bocce’s, La Nova’s, Leonardi’s and Santora’s. There are also lesser-known pizzerias like Avenue Pizza and Just Pizza. You know you’ve got the real thing when the pepperoni slices curl up into little cups with oil pooled in the middle. Seriously.
Oh. One more Buffalo/Western New York-related treat you absolutely must try if you haven’t, is the “Sahlen’s” hotdogs which are made with pork and beef. I have wonderful childhood memories of consuming the long and flavorful hotdogs at church picnics and barbecues. When grilled over coals, the casings develop a signature ‘crunch’ when you bite into them. Many Buffalonians fiend for the Sahlen’s hotdogs when they move away and even order them for consumption at their current home.
My family had beef more readily when we ate out, but our proteins at home consisted mostly of fish and poultry. Though you might not expect it, Buffalo also has its share of steak shops similar to those found in Philadelphia. The “City of Brotherly Love” is known for its cheese steaks, and we also have them in Buffalo.
A Porkless Diet
Some of you may be wondering how one could grow up not eating pork chops, pork ribs, pork bacon or “souse“, but it is entirely possible. For those who don’t know what souse is, it’s pickled, specially seasoned chopped pork parts (ears, for example) held together in a gel-type of substance. If you ever go to Miami for example, you can get it at most barbecue rib shacks along with “rib sandwiches”.
By the way, a rib sandwich isn’t a sandwich per se. At one of these shacks, I actually asked how you could eat a sandwich with the bones still in the meat, and they looked at me like I was crazy. It’s just a portion of ribs served with white bread on the side in a styrofoam container.
Finally, pork never made it onto our holiday dinner tables. There was no holiday ham, or chitterlings (aka chittlins). To this day I’ve never tried chitterlings. My late grandmother made them for the above-mentioned anonymous aunt one time. It might’ve been Thanksgiving. They stunk up the entire hallway and from childhood on, I was never interested in them.
For the older generations, other parts of the pig were popular too such as pickled pig feet. I was never interested in those either. It’s also worth noting that vegetables like collard greens were often made tastier when cooked with pork, but there are other methods today.
Dad’s Aversion To Pork
“There’s no pork in this right?” I’d made a pot of Jambalaya with chicken and sausage as the featured proteins, one of Emiril LaGasse’s succulent recipes. Before scooping some out, Dad saw fit to verify that I wasn’t about to poison him with the “swine”. In Black Muslim circles, pork is referred to as swine. I knew of Dad’s aversion to pork and wouldn’t dare think of feeding him the other white meat.
“No Dad, there’s no pork in it,” I said, partially smiling. Knowing of his disdain of pork, I was both surprised but not surprised to hear his suspicion that I would attempt to feed it to him.
I don’t recall when Dad became averse to pork and pork products. One of the many books he had laying around his home was How To Eat To Live, by the legendary Honorable Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam. I first heard of the book in the song Beef, by the rapper KRS-One in my teens, a song that I might still have mostly memorized. In any case, yes, Dad became averse to anything pork-related at some point.
Any of you who have read my writings up to this point know that my Dad has told me interesting stories over the years. Several have involved pork. One of my favorites that I first heard was when I lived with him in my early 30s as I was transitioning into my federal science career. Read on to see it for yourself. During that two-and-a-half-year stretch, we got how shall I say, better acquainted, as my parents divorced when I was three years old.
Beef Chop Suey: The Breakfast Of Champions……For A Little While At Least……
Dad was a man of routines, especially when it came to his diet. Part of his routine involved getting Beef Chop Suey from one of the local Chinese restaurants. He would have it for breakfast on Friday mornings. In fact, he was so regular that he said they knew what he was going to order whenever he walked in the door.
“What’s Up?”, I’d wake up seeing him bent over his kitchen counter in his undershirt and boxers, eating the protein, vegetables, and rice out of the Tupperware he warmed it up in. He was in a state of euphoria as he gobbled it down. It would be his biggest meal of the day because he, “Ate breakfast like King, lunch like a Prince, and dinner like a Pauper!”
Dad’s kitchen smelled good on those Friday mornings when he nuked his Beef Chop Suey. Just like the Long John Silver’s fish planks he ate on Thursday night; it was like clockwork. Then one day, the beef chop suey stopped abruptly.
