Ken Huffman, just as he’d promised himself, had been staying out of his kids’ way, content to let them play the up-tempo game they’d been fine-tuning all season long. And to that point, anyway, doing so had worked out okay. But as he looked as his starters in the huddle during the previous time out – kids who’d played every minute of the game so far for him – he sensed their collective energy was, at least to some degree, starting to flag.
He’d had an idea in the back of his mind long before that All City game started, and now he found the slightly crazy notion moving front and center in his brain. It was not yet time, he reasoned, but that time was, indeed, drawing near.
In the other huddle, Billy E’s demeanor belied how concerned he’d grown over the course of the previous eight minutes. In that third period alone he’d managed to lose his hardest working player and enforcer. And his lead guard and quarterback had continued to, somehow, try to sneak by with four fouls, a nagging situation that had largely neutralized his strongest on-court asset; namely, his aggressiveness.
What’s more, Billy’s club, as strong and skilled as it might have been, had been exposed that quarter as lacking the quickness necessary to compete on such a sprawling court against a team led by a couple of jackrabbits. Coach Huffman’s boys were, literally, beating his to each and every loose ball and long rebound. In the process, they were making his kids’ legs seem heavy and slow, especially as the game continued and the fatigue factor started to set in.
Only sophomore Rich Dabrowski and junior Paul Stepien, the two Chinese Bandits he’d just called upon for relief, along with, maybe, Jack Contos, seemed capable of running with the Cougars, or at least doing so without appearing overmatched, speed-wise.
Billy had an uneasy feeling as he watched his five kids head out for the final period. This was his third All City game on the Sacred Heart bench. And the Hearts had come up short in both previous attempts; the first after being manhandled by a taller, deeper and more athletic Central squad, despite the presence of the magnificent Gene Fisch, and the second after dropping an overtime heartbreaker to another City League power, this time CBA, a club led by two sharpshooters, Kevin Harrigan and Bob Bregard, both of whom, ironically, had gone to Parochial League grammar schools.
The main difference was that during those first two games Billy had been an assistant under Adam Markowski. This was the first All City game with him holding the team’s reins and in full control of the team. It wasn’t much, he figured, but it was what he chose to hold onto as he watched his boys go, even as he glanced up at the scoreboard and felt yet another twinge at the hard truth it offered him.
Back at the Sacred Heart convent, two of the older nuns seated around their big old AM/FM console had now gotten down on their knees in prayer, as had the young nun up in her bedroom, the one who had been sitting on the edge of her bed, with her reel-to-reel machine continuing to whir as it captured the drama being brought to life so vividly by Jack Morse.
At the same time, back in the stands at the War Memorial, Irene Contos, at one time the finest schoolgirl player in the city, and her fellow Hearts crazies stood whistling and applauding for their boys as they came back out for the final eight minutes. Much like Billy, their attitude was, now, less about confidence than it was raw and unmitigated hope. Irene and her fellow Hearts fans desperately hoped – and maybe even desperately needed to believe – that Jack and his teammates had it in them to come from behind, even as they recalled the harsh reality of the just-ended period and how much quicker and more athletic the Cougars appeared to be.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the War Memorial sat Sug Reddick, Pop Harlow and their wives – along with, of course, a few thousand other former residents of the city’s late, lamented 15th Ward, the vast majority of them African Americans for whom that game meant so much more than just another Friday night out. Because that matchup against that team of Catholic boys from an all-white Catholic school in a virtually all-white neighborhood on the West Side was inextricably wrapped up in matters of racial and neighborhood pride.
Eight more minutes, many of them thought. Just eight more minutes of good, solid team ball and so much of the hurt, anger, and helplessness they felt as they watched their beloved Ward fall prey to that damn Bill Walsh and his damn wrecking ball would be eased, if only by degree, and if only for a few hours.
Even Paul Seymour – the veritable godfather of the Parochial League’s hustling, breakneck style of play, a onetime mentor to Jimmy Collins, Reddick and Harlow who'd resigned as coach of the NBA’s Baltimore Bullets prior to that ’66-’67 season – sat and watched from the Corcoran side. Seymour, who’d walked to the game after leaving his liquor store in the hands of one of his clerks, wasn’t so much rooting for either club as he was simply basking in the glow of his hometown’s biggest annual basketball spectacle – especially now that his beloved Nats had unceremoniously pulled up stakes, left for the City of Brotherly Love, and rechristened themselves as the (gulp) “76ers.”
As the game’s fourth and final quarter got underway, right off the bat Reddick made a nifty move and barreled down the lane before muscling up a layup from the left side, the ball caroming off glass and going straight through, giving his Cougars, yet again, a relatively comfortable five-point edge.
Schmid answered for the Hearts on the next possession. When the Cougars got the ball back and following an entry pass from Harlow to Williams on the lower block, this one against Dabrowski, the Corcoran senior faked, spun, and attempted to lay the ball up softly off the glass. Schmid rose from near the middle of the key and, with his right arm outstretched and straining, made contact with Williams’ shot enough to redirect it out of bounds, much to the delight of the Hearts’ side of the building.
Unfortunately for those Hearts loyalists, ref Ray Wojcik, a fellow Pole who Billy had known since high school, immediately blew his whistle and dutifully skipped toward the scorer’s table, his right arm extended and his wrist and index finger flicking downward. The call was goaltending, meaning Williams’ shot was good and that the scorekeeper was compelled to add two more points to the Corcoran side of the ledger.
Corcoran 57, Sacred Heart 52.
On the Hearts’ next possession, with things now edging toward full-on panic-mode for their faithful, Williams banged into Dabrowski as the kid cut through the lane. That foul put the Cougars into the penalty, meaning there’d be a one-and-one attempt on tap for the young benchwarmer.
Dabrowski had been in the game long enough to run up and down the court a few times and work up a sweat. He was, similarly, no longer awestruck by the circumstances, arena, or the size of the crowd. The Hearts sophomore was living in the moment now and as focused as he’d been at any point that season.
And while he'd missed his most recent free throw – the second half of a two-shot foul near the end of the third quarter – he’d also hit a nice ten-footer just before that, one he’d taken from the left side just seconds after having entered the game. As he stood at the foul line, Rich Dabrowski felt good, confident and completely warm, spinning the ball lightly with both hands.
From the Hearts bench, Billy watched his young, gangly Bandit and shouted his support. “C’mon, Richie,” the Hearts’ coach chirped from the sidelines, clapping his hands emphatically at chest level. As Dabrowski turned and looked his way, Billy added supportively and, again, almost fatherly, “Focus now. We need these.”
That may have been Billy’s mistake. Because Dabrowski’s free throw – the front end of a one-and-one (meaning if he didn't convert the first there’d be no second try) – didn’t merely miss. It missed so badly it barely touched the side of the rim before being snatched out of the air by Reeder, the Cougars’ relentless defender and ballhawk.
Billy just shook his head and gave a glance toward his bench full of Bandits as he returned to his seat and they, in turn, sat and watched. Maybe, he thought, he should replace Dabrowski with Gozdac, or some other upperclassman. After all, these next few minutes were for all the marbles and the Hearts could ill-afford to squander any more scoring opportunities, not with it being as late as it was and with the Cougars playing as tough as they were.
