Chasing Perfect

by Bob Hurley

  That was our goal—to take it to St. Pat’s the same way they’d taken it to us. That said, it was one thing to have St. Pat’s in our sights, but quite another to reel them in. We couldn’t just set it out there and will it so. We couldn’t match up with them in length and size. We needed a game plan, so we hit the weight room, hard. I gave our guys a couple weeks to recharge, refocus, and then we started getting together to work on our strength and conditioning—a couple days a week at the beginning, and then we kicked it up over the summer and into the fall. Back then, we were working with a personal trainer named Joe Paglia. I’d met Joe at a gym where I used to work out, and I admired the way he worked with young athletes. He was a tremendous motivator. He’d come by to see us play a couple times, to see us practice, and he had some good ideas on how to help our guys play a more physical, more punishing type of game.

  So we set about it.

  Outside of Chris Gaston, the team that lost to St. Pat’s in the North Jersey final was made up predominantly of juniors. We’d been expecting big things out of this core group—Jio Fontan, Mike Rosario, Tyshawn Taylor, and Travon Woodall—and even though they’d yet to put it together to win it all, they’d made a couple dazzling runs. They made a big splash right out of the gate, as sophomores. You don’t normally see a group of sophomores run the table, but these guys led us to a terrific season—finishing at 26-3, after losing to St. Pat’s in the North Jersey final. And then, as juniors, this same core group very nearly delivered, going undefeated until they ran into the brick wall of St. Pat’s to end our season.

  With Chris Gaston gone, six-five A. J. Rogers would step into an increased role. With his height, I figured on him to get a lot of inside minutes for us. Dominic Cheek was coming up from the junior varsity, and even though he was also six-five, he was more of a perimeter-type player. They’d both play huge minutes for us, but A.J.’s game was big, while Dominic’s game was small; together, they’d give us some nice balance to go along with our core group of four. They’d be joined by Alberto Estwick, another guard, and Medut Bol—who at six-eight, rail-thin, maybe 160 pounds, was a much smaller, much skinnier version of his dad, Manut Bol, one of the tallest players in NBA history.

  Other than Tyshawn Taylor and Medut Bol, they were a mostly local, mostly ground-level bunch—meaning, they’d been a part of our program since freshman year, and some of them we’d seen in camps and rec leagues since they were in middle school. Ty was originally from the area, but he’d moved to Florida as a kid—had a rough road for a stretch. At one point he was living with his mom and his sisters in a shelter. His father was out of the picture, and Ty and his sisters were getting the short end of it. Luckily, Ty joined the Boys’ and Girls’ Club in Clearwater, Florida, and found a mentor who encouraged him to play ball, and soon enough he was playing on a local AAU team and turning heads. This alone was something to celebrate. A lot of kids in that kind of circumstance, without a positive male role model, with so much struggle and sadness, they might channel their energies and frustrations in a negative way, but Ty put it all into basketball. He turned himself into a very good street player. Undisciplined, but enormously talented—and the more he played, the more he started to realize that playing ball might be his ticket up and out of a difficult situation.

  Ty came by our gym one summer, just before his sophomore year. He was in Jersey City, visiting family. His cousin, Eddie Castellanos, a kid from Hoboken who went on to play at Stony Brook, brought him to an open gym session at the rec center. At the end of the session, Ty came over and thanked me for letting him run with us and asked if he could maybe come by again. Whenever we opened the gym, those two were there, and at the end of the week Ty came over again, told me how much he loved playing with our guys, how much he loved being back in Jersey City. We got to talking. Ty told me a little about his background, about what was going on with his family. His cousin Eddie told me a little more. By the end of the week, Ty was telling me he wanted to find a way to stay in the area, said he would talk to his mother about it. Said he thought he could stay with an aunt in Jersey City, maybe find a way to attend St. Anthony in the fall.

  In the end, that’s just how it shook out, and the way Ty came to our program is a good example of how a lot of our guys fall into the mix. We don’t go looking for players, but sometimes players come looking for us. They’ll run with us a time or two, sit in on a couple practices, and they’ll want in. Maybe they’re not happy with where they’re playing or how they’re being used. Maybe they’ve had some kind of falling out with their coach or with a key teammate. Maybe they want to be challenged a little more in the classroom and figure they’ll get a better education in a smaller, parochial school setting. Or maybe they think we have some kind of direct pipeline to a college scholarship, because we end up placing so many of our players in good spots at good schools. Usually, the kids who drift toward our program during their high school careers come from the Jersey City area, but from time to time they’ll find enough to like about St. Anthony that they’ll change things up in their own lives just to play here. They’ll commute if that’s what it takes—and in a case like Ty’s, they’ll work it out so they can stay with family in the area.

  I couldn’t offer a kid like Ty any kind of guarantee in terms of playing time or what kind of role he’d fill for us or even if he’d see any kind of time on the floor. What I could offer him—what I did offer him—was an opportunity to become a better player and to surround himself with a community of adults who would enter his life and help him become more and more conscious of the choices he was making, on and off the court. That’s all. For some kids, that’s everything—for others, that’s not nearly enough. They want some kind of assurance that they’ll play. They want a scholarship, or a commuting allowance, or a promise that I’ll be able to introduce them to a specific college coach or program … some way to convince themselves the move will be worth their while.