“I think they put pork in my Beef Chop Suey. After I ate it, I could feel little things running across my body!” He acted out the sensation, moving his fingers in a piano-playing motion from his right side to his left side. He was convinced. It’s one of my favorite father-son moments of all time and it makes me laugh every time I think about it. It was possible, I guess. I also noticed that he would change his routines every now then just to ‘do something different.’
Dad’s Most Astounding Pork Story
Dad’s most powerful pork story, though, involved some of relatives from down south. I never met them because of the divorce. He told me that these people ate pork all the time, in addition to putting mayonnaise on everything. By the way mayonnaise, just like cheese, does make most everything taste better, though it is loaded with calories. I think using them together in a meal on a burger, for example, is considered “doubling your fats”.
“My one cousin ate so much pork that he started to look like a hog!” This one claim from Dad is forever etched into my mind verbatim. It also makes me laugh every time I think about it. It was like a classmate from South Carolina at Johnson C. Smith University. This individual insisted that he witnessed someone’s limb regrow as the person was prayed over during a church service. Like Dad’s pork story, I wondered if this classmate was delusional, imagined it or if the story was true.
“His face started to elongate into a snout, and his ears actually started to become pointy like those of a pig,” Dad said with conviction, once again affirming that he saw what he thought he saw. If it sounds like a fantastic story to you, the reader, imagine how I felt listening to it in real time.
You Are What You Eat
In any case, maybe the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was right in that you are what you eat. In closing, I’ve never officially sworn off pork myself. I still like it on my pizza, and there’s nothing like the crunch and the taste of pork bacon or a fried pork chop every once in a while.
My best friend and my Uncle “Ice” also both prepare very, very tasty barbecue pork ribs albeit in different ways. The Midwest is in fact known for its barbecue which includes the afore mentioned ribs, but also pulled pork sandwiches. Finally there’s also nothing like a Sausage McMuffin with Egg (and cheese) from McDonalds; again, every once and a while.
Pork is also a popular protein in the cuisines of other countries and ethnicities. Look at pretty much any Asian or Latin American menu for example, and you’ll see several pork-based dishes available. As a postdoctoral scientist in a lab with mostly Chinese colleagues, I noticed that pork was a very popular protein at our lab gatherings. I recall a Canadian friend of West Indian descent ordering some “Jerk Pork” one night in Toronto, ON. Chicago is known for its Polish Sausages, which are very, very good. I’ve also heard individuals from Pennsylvania discuss a Dutch pork dish called “Scrapple”. Finally, there’s the stereotypical whole roasted pig with the apple in its mouth at Hawaiian luaus.
The Author’s Post Thoughts/Reflections
“I WON’T GET MAD AT YOU IF YOU DECIDE NOT TO EAT IT. BUT DON’T TELL ME NOT TO EAT IT EITHER!” If you haven’t deduced it from this piece, pork consumption can be a big deal depending on your values and the circle you come from. At a church service years ago, a clergyman whom I’ll call Pastor Gray of the Jordan River Missionary Baptist Church in Buffalo, NY started passionately preaching about eating pork.
It was probably a bit of a pushback on the resurgence the Nation of Islam’s doctrines at that time. One of their biggest teachings of course involved not eating pork. Those doctrines were reenergized by the conscious Hip Hop music of the time (the late 1980s and early 1990s). When he got deep into his sermons, Pastor Gray became very passionate. His high-pitched voice ascended to a bit of a scream or a wail, a hallmark of many black preachers. His passion would startle you back to consciousness if you just happened to doze off for a moment.
I told this story here on Big Words Authors partially out of humor. However, it also is a bit of a thought piece. My mother was very vigilant about our diets early on. I’m very grateful for that as the majority of her dietary habits have stayed with me. We never got sick much and to this day I still don’t. As we all age, it’s also important to be mindful of our diets and incorporating more fresh fruits and vegetables.
I didn’t always understand his eating habits and his eating schedule. That said, Dad’s avoidance of pork may be a contributor to a relatively healthy life. Perhaps it is true that, “You are what you eat!” The opening quote of this piece, by the way, comes from the afore-mentioned song by KRS-OneBeef.
The Big Words LLC Newsletter
Thank you for reading this piece. For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Your personal information and privacy will be protected. Click this link and register using the sign up button at the bottom of the announcement. Regards.