Fortunately for Billy, he had Pete Schmid on his team. And Schmid, the powerful forward, was just not going to be denied. On the next trip, following a Karazuba miss from fifteen, he was fouled in the act and calmly hit both free throws, the second of which barely made a sound as it went through. On the subsequent possession, after yet-another Karazuba miss, Schmid banked home a somewhat mechanical twelve-foot fall-away.
Just like that, the Hearts were once again back to within a point. The Poles on the western half of the arena roared, while back in the convent, one of the older nuns gathered around the convent's console suddenly, and certainly completely unexpectedly, began to giggle with joy. Then, almost as if the elder nun's giggle had been contagious, a few others gathered soon joined her.
There were now just under four and a half minutes remaining.
Coach Huffman had seen more than enough. His team, as athletic as they were, suddenly seemed to have no answers for Schmid, who was having his way with them, a man against boys. He signaled for a timeout, then turned and beckoned down his bench to Ben Frazier as calmly as he could, telling the baseball-loving 15th Warder to report in.
With a little over four minutes to go, Hoffman, the onetime country boy, who now doubled as a Corcoran coach and teacher, had, at long last, made his first substitution of the game. And it was to get more quickness and ball handling onto the floor.
In the huddle, he told his kids the idea he’d had percolating in his mind for a while. It was time, he told them, to make the Hearts pay for not being as quick as they were.
Like he’d done against a bigger and stronger Cortland team earlier that season, Huffman told his young Cougars he wanted them to go into that special, two-man offense he’d taught them – the one they’d worked on throughout the year and the one they’d used just a few weeks prior to neutralize a slower but more powerful Cortland club. It was the offense in which Joe and Howie would stay out near the top handling the ball between the mid-court stripe and the top of the key – while the other three kept their spacing and stayed far enough from one another so that no defender could guard two men at the same time.
The Cougars margin for error had now been reduced to a single point, 57-56, and Huffman had decided this was the best way to hang on to what remained of his team's lead.
Moments after play resumed, just twenty or so seconds after Kenny Huffman’s daring strategy kicked off in earnest, what those Cougars – or at least two of them – were attempting to do became apparent to everyone.
First Harlow and then Reddick would dribble the ball in and around the Hearts defenders, dribbling it often inches from the ground, yet always keeping it a good distance from their goal. The two would take turns dribbling back and forth, and often in circles, knifing through the slower defenders, seemingly daring them to try and steal it. Whichever Cougar star was dribbling would then, at some point, pull up and pass off to the other, who for the next twenty or so seconds would do the same thing – all the while milking precious time off the clock and keeping the ball out of the hands of the Heartsmen.
At one point, almost a full minute into the Cougar “freeze,” Reddick dribbled through his legs once, twice, and then a third time, all in rapid fire, while at the same time almost appearing to taunt his outmanned opponents. The magically talented Cougar then brought the ball behind his back and broke, yet again, for a patch of daylight on the floor and another soft spot in Billy E’s otherwise suffocating defense.
The Corcoran crowd exploded with delight and, from the scorer’s table, young Jack Morse’s voice broke from the sheer excitement bubbling up inside him as he tried to capture the kinetic feeling inside the building for all his listeners out there in radioland.
The Corcoran freeze did more than just take time off the clock. It turned half the building into something of a sixth man for Corcoran, inspiring the vast majority of those two thousand or so 15th Warders to rise to their feet and cheer loudly for the unlikely (and thoroughly unexpected) exhibition of basketball derring-do now playing out on the floor beneath them.
Finally, Rich Dabrowski – or “Dick” as he was being called by Morse – in a feverish mix of desperation and zeal, reached in and slapped Reddick across the forearm in an attempt to steal the ball. Billy popped up and stared out at his sophomore. It was his second foul of the game, to go along with two costly turnovers and a pair of botched free throws, one of which – critically – had been the front end of a one-and-one.
But past mistakes aside, the kid had also just put one of the best shooters in the city on the line with a chance at two easy and uncontested points. All this with, now, just under two minutes remaining and the Hearts still trailing by one.
Exasperated, Billy signaled for his next-to-last timeout and momentarily lowered his head in frustration. Then, catching Dabrowski’s eyes, he held them as the young man neared the bench. “Hey!,” the coach’s stern look seemed to be saying to his youngest and most undisciplined Bandit, “Relax out there and focus, will ya? Or, I swear to God – I swear it – I’ll pull ya so fast it’ll make your head spin.”
The Corcoran freeze had done one other important thing to Billy and his boys – and this one far more practical and measurable. Just a minute or so prior, it had taken yet one more Sacred Heart starter out of the game.
Just seconds into Reddick and Harlow’s bold Globetrotter-style exhibition, Danny Van Cott, Billy E’s tough-minded little Irish floor general who’d been playing the entire half with four fouls, had committed yet another one on Steve Williams. It was his fifth, which, like Sakowski, sent him to the bench for the rest of the game. It also put Williams on the line for a single free throw, which the lanky lefty, once again, drained clean and with little effort.
As Williams had been setting up for that free throw attempt, Billy had jumped up, placed both hands together, fingers to palm, and snapped out an abrupt, “Time out” to Mike Stark, the ref closest to him. He’d then looked down his bench and decided to replace the now-disqualified Van Cott with Stepien, which seemed like both a fair trade and a fairly obvious move.
Turned out, it was a good thing Billy made that trade. Because though Stepien was not nearly the floor leader Van Cott was (at least not in his coach’s eyes), he was slightly quicker and more athletic. And that fact was now working in Billy’s favor as he stood before his team and contemplated what to do about the two-man stall by those quick-as-hell little bastards, Reddick and Harlow, an offense he’d never really seen used before, much less taught his boys to defend.
Still, Billy believed in his team and believed, as well, in his own ability to adapt to just about any situation. “Rich, I want you to dog Harlow,” he said with purpose, looking once more into Dabrowski’s wide eyes. “And I mean all over the place. He’s going to want to dribble, then pass it off to Reddick, just like he’s been doing. Keep the pressure on him and let him do that. But…and I mean this…after he passes it, deny him the ball. You got that? Seriously, son. Do you understand what I’m telling you? I mean, do not let that son of a bitch touch that damn thing once he passes it. Take him out of the play and guard him like you’re a defensive back and he’s a damn wide receiver. You got that?”
Dabrowski nodded and stared into his coach’s eyes, almost as though he and Billy were suddenly the only two people left on the face of the earth.
Billy then turned to Stepien and said pretty much the same thing, only with Reddick as the object of his instructions.
Finally, he turned back and said in even voice to his whole team, but especially to the five kids he now had on the floor. “We don’t need to foul just yet, men. Believe me. There’s still plenty of time. We still have almost two minutes left. Just play good, solid defense and deny the ball. You hear me? Use your feet. And I’m telling you. Deny the damn ball!”
In the other huddle, Ken Huffman tried to remain calm. His boys, after all, were in control. It was up to the Hearts to try to catch them. Nevertheless, the Corcoran coach’s stomach continued to churn, and the teeth continued to gnash behind what were now pursed lips.
When play resumed, after a Schmid misfire from about twelve feet, Williams grabbed the rebound and, looking up, found Harlow all alone on the other side of half-court. Harlow might have even had a layup, had he wanted to risk it. But, instead, the Corcoran floor general eschewed any attempt at another possible two and simply dribbled back out and around, content to take more time off the clock.