  But all I can promise is a shot—and that was all Ty wanted.

  As a basketball player, Ty was a work in progress. He came to us as a hustling, athletic street player. He’d never been coached in any kind of formal way. His shooting form was terrible, so first thing we did was restructure his shot. Also, he didn’t really have a position, so we had to get him to think like a ball-handling guard, which was where I thought he’d realize his full potential. But when he first came to us, he was just a bundle of energy—a terrific athlete with enormous potential. And on top of that potential, he wanted to play. You could see it in his eyes.

  Ty joined us for his sophomore year and teamed with Jio Fontan, Mike Rosario, and Travon Woodall to form a dynamic nucleus, and it was this group that would now set the tone for our coming season. We were an individually talented, guard-heavy team, but I figured we could run all these other teams into the ground. Anyway, that was the plan, and it all came together on signing day, November of their senior year, when six of our guys—our four returning starters plus A. J. Rogers and Alberto Estwick—formally announced where they’d be playing college ball.

  It’s always a big deal at a school like St. Anthony when a player can share such exciting news with our students and faculty. It’s like our whole building is bursting with pride and excitement—because, really, it represents such a landmark achievement in the lives of these young men. It’s a validating moment—for these kids as individuals, for their families, and for our program at large—and a powerful symbol to all of our students that with hard work and discipline, anything is possible. And here, to be able to celebrate the accomplishments of six students all at once … well, it was a great, great day for the entire St. Anthony community. Six students! Six full scholarships! Looking back, that had to be one of the proudest, finest, sweetest moments for our basketball program. Doesn’t usually happen that you have almost your entire senior class ready to commit ahead of the season like that, but when it does, it’s truly special. Doesn’t just mean that you and your assistant coaches are doing something right—it means
those six players have been doing something right all along.

  Here’s how it shook out on signing day … how it’s shaking out still …

  Travon Woodall announced he’d be going to Pitt—and after redshirting a year due to injury, he’s looking ahead to his senior season as captain.

  Jio Fontan would be going to Fordham, where he played for a year and made the all-rookie conference team. After that, he transferred to the University of Southern California, where he’s going into his senior season.

  Tyshawn Taylor committed initially to Marquette, but when Marquette coach Tom Crean announced a couple months later, right after the NCAA tournament, that he’d be leaving to coach Indiana, we worked on Marquette to release Ty from his scholarship commitment so we could help him explore other opportunities. It wasn’t clear just yet that Ty could find a better situation elsewhere, but we wanted him to be able to seek one out. Out of that, he decided to go to Kansas, where he’s just capped an outstanding four-year career by helping the Jayhawks make it to the NCAA Finals. And now he’s looking ahead to his rookie season in the NBA, playing just across the Hudson River from Jersey City for the Brooklyn Nets.

  Mike Rosario was on his way to Rutgers, where he’d play for two years before transferring to Florida—and as I write this, Mike is looking to re-up with his Friars teammates Jio Fontan and Chris Gaston, as all three have been invited to try out for the Puerto Rican national team looking to qualify for the 2012 Olympics. If it works out, they’ll be the first St. Anthony players to play in the Olympics—and if it works out that all three players are somehow reunited on the same team, after playing college ball at different schools, in three different conferences, it’ll be one of the great storylines of the summer games.

  (A footnote: Mike Rosario was the only one of the three to make the team. Jio might have joined him, but in the end the team doctors at USC decided he’d be better off sitting out the Olympics to get ready for the season, after an injury to his knee the year before. And Chris Gaston made the first couple cuts, but didn’t make it to the final round.)

  A. J. Rogers signed with St. Joe’s, although he ultimately switched to Norfolk State, where, after sitting out a year, he was on the team that stunned number-two seed Missouri in the first round of the 2012 NCAA tournament.

  Alberto Estwick, who’d come off the bench for us in most games, would join his Friars teammate Chris Gaston at Fordham.

  Medut Bol was also a senior on that 2007–2008 team, and after going to prep school for a year to shore up his academics, he earned a scholarship to Southern University, where he’d fill out and add a little power and presence to his inside game.

  Keep in mind, this was also a team that would feature Dominic Cheek, who declared for the NBA draft following his junior year at Villanova, so we had a potentially dominant collection of players, except for one thing—we hadn’t won anything yet.

  The fact that they’d yet to put it all together to win a championship began to mean something to this group, and I played it up as the season got under way. We already had a focus for our season, preparing to turn things around against St. Pat’s in the state tournament, but now we had a theme to go along with it. Coming off the high of signing day at our school, I kept telling our seniors they’d accomplished just about everything they’d set out to accomplish when they started their high school careers. They’d established themselves as players. They’d taken care of their educations. They knew (at least a little bit) what their futures might look like. But they’d yet to win it all. They’d had that great sophomore season, falling just short of a championship. They’d had that great junior season, falling just short of a championship. And now they were looking ahead to a senior season that would be their last shot at winning it all. This was no small thing, because in all the years I’d been coaching at St. Anthony, no senior class had ever graduated without winning at least one state title—so I put it to them straight.