Even as Harlow did that, Billy E found himself shaking his head and thanking his lucky stars. Outside of Schmid, his boys hadn't shot well all game long. As late as it was getting, having to score even two more points in such a game might just have been a bridge too far.
With just one minute and fifty eight seconds remaining, the fans on both sides of the War Memorial had risen and ratcheted their cheering up to almost ear-splitting levels. The building, quite literally, shook.
Back at the convent, all the nuns had likewise risen from their seats. In the living room, those around the radio had gotten up and then eased themselves back down on two knees to start, yet again, one more rosary. Those who’d been up in their bedrooms for much of the first three quarters, had come racing downstairs to join their sisters for the final two minutes of regulation. Those nuns joined in the house’s group prayer as well, the one that raged with religious fervor in a growing semicircle in front of that big old Philco of theirs.
The only nun who hadn’t come running down, in fact, was the young one who remained upstairs taping the broadcast, the one with, now, the crackle, pop and hum of a low-powered nighttime AM signal washing over her like the gently lapping waves of nearby Onondaga Lake.
Sometime prior, she'd switched off the overhead light and stretched out, face down, on the floor, leaving her tiny living quarters illuminated by little more than the amber glow bleeding through the rear panel of her clock radio. She continued to pray as devoutly as she knew how, and did so with, pretty much, every fiber of her being. But she was now no longer on her bed or even on her knees. Instead, she was lying fully prone on the small braided rug in the center of her room, looking for all the world like Supergirl keeping watch over the many fine citizens of Metropolis as she soared above them.
The young nun’s intent, apparently, was to spend the rest of the game in that prone position making various deals with her God Lord Almighty regarding any and all future behavior on her part – in exchange, of course, for His granting her beloved boys the biggest win of their young lives.
On her feet now, as well, and back at the War Memorial (along with her fellow Corcoran fans), was Lillian Huffman, Ken’s wife, who held both hands to her mouth, almost in her own form of silent prayer. Lillian might have been the only person in the entire arena who truly understood the depth of her husband’s pain after the previous year's All City loss or knew how badly he wanted to win that night – despite his protests to the contrary – and not so much for his own sake, but for his kids,’ a few of whom had been forced to live through the previous year’s lightning bolt of pain.
“C’mon, Kenny,” Lillian whispered to herself, looking down at her husband with tenderness, even as the rhythmic pounding continued to rain down upon her and vibrate beneath her.
Sug Reddick stood and watched as well, though Joe’s father did not cheer or even move a muscle in his mouth. He just continued to stare down at the court and, in particular, his son. The only sign of tension he betrayed were the two balled fists that hung beside him, one at each side, both pumping up and down slightly, and both as thick, as tight, and as black as cannonballs. It was as if Reddick was extolling his boy – willing him, really – to find a way to hold on and win this one for his people, many of whom were still in the process of having their homes and lives ripped out from beneath them.
When all was said and done, on that particularly starry March night, over 4,000 Syracusans rose as a single unit – a single living, breathing basketball-loving organism, if you will – while twice that many, and perhaps more, listened to Jack Morse with bated breath on thousands of bedroom, kitchen, family room and car radios up and down the peaks-and-valleys south of the city, and the flatlands north of it. That’s not to mention, of course, all those inner city radios, all those spread across all those mostly Catholic neighborhoods, and all the ones now glowing in the still snow-covered and sparsely populated farmland that cradled the geographic heart of New York State, every last one chirping away under the cold, crisp cover of a starry and brilliantly clear late winter’s night.
The 1967 All City Championship had come down to, now, just one minute and fifty eight seconds' worth of game time. And its outcome rode squarely on the determined talents of the ten youngsters on the floor – along with the two unassuming yet remarkable men who coached them.
Billy chose to put his boys in an all-out full-court press – a somewhat complicated matchup zone he’d first taught them back in December – one that had them scrambling from the far baseline to the mid-court stripe in pursuit of the ball, trapping it inside one of four quadrants whenever they could. Despite their lack of team speed, the Hearts’ coach felt he had no real choice.
And sure enough, just a few seconds into that pressing, full-court defense, Richie Dabrowski, chasing madly after a dancing and dribbling Howie Harlow, himself darting in and out like a bat at twilight, reached out and slapped the wrist of the Corcoran guard as he was doing, yet again, his best Globetrotter imitation, a la Curly Neal. The young Cougar stepped to the line and coolly sank both attempts to give his team a, now, four-point cushion.
The foul, meanwhile, was young Dabrowski’s third (and second in less than two minutes' time).
The two scoreboards overhead told their tale, even through the dull haze of a full night’s worth of smoke, sweat, and stale air. The numbers read 60-56, Corcoran, with just a minute-twenty one remaining.
Billy’s boys were not about to lay down for anyone, however. They’d come too far and worked too damn hard for that. On their next possession, Schmid was fouled after a right-wing entry pass and then rattled home the free throw he was awarded, after what seemed like an interminable number of bounces. Schmidt’s free throw may not have been pretty, but it was huge in righting the Hearts’ listing ship.
That single marker was, then, followed by two more just eighteen seconds later when, aided by an uncharacteristic Corcoran turnover, Zaganczyk worked himself free and was able to find enough daylight to bank home an eight-foot leaner from a near-impossible angle, just a few feet inside the right baseline.
The Hearts faithful erupted as Zaganczyk’s prayer somehow found itself answered, while the young nun upstairs and back in the convent, the one stretched out like Supergirl, suddenly began to sob very real and very salty tears of joy, every last one rolling down her cheeks before disappearing into the braided rug now just inches from her nose.
Meanwhile, on the first floor, her fellow nuns howled with delight as Morse barked out the joyous news of Zaganczyk’s bank shot, some springing up off their knees to dance a little impromptu jig, rosary beads jangling. One of them, an otherwise quiet one, simply fell on the floor face-first, as if overcome with rapture or, maybe, a heart attack.
And just like that – as if by Divine intervention – the Hearts had shaved Corcoran’s once-daunting five-point lead, yet again, to a single possession. There was now just a minute-ten left and the outcome, remarkably, remained every bit the tossup that it had been at the outset.
Both clubs were also now in the penalty which meant any fouls going forward would result in one-and-one chances for both of them, even if the team being fouled had no intention of trying to score.
This time it was Kenny Huffman who wanted time out. He called his Cougars over, mostly to let them catch their breath and regain some measure of composure. But he also wanted to remind them that this was still their game. That it was the Hearts who were chasing them. It was the Hearts who were pressing. And it was the Hearts who remained, at that point, very much on the defensive.
Despite the closeness of the game – or maybe because of it – Huffman chose to keep his boys in their freeze and keep the ball squarely in the hands of his two all-world guards, believing his team could score all it would need in the game’s final minute on a combination of foul shots and the kind of easy hoops that would result from the breakdowns that occur when the trailing team is forced to press.
That, at least deep down inside, was what Ken Huffman hoped.
Yet, just a few moments after play resumed, as Reddick was fouled by Zaganczyk as he dribbled in circles, just inches off the ground – much to the continued delight of the Cougar faithful – Huffman’s plan took the first of three very unexpected turns.
Reddick, who’d led the City League in scoring and who remained among the finest shooters anywhere, stood over the ball confidently as he prepared for the front end of a critical one-and-one. If he made the shot, he not only would give his team a two-point edge with just a minute to play, but he'd earn himself a second shot and the opportunity to pad the lead to an even more comfortable three.
As he released the ball, Reddick felt good. The shot was on a perfect line and had the unmistakable arc and backspin that only the finest shooters seem to be able to achieve on each and every try.
But a funny thing happened as that ball arced toward the basket. Reddick's picture perfect-looking free throw attempt hit back iron and did so square, caroming off the front of the rim and into the outstretched and waiting hands of Contos.
The gasp on the Corcoran side was not only audible, it was almost as loud as the cheers on the Hearts’ side. In the stands, Paul Seymour simply raised an eyebrow and shook his head twice, while a few sections to his right the elder Reddick closed both eyes and held one palm against his forehead, a gesture that signified both disbelief and fatherly concern for his boy.
Yet, as was written, there were not one, or even two cruel twists of fate awaiting Ken Huffman and his young Cougars. There were three. And the final two were still out there, lurking.
On the very next possession, following a Schmid miss and a subsequent Williams thwack of a rebound, Corcoran started once again passing the ball around teasingly, and once again Reddick and Harlow began dribbling precious seconds off the clock, with the Hearts in hot pursuit the entire time.
This time the Cougars’ floor spacing was much improved and exposed even wider and more vulnerable gaps in Billy E’s full court press. As a result, even as he was dribbling in and out, and as Dabrowski, Zaganczyk and Stepien kept trying to somehow catch or cut him off, Reddick looked up and spotted Ben Frazier, the sub his coach had just inserted into the game for his quickness and ball handling. Frazier had managed to, somehow, get behind the Hearts defenders and was now in position for a virtually uncontested breakaway.
Without even a whisper of wasted movement, Reddick flicked both wrists and sent an arcing but otherwise bullet crosscourt pass diagonally over three defenders and into the waiting arms of a wide-open and wide-eyed Frazier. With just forty-five seconds left on the clock and Corcoran clinging to the narrowest of all possible leads, Benny Frazier took off in a full gallop toward his own basket, pushing the ball ahead as he did.
Just a few feet behind and coming from the opposite side was the Hearts’ muscular jumping jack, the 6’3” weightlifting, rock ‘n roll-loving, fish-catching car nut, Jack Contos. Contos had seen Reddick’s pass to Frazier coming almost before he’d thrown it and had instinctively turned up-court in anticipation.
So there the two young men came, Frazier from one side and a few steps ahead, and Contos from the opposite, his eyes fixed like a falcon on a field mouse, his muscles and heart pumping for all they were worth, and his focus squarely on the bouncing ball now sitting dead in his crosshairs.
From her location in the lower level, Irene Contos hunched over slightly while she stood next to the Sacred Heart parishioner who lived to trumpet the coming of the Hearts, as if doing so was his bread of life – the crusty old coot with the shrill, high-pitched voice and the Elmer Fudd hat – and she did so transfixed, almost as though she was, somehow, trying to almost will her boy to not merely catch the Cougar, but to soar high and far enough to block his shot. Irene was now frozen in anticipation, watching things unfold, all the while with both fists balled up tight, knuckles pressed against either side of her chin.
Years later, Ben Frazier would contend he’d pulled a muscle earlier that week playing a little early-season baseball, as he and a few buddies were trying to get a jump start on that Spring's tryouts. He’d contend as well that he never told anyone about his leg, especially Coach Huffman, for fear Old Stoneface might not play him in the All City game.
That may or may not have been the case. Regardless, the fact remains that on that particular Friday the young Cougar backup was sporting a large Ace bandage on his thigh as he drove toward the otherwise unguarded rim and the likely two points that his team so desperately needed to stop the bleeding and, just maybe, put the game on ice.
As Frazier planted his left leg to take off, and as the 15th Ward faithful roared with anticipation, the youngster could feel the looming presence of Contos over his back-left shoulder. He’d seen and played against the Hearts star forward enough to know that, especially for a white boy, he could soar like few others. So, rather than taking an extra step and using the backboard on the right side of the rim, as many might have chosen to do, Ben Frazier instead opted to take the ball directly to the rim, to the very front of it, while contorting his body to try to shield Contos, who by then was airborne and stretching up and out in a ferocious attempt to swat away the ball that was, just now, about to leave Frazier’s hand.
Catapulting off his bad leg, the one whose upper reaches remained swaddled in a big, thick bandage, Frazier felt his thigh tighten and felt, too, its discernable lack of spring. His feeble attempt at a breakaway layup – basketball’s easiest of all shots – barely made it over the front of the rim, before sliding from left to right, doing almost a full three-sixty, and then rolling off harmlessly to one side.
The second bit of cruel fate had just bitten Kenny Huffman and his Cougars.
Two down, one to go.
As the loose ball bounced toward the corner, Morse was bellowing to his listeners, “WIDE OPEN AND HE MISSED IT!!!...” without mentioning poor Ben Frazier by name. Frazier felt his heart in his throat as he craned his neck from beneath the basket and watched his botched shot roll harmlessly away.
Huffman, meanwhile, just lowered his head on the Corcoran bench as if, yet again, the dark hand of fate had decided to come knocking. The Cougars head man felt as though, truly, someone had just sucker-punched him in the gut – and done so for the second All City game in as many years.
Up in the stands, amid the cascade of boos aimed at Frazier, which rained down upon her as well, Lillian Huffman held the fingers of her right hand over her lips and eyed her husband as he stared into the grain of the hardwood beneath him. She imagined his thoughts, tried to feel his emotions, her heart aching, wishing she could do something, anything, to comfort the man – the good man – she loved so deeply.
Billy E, on the other hand, was in an entirely different place. Having just been handed a second (and, yet again, thoroughly unexpected) gift from those crazy basketball gods – and having had both drop into his lap in the space of no more than twenty seconds – he suddenly felt a rush of adrenaline surge through his body.
Fortunately for Huffman and the Cougars, Reddick – the finest all-round athlete on the court – never stopped hustling on the play, even as his teammate appeared destined to put an easy two points on the board. Trailing the play from deep at the other end, and hustling the entire way, Reddick’s raw speed allowed him to run Frazier’s errant shot down in the corner before Contos, and even Frazier himself, could extract themselves from the mass of fans around the basket support and scramble after it.
It was a stunning exhibition of athleticism by Reddick, and it so caught the Hearts by surprise, that Zaganczyk seemed to foul the Cougar star reflexively once he grabbed the ball, perhaps fearing that Reddick might just dribble the rest of the game away with his team in pursuit and powerless to stop him.
There were now just twenty-eight seconds left and the Corcoran side of the building was going what might best be described as street-rat crazy.
The problem for Billy and the Heartsmen was simple. Corcoran was in the bonus, which meant that Zaganczyk’s instinctive foul on Reddick gave the latter yet one more one-and-one opportunity and one more chance – as Huffman had hoped when he first called for the freeze – to win the game from the free throw line.
As he stood over the ball handed to him by Wojcik, the referee, and spun it in his hands twice, few players in the city could have done so with any more faith in his own ability than Joe Reddick. Sure, he’d missed that other one-and-one moments ago, but that was a one-off, he thought. Everyone, even Dave Bing, Oscar Robertson and Jerry West, misses now and then.
But that faith aside, there was something about Reddick’s mindset that, even then, set him apart from most other high school athletes who, in their one little corner of the world, ooze self-confidence. Joe Reddick never saw, or even considered, anything on a basketball court that he felt he couldn’t do, and do better than the next guy.
He shot often and did so with boundless confidence. Yet, he didn’t shoot so often or so indiscriminately that anyone – teammate or opponent, alike – would ever consider him a “gunner” or someone who wouldn’t willfully pass up an open shot for a teammate be more open than he.
Joe Reddick was handsome. Joe Reddick was polite. And, above all, Joe Reddick could play – just flat-out play the game of basketball, and do so better than, virtually, any schoolboy who ever picked up a ball in Syracuse. That’s why over the course of his three-year high school career at VO and Corcoran he’d become something of a cult figure, and not just within the streets of the 15th Ward, but in the many white homes, schools and playgrounds that peppered Onondaga County.
Mark Bowka, for example, was a 7th grader at St. Ann’s, a grammar school on the city’s southwest side. He was also the single best 13-year old player in Syracuse, and a kid every coach in town would have loved to have had in his starting lineup in two seasons' time.
What’s more, the very next season Bowka’s team would win the overall Diocesan grammar school championship over Assumption, based almost exclusively on his strength, leaping ability and almost machine-like precision as a shooter.
Yet, as great as Mark Bowka was, and as much as other kids his age and younger looked up to him and wanted to play like he did, Bowka, himself, had a basketball hero. And that hero was Joe Reddick. Bowka loved Reddick’s combination of power and grace. He loved his style and attitude. And he loved the way the ball, especially late in a close game, always seemed to find its way into his hands.
That’s why Mark Bowka wore number twenty-two for the Eagles of St. Ann’s – because that was Joe Reddick’s number.
Chris Grover too, whose dad, George, had bought that color TV set from Olum’s appliance store following his wife’s death so that he and his boys could bond while watching that fall’s Notre Dame/Michigan State football game, was a huge Reddick fan. In fact, Grover – an aspiring basketball player in his own right, as well as a fledgling writer and poet, even as a fourteen-year old eighth grader at St. Charles Borromeo – used to craft poems and weave together long lyrical essays about the greatness of Joe Reddick, often using little more than his own imagination, a box score, and one or two paragraphs’ worth of game story in the morning paper.
And while young Mark Bowka was actually in the War Memorial that very night, a guest of Billy E, who’d already been recruiting him for Sacred Heart, young Chris Grover was at home in Westvale, sitting at his desk in his tiny bedroom, pencil in hand and staring at his clock radio as Jack Morse’s words and descriptions continued to crackle and pop just inches away, all the while bringing the exploits of his basketball hero to life in his young mind's eye.
So, as Joe Reddick stood over the ball at his own foul line, no one in all of Syracuse and Onondaga County – either at the War Memorial or listening on the radio – expected anything less than two quick flicks of his wrist, two perfect swishes, and a three-point Cougar lead.
Except for one thing: those pesky gods of basketball.
Clank.
Even as the two teams battled for the rebound of Reddick’s unexpected, if not stunning miss – his second failed one-and-one in the past thirty seconds – Ken Huffman could do little more than just sit and stare out onto the court without speaking or even moving.
Those devilish gods of basketball – if anyone still had any doubt – had just spoken. And they’d done so, now, for the third time in less than two minutes.
As Contos snatched the loose ball out of the air, Billy E, his eyes now flush with new-found life, shot up from his backside and signaled madly for another time out. It would be his last, but damned if he cared. Suddenly he and his Hearts were playing with more house money than he’d ever seen in his life.
As the Hearts’ coach hitched up his trousers and gave his already crooked tie yet another yank – making it, now, even more crooked – he felt for all the world like the wind was finally, at long last, at his back in a way that, frankly, it hadn’t been all half.
“Bring it in, men,” the bespectacled thirty-something husband and father barked above the roar, clapping his hands as the cheerleaders bounced and gyrated deliriously to his left. With his entire ballclub now huddled around him, Billy surprised them all, at least to a degree. He told them he did not want to play for the last shot.
Instead, he said, he wanted them to look for their first good shot and then follow it for all they were worth. “There’s a chance we can get an easy put-back because they’ll be so focused on stopping our shot,” he urged his boys. “Just attack the rim and don’t stop attacking it. Believe me. You do that, and this game’s ours.”
Billy then ordered the five-man rotation that he’d cobbled together (following the Sakowski and Van Cott disqualifications) to work the ball down low to Schmid and let him force Corcoran to either double team him and create openings elsewhere, or to try to stop him one-on-one – a difficult task under the best of circumstances.
“You feelin’ it?” he asked his players, now grinning like the proverbial Cheshire Cat as he straightened, pumped his left fist almost imperceptibly and broke the huddle. In that same moment, he glanced up at one of the scoreboards overhead and pushed his glasses, yet again, up his nose. Billy E’s question to his kids was, of course, rhetorical. And it was asked more as a way of reminding them that the momentum had suddenly swung in their favor than as an attempt to actually determine whether or not they felt it.
Regardless, he wanted to keep his young charges loose and prevent them from thinking too much about the do-or-die nature of the circumstances about them. And while that somewhat impish grin of his seemed at least a touch out of place, given his club's dire straits, it helped Schmid, Contos and their three teammates assume a mantel of calm when everything around them dictated pretty much the opposite.
Meanwhile, in the other huddle, Ken Huffman told his boys he wanted them in their collapsing man-to-man defense. Such a defense would allow his Cougars to continue to take advantage of their superior quickness on the perimeter. But it would also give them the option of double and triple-teaming Schmid – especially if, as expected, the Hearts tried to force it into their 6’5” star, either down low or up top.
“Watch out for Schmid,” Huffman cautioned his five iron-men starters above the noise of the frothy crowd, as they in turn stared back in silence. “Whatever you do – whatever you do – I mean it. Put a body on that guy and do not let him beat us. You got that?”
Even though they could barely hear over the noise, all five Cougar starters, perhaps lip-reading Huffman’s final three words of advice, nodded emphatically once or twice, as did a few of the kids otherwise glued to his bench.
When play resumed, the whole arena rose yet again as what was left of Billy E's starting unit brought the ball up against the now hunched, focused and more-ready-than-ever Cougar iron men – one of whom (Harlow) had also managed to ring up his fourth foul and who was now, likewise, out there on borrowed time.
It was Zaganczyk and Stepien in the backcourt for Billy, with Contos and Schmid down low, and Dabrowski acting as something of a swingman on the weak side. There were now just twenty-one seconds left and counting.
For Huffman, as always, it was Reddick and Harlow in the backcourt, with Williams and Reeder up front, and Karazuba alternating back and forth between the two spots.
The energy was beyond electric, the crowd deafening, as fans on both sides stomped, clapped, and pleaded with their boys, loosing throaty exhortations in an attempt to, somehow, make basketball magic happen. One half of the War Memorial beseeched the kids in maroon – the ones with the ball – to try to make it dance for them, while the other cried out to those in white, the ones trying like hell and willing to do anything they could to stop it from going through the basket.
Billy E and Kenny Huffman sat and stared intently as senior Joe Zaganczyk advanced the ball to half court and beyond, both men covered with the unmistakable sheen of late-game coach-sweat. The two also appeared to be mumbling to themselves under their breaths, even as they sat restlessly, shifting and contorting their bodies while watching the action unfold before them.
Zaganczyk manned the point position for the Hearts. To his right, on one wing, was the now laser-focused Stepien, Billy’s most trusted Chinese Bandit, and further still in the right corner was Contos. In the low post and with his back to the hoop was Schmid, while on the opposite side stood the kid with the big eyes and bigger ears, Dabrowski, a good twenty feet or so from the basket.
The ball moved from one player to the next on the right-hand side. For a few seconds anyway, Contos held it high over his head as Karazuba fronted him, both arms held high and one hand directly in Contos' face. Contos faked an entry pass to Schmid in the post, but instead quickly wheeled the ball back out to Stepien who, in turn, whipped it across to Zaganczyk, who was still being hounded up top by Reddick.
There were now just fifteen seconds left and the electricity crackled through the crowd like an exposed nerve.
Coming to meet Stepien’s snap pass, the Hearts senior guard grabbed it with two hands, even as Reddick grunted and lunged past him in a vain attempt to make a steal and, just maybe, turn it into the breakaway layup that would, finally and at long last, ice the game for the City League champs.
As Reddick scrambled to get back into position, Zaganczyk faked a bounce pass into the middle, but instead lofted a delicate lob there.
At the sane instant, Schmid, who’d been stationed low, and on the right side of the key, took two giant strides toward Zaganczyk’s arcing lob, meeting the ball near the free throw line, just as it began to arc downward. Catching it with both hands as Harlow, Karazuba and Reeder swarmed him, just as their coach had instructed them, Schmid didn't even think about looking for his shot.
Sensing the multiple openings created by Corcoran’s decision to double and triple team him, Schmid did what only the most court-savvy players are able to do when both time and circumstance call for it: he intuitively sensed, and found, the open man.
Almost without looking, he whipped the ball with a quick flick of his right wrist not just to an open man, but the most open man on the entire court: young Richie Dabrowski, the sophomore Chinese Bandit in the far left corner, the kid whose game that season – at least to that point, anyway – had been marked more by passion and potential than any actual production.
There were now just eleven ticks left.
Dabrowski’s eyes widened as the ball flew toward him. His fingers were splayed and his knees bent ever-so slightly. Behind him, on the bench, his fellow Bandits watched as, in what almost appeared to be slow motion, Schmid’s quick flick of a touch-pass came directly toward them. They saw its spin and felt as almost palpable sense of anticipation as it neared the waiting hands of their youngest and, to be fair, most untethered benchmate.
Dabrowski caught the softly worn leather, lowered the ball just so and gave it a quick and almost imperceptible half-spin, looking up and taking dead aim on the rim, now some twenty-two feet away. Billy E, who rarely popped out of his seat at all – except, maybe, to call a timeout or bark out some instructions to someone, somewhere on the court – did just that. It was all he could do, in fact, not to run directly on the court and let out a blood-curdling, “No!” directly into Dabrowski’s big right ear as he set himself and got ready to release his slightly awkward-looking push shot from the corner, just to the left of his own bench.
But the bespectacled Sacred Heart coach did not run onto the court. He just stood there in a silent mix of hope and prayer, leaning forward slightly as he did, the out-of-bounds line running just beneath the tips of his brand-new Thom McAns.
Billy had told his boys he wanted them to take their first good shot. And technically, he supposed, this was that. But still, he heard a voice inside him say as he stood there a solitary figure in a sea of fanatics, his stomach roiling…Dabrowski?
Still, even before the ball had fully left the young benchwarmer’s fingertips, Billy heard another, more calming voice saying, “Hey, if nothing else, that kid’s got a set of balls on him. Ya gotta give him that much.”
Young Richard Dabrowski did, indeed, possess a man-sized set of testicles.
In fact, three years later, while playing on the freshman team at Niagara in nearby Buffalo, Dabrowski would end up defending a teammate named John Barsanti by going toe-to-toe with the great Calvin Murphy – a Niagara All American and a generational talent who, years later, would still be regarded by many observers as the toughest man, pound for pound, to ever play in the NBA – after Murphy began ripping Barsanti in the locker room for having the temerity to steal the ball from him during an exhibition game in front of, pretty much, the entire Niagara student body.
So as young Rich Dabrowski’s unlikely and not-particularly attractive push shot from the far corner of the War Memorial’s hardwood made its way toward the basket on the night of March 10, 1967, as it arced up and then spun down, and as the crowd watching in the arena and listening at home or in their car held its collective breath one more time, there was, perhaps, only one person within the sound of Jack Morse’s voice who knew that long-range bomb was spot-on and knew it was destined to find nothing but the bottom of the net: namely, the gangly, first-generation Polish immigrant who’d actually let it fly.
The reactions to Dabrowski’s dramatic go-ahead field goal with, now, just nine seconds left, were as varied as the people who’d been waiting in breathless anticipation of its verdict.
From his vantage point in front of his bench, even as the fans behind him thundered wave after wave of approval, Billy E simply closed his eyes, stuck his hands in his pockets, and tilted his head back a touch, the faintest of smiles cracking the two sides of his otherwise still closed-and-taut lips.
Irene Contos and the crusty old parishioner in the Elmer Fudd hat with the dangling straps hugged like two long-lost war buddies, bouncing up and down as the cheers rained down upon them both.
The older nuns back at Sacred Heart, the ones who’d been huddled downstairs around their Philco, danced for joy, all of them shouting and whooping, a few even lifting the hems of their habits so as not to trip, while every last one of them at some point looked up at the ceiling, as if to heaven, and as if to acknowledge the Good Lord’s role in the miracle they’d all just heard that nice young man on the radio describe to them in such glorious and wonderful detail.
Meanwhile, the youngest of them all, the nun upstairs alone, and the one with all those tears of joy still streaming down her peach-perfect and cream-colored cheeks, simply bounded up from her small, braided rug, flung her bedroom door wide open, pumped two fists, and with her eyes closed tight screamed to her fellow nuns a floor below in a high-pitched voice reminiscent of a schoolgirl at a Beatles concert.
Around the bar at the Old Port, every last regular in the place raised a fist in celebration when the kid’s shot ripped through. Many of them rose from their seats, cheering in the direction of the tiny GE radio that Mo Pichura had set up next to the cash register – cheers so loud, so full of Polish pride, and reverberating so loudly that they physically shook the Old Port’s large front window overlooking the frozen neon of Genesee Street.
Pichura’s little brown radio – that little plastic-covered mass of tubes, wires, solder and a large circular dial – had just told every last one of those leathery old Poles the unlikely tale of a most unlikely player, a true son of the Motherland, who’d, quite possibly and most remarkably, just turned himself into a folk hero by hitting the winning shot in the biggest game in the history of their proud little parish.
As all that was happening, Pichura’s partner behind the bar, Rudy, dutifully went from man-to-man down the entire run of the well-waxed hardwood and set up a shot glass for each, a thick jigger that would soon be filled to the brim with a golden elixir from the Seagram’s bottle he now held high in one hand, a smile beaming from his usually world-weary mug.
“Get your Irish asses ready,” old Cuz thought to himself as he poured yet another shot for yet another regular, calling to mind with the wryest of smiles his long-standing bet with those two damn Coleman brothers over on Tipp Hill.
It wasn’t that the Hearts had won, mind you. After all, there were still a full nine seconds left. It was that, dammit, after so many minutes of being on the short end of the score that second half – not to mention so many empty possessions, so many missed free throws, and so many agonizing fits and starts – the Heartsmen had finally, and at long last, taken the lead.
Back at the War Memorial, Seymour, the ex-Nat and NBA coach, didn’t cheer, at least not aloud and not for anyone to hear. But he stood, straight and tall, and did so with his winter jacket draped over one arm. He grinned and applauded. But above all – maybe, most of all – he beamed. Because if anyone in the entire city of Syracuse could recognize when a hustling, hardworking, and otherwise unassuming young man had taken it upon himself to defy the odds, overcome his own shortcomings, and rise to the occasion for his teammates, it was Paul Seymour.
Meanwhile, a few sections to his right, the two fathers, Reddick and Harlow, both now feeling like they’d just been kicked in the head by a mule, nevertheless stood resolute and leaned in toward the court below them where their boys were now scurrying to try to get off one last shot and, just maybe, recapture the lead.
In reality, though, that swift mule kick of Dabrowski’s had just cast a deep and decided pall over the two, if not the entire Corcoran side of the building. Suddenly, as if out of the blue, so many Corcoran fans in that 12-year old Art Deco sports palace couldn’t help but feel it was 1966, Jimmy Collins and Hank Ponti all over again.
Once again, Syracuse’s powerful all-white establishment was about to break the hearts of so many Syracusans whose roots traced back to that colorful and one-of-a-kind little patch of ground that for generations in town had been known – both lovingly and disdainfully – as the 15th Ward.
Once again, all those Black folks from that selfsame Ward – men, women and even small children, whose beloved neighborhood had been coldly labeled a “slum” by their own mayor, then plowed under heartlessly, if not callously, in sacrifice to the gods of “progress” – were going to, for the second time in just two years, end up holding the shitty end of very shitty stick.
As a result, many of those same fans now despaired, and did so openly, even as senior Howie Harlow hurriedly inbounded the ball to his longtime friend Joe Reddick, who, in turn, immediately flicked it up ahead to classmate, Steve Williams.
And many of those same fans thought, if not felt deep down, why even fight it? Why even bother? And why even hope for, much less expect, something different?
Something…better?
That, as much as anything, was the reason why, following Rich Dabrowski’s dagger from the far left corner, many on the Corcoran side didn’t boo, or moan, or even react. In fact, most barely even cheered as their boys hurriedly got the ball in and raced it up-court, the seconds methodically disappearing, not unlike the final few grains of sand in an hourglass.
Most of these Syracusans of color just grew eerily still and seemed to almost willfully drape themselves in a blanket of half-quiet – even as they stood, even as they watched, even as they tried to exhort their boys to match the Hearts’ miracle with one of their own.
After not trailing the entire half, it was almost as though the harsh, cruel and maybe even predetermined nature of their fate – basketball and otherwise – had just been made clear to those now-adrift 15th Warders.
This, even though there were still nine seconds on the clock and Corcoran had the ball with a good chance to win.
As that array of human emotion, reactions, and permeations – along with so many others – continued to play out in real-life terms in locations across the city, Ken Huffman stood up from his bench and took one giant step forward. But then, the gentleman coach from the farm country to the south did little more than stand in front of his kids and watch the events before him unfold.
(Or, more to the point, he stood in front of little Benny Frazier, the hard-working but lightly-used backup who he liked so much and respected so deeply, the kid from little Sodus Bay, and the kid with the big heart and the bum leg who’d just clanked the wide-open breakaway that might have otherwise sealed the deal for his team and who, now, simply sat with his face in his hands trying to cope with the distinct and ever-growing possibility that he just might throw up at any moment).
As he stood there, Huffman’s rational brain told him he should raise both hands and signal for his last time out to set up one final play. But his gut told him otherwise. His gut told him that, given the speed and the talent of his once-in-a-lifetime backcourt, combined with the fact that the Hearts might just be celebrating (even a touch) and, therefore, less-than-prepared for a good, old-fashioned rush up the court in the waning seconds, it was time to keep his mouth shut and his hands by his side.
It told him, in other words, to let his kids try to win that crazy mythical title that he so loathed – and win it outright, right there and then.
Huffman trusted his young Cougars. He’d trusted them all season, and probably always would. They were all, at least for the most part, good kids. He loved most of them. They'd worked their asses off for him – and, in the case of a few of the seniors, had done so for three years. Now was the time (or at least that’s what the Zen-like coach and teacher inside kept whispering) to let go of the leash and give his five kids a chance to determine their own fate.
Which is exactly what Ken Huffman did.
Unfortunately, Steve Williams, for all he could go get the ball, and for as jackrabbit-fast as he might have been, especially when in a full stride, was simply not a kid with good hands. He bobbled Reddick’s pass to him was slightly as he tried to catch it while racing headlong toward his own goal, the clock winding down and Schmid barreling down on him hard and from an angle opposite the basket.
As a result, Corcoran’s five starters never did get that last second shot at redemption that Kenny Huffman had been dreaming about for a full year.
There may have been only nine seconds left on the clock when Rich Dabrowski's shot ripped through the nylon, but within those final nine ticks, fans would see, in order: a loose ball, a mad scramble, a tie-up between Williams and Schmid, a variation on the Hearts opening tip play in which Schmid tipped it directly to Contos, a pass by Contos to Dabrowski on the wing, a fifth foul by Harlow, another disqualification (followed by another young guard trudging to the bench exhausted), yet another missed one-and-one by the game’s ultimate hero, Dabrowski, and yet another rebound by Williams, who, even as the clock ran out, tried in vain to fire the ball the length of the court – a desperation heave for a desperate young man in pursuit of a miracle that, alas, was never going to happen.
As the Hearts kids, including every last one of Billy’s Chinese Bandits, raced screaming out to center court to celebrate, and as hundreds of fans on the west side of the War Memorial poured out of their seats to join in as well, most of the Corcoran kids – just as they’d done after last year’s heartbreaker – fell to the ground and hung their heads in a cruel combination of shame and exhaustion.
The powerful Corcoran Cougars would go on to win the Section III championship that year. And they and their coach would be feted for doing so and written about at length in the sports pages for days to come. But that win, even years later, would not feel as good as this loss would feel bad.
Reddick and Frazier, in particular, were both in tears, one still seated alone on the bench and the other out near his own foul line.
As Billy E met Kenny Huffman in front of the scorer’s table, he shook his hand and offered his condolences. Huffman responded in kind with his congratulations.
What struck Billy most about that moment was the warm smile that Huffman offered him as he took his hand. Billy knew that smile of Huffman’s must have been a façade. He knew that the nagging pain of such a tough loss was in there somewhere, obviously, a pain made all the more acute by the fact that this was the guy’s second heartbreaker in the past two All City games.
But, try as he might, he simply couldn't detect anything that gave it away. All Billy E saw in Ken Huffman’s eyes were warmth, humanity, and what looked, for the world, like genuine happiness at his own success. In fact, even as he raced out to center court to join his team in celebration, the Hearts coach found himself unable to shake the image of his opposite number's warm and genuine smile.
* * * * *
As Billy was out a center court, surrounded by a bunch of his players and fans, a very large black gentleman approached him quickly and in earnest, his eyes fixed on the Hearts' coach. From nearby, Jim Corbett, one of the kids buried deep on Billy’s bench, felt alarm bells go off. Something of a street-smart Irish kid from Tipp Hill, it crossed his mind, if only for a moment, that he may just have to intervene. The guy appeared, at least to Corbett, to be someone who might just have trouble in mind.
But, instead of attacking Billy, that towering man – whose name was Manny Breland, and who, as a kid, used to shine shoes to pay for his own haircuts at Grant Malone's, whose mother once shopped at the Dirty Store to stretch a dime, and who had spent his entire life in streets, classrooms, churches and modest homes of the Ward – not only didn’t attack Billy E, he stuck out a big paw, smiled broadly, and said, “Congratulations, coach! That was one of the greatest games I’ve ever seen in my life!”
Afterward, in the Hearts locker room, there was still plenty of hugging and back-slapping going on – along with, of course, all the requisite whooping and hollering. Almost immediately, the Heartsmen, their coach and team manager were joined in that dingy little cinderblock nook in the War Memorial, one teeming with joyous noise, by a pair of high school beat reporters – Mike Holdridge of the Post-Standard and Adam Gajewski of the Herald-Journal, along with a staff photographer from the Herald.
Following a harmless string of standard post-game softballs from the two reporters, Billy offered a series of his finest and most practiced clichés – mechanical, by-the-book answers to game-day questions in which he complimented the opposing coach, called the vanquished Cougars the “toughest team we’ve faced all year,” mentioned how hard his kids had worked all game long, and called the victory in the All City game “a total team effort.”
Billy made no mention, however, of young Rich Dabrowski, the sophomore Chinese Bandit who continued to bounce around just a few feet behind him, shaking hands, hugging teammates, getting his hair tousled, and perhaps as much as anything, waiting for one of those reporters to ask him about his game-winning shot – a question that, just like Williams’ longed-for miracle at the end of the game, would never come.
If it had, Richie would have told that reporter that he made the shot, not just for Sacred Heart, but for his entire league – the Parochial League. He had made it, he would tell the guy, for every kid on every team he played against that year. He was proud to be a Parochial Leaguer and that he liked to think every one of his teammates felt the same way.
But while that question never did come his way, the Herald-Journal photographer did, at one point, tell the Heartsmen to get together against the far wall. He said he wanted to take a photo for the next day’s paper. That was the moment at which, as if guided by a force beyond their control, Jim Corbett, Leo Najdul and Wally Kicak – hard-working Chinese Bandits, every one of them – came up behind Dabrowski, picked him up abruptly and hoisted him toward the ceiling, holding him there as best they could, one under each of Dabrowski’s thighs, the third boy using both hands to try to support his backside.
The other eight Heartsmen, Billy E, and Shoff, the manager, then joyously circled around the game’s unlikely hero now being held in the air like an oversized and slightly bony ragdoll, a toothy smile beaming from his ragamuffin face, his hair now a tousled mess, and his big ears still doing that open car-door thing they did so well; this while everyone smiled for the camera, pumped a fist in the air, and screamed in celebration of what would turn out to be, arguably, the last great moment in Parochial League history – not knowing, of course, that in less than a year’s time that very same beloved league of theirs would take the very next step on what would prove to be its very own death march.
Over in the City League locker room, things were much different. The only sounds at all happened to be the occasional sniffle, some random shuffling of bare feet on the hard, concrete floor, the showers being run at full blast, and the dutiful stripping down and tossing aside of every last implement of Friday night warfare, everything from white Converse sneakers to athletic tape, sweat socks and jock straps.
Precious little talk, however.
Kenny Huffman had already done his duty and gathered his team together to remind them that, while this one might hurt, they had to put it behind them, and do so right away. The Section Three tournament was just days away and, as a team, they still had plenty of work to do.
Huffman knew, though, that, at least for two of his kids, all that “keep your eye on the ball and your focus on the task ahead” talk was simply not going to cut it. These two needed more, he understood. They needed something personal, something one-on-one, and something deeply human, almost to the point of spiritual.
The coach and father in Kenny Huffman knew that, and knew it all too well.
He first went up to little Ben Frazier, as the young man sat silently in front of his locker next to the door that led to the outside. Without saying a word, he sat down next to Frazier and looked straight ahead as his young backup guard stared down at the floor without saying a word.
It was a good five seconds before Ken Huffman spoke. He’d always been a man of few words, but this was different. He wanted to think of just the right thing to say. Huffman had heard a few of his players mumbling to one another about Frazier’s wide-open botched layup. He figured the kid had probably heard it as well.
He just wanted Frazier to know he was there for him if he wanted to get anything off his chest. “Benny,” Huffman finally said softly but evenly, still staring straight ahead, “Don’t take anything you may have heard to heart. Really. Believe me, we would have never made it this far without you.”
After another pregnant silence, he continued, “You’re a terrific player. You need to know that. And Joe and Howie are both better players as well for having had to face you every day in practice, the way they did. Just understand, Benny, I’m really proud of you, and I couldn’t be any more so if you were my own son.”
Huffman then added as a button to his little chin-up moment with his favorite sub, slapping him on the knee as he did, “You hang in there, okay? And I’ll see you at practice Monday afternoon. I promise you, we’re gonna make people pay for tonight and we’re gonna win the Sectionals this year. Count on it.”
It was all Ben Frazier could do not to break down in tears. He felt so empty and alone, even with his teammates and coach in the room with him. He also felt he’d let them all down. Yet, as alone and despondent as he felt, he really appreciated what Coach Huffman had just said.
Sure, he had a father in his life, even though he didn't live with him and his mother anymore. He had a stepfather, too, who was good to him and his mom. But in that raw and unscripted moment just now, right there in that dingy, smelly locker room – with those few well-chosen words of empathy and compassion – no adult male, Black or white, had ever made a bigger impression or been more of a father to him than Coach Huffman.
Frazier then silently watched as Huffman got up and went over to his teammate, Corcoran’s star player, Reddick, who sat on the other side of the room, a white towel draped over his head, covering his face. Reddick remained fully dressed in his uniform and with his canvas sneakers still tied tight, even though his sweat had long-since dried and his tired muscles were now slowly starting to stiffen.
Huffman sat down again, only this time he didn’t wait to speak. “Joe,” Huffman chirped.
“Joe!” the Corcoran coach immediately repeated, this time louder.
Reddick slowly pulled the towel off his head and turned toward his coach, his eyes still red with the last few remnants of freshly cried tears.
Staring into Reddick’s disconsolate face, Ken Huffman said simply, and, once again, in a soothing, non-coach sort of way, “You’re one of the best I’ve ever seen, Joe. Anywhere. I want you to know that.”
Reddick just stared back at his coach without saying a word, a puzzled look slowly appearing from a place deep behind his eyes. That’s when Huffman added before his star guard even had a chance to respond, “And I’m so proud to have you on my team."
Huffman then reached out his hand for Reddick to shake, while adding man-to-man, almost