  “That’s a helluva legacy,” I said during our first official practice of the season. “Can’t imagine you guys want to be the first group to graduate from St. Anthony without at least one ring. Just one lousy ring. Some of our guys have graduated with four. You guys don’t have any. So what are you gonna do about it?”

  I wasn’t particularly nice or nurturing about it—but “nice” and “nurturing” don’t win championships.

  It happened only one other time on my watch as head coach that a group of seniors was facing the prospect of graduating without a title. Our 2001 class had been in the same boat. We hadn’t won in 1998, 1999, or 2000, so there was a ton of pressure on that team. Nobody wanted to be the first to leave St. Anthony without a ring, and those seniors still talk about being overwhelmed by a powerful combination of joy and relief when they beat St. Augustine’s to win their one and only championship. They sat in the Elizabeth High School locker room at the end of that game, crying. They were all just beside themselves, excited that they’d finally won, but at the same time overcome by all these bottled-up emotions. The seniors on that team were Pete Cipriano, Juan Baquero, Carmine Charles, John-Paul Kobryn, and Isaac Ross, and whenever I hear from one of those guys, they take me back to that locker room after that game. They carry that moment with them still, so I made sure this 2008 group was carrying it with them as well. I even had Carmine Charles come back and visit with this current team, so they could hear it firsthand. Carmine had been a substitute for us on that 2001 team, but he was just as caught up in the moment as any of our starters. He talked about how important it was to all of them to be able to call themselves champions at long last. He talked about how they could finally feel they were a part of the great history of championship basketball at St. Anthony.

  We kept talking about it and talking about it … all season long. Not to put pressure on these kids, but to give them something to shoot for. Something to play for. After all, they were all college-ready; more than that, they all knew where they’d be playing next year—they’d all proven themselves individually. But as a group, they’d yet to put it all together—so we put it on them.

  As I mentioned, we were a guard-heavy team, which meant we had to work as a finely tuned unit on the floor. Some years it could be the polar opposite. You could have a group of long, lanky guys, so you’d have to play a certain way. In basketball, you can make up for a lot of deficits with height and length. But this team was all about quickness and athletic ability and stamina and skill level. We didn’t really have any strength or size around the basket, so that limited some of the things we were able to do.

  And yet, somehow, we managed to win. Consistently, and sometimes even surprisingly, we managed to win. All we had to do, I kept telling my guys, was keep getting better. Each game we tried to push it to a new level. That wasn’t unique to this one team, to this one season. Always, you want to grow your game every time you take the floor. You want to set it up so that if an opposing coach sees you play in December, he’ll think one way about your team, but then, if you come up against that same coach in February, he’ll think a whole other way. You figure it out as you go along, what each group is good at, where their strengths lie, where they can improve. You start to see what weapons you have, and you find a way to use them all—at just the right time, in just the right way—so by the time you reach the latter part of your season, you know who you are as a team. You know your players, right down to their bones. You know their tics, their tendencies. You’re happy with your development as a team. And then you reach a kind of pinnacle and try to stay at that level the rest of the way. Peak too soon, and you’ll probably fade down the stretch. Peak too late, and you’ll have a tough time against the very best teams when the games matter most. The timing has to be just right.

  It worked out that year that we were asked to represent the state of New Jersey at a Christmas tournament in Albuquerque, New Mexico, so this was our first true challenge—and our season had just started. Back of my mind, we were a long way from peaking, but I knew we’d have to get up
for these games. I knew that if we played well here, it would set our entire season in motion; if we stumbled, we’d start to doubt ourselves before we even had any idea what we were about. We opened the tournament against the host team, La Cueva, and handled them pretty well, but the real test came in the final against a powerhouse Lone Peak team from Utah. They grow them big in the Rocky Mountains, I guess, because this team had a couple feet on us, all told. Their starters were six-ten, six-eight, six-seven, and six-five, with one “little” guy, at six-one, running the point.

  Mike Rosario had emerged as our best outside shooter over the previous couple seasons, but he couldn’t find the basket. He was 0-7 from the field, but we found other ways to score. We played a solid, swarming defense and won by eleven points, and as we left New Mexico I was pleased with our performance. Mike hadn’t made a field goal, and we still managed to win, which got me thinking we’d match up okay against the other “big” teams on our schedule.

  Turned out there was only one game in the entire regular season where we trailed in the second half—and it came against another “big” team, American Christian Academy from Aston, Pennsylvania. American Christian has since closed its doors, but at the time it was a top-ranked, basketball-focused program, almost like a finishing school for the nation’s best prospects, so this team was loaded. They were led that year by Tyreke Evans, who now plays for the Sacramento Kings, and MoMo Jones, who’d lead Arizona to the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament before transferring to Iona, where he joined his American Christian teammate Michael Glover. Up and down the bench, this group was strong, with about eight or nine kids who’d go on to start for top Division I programs, so we knew they’d be one of the best teams we’d see all year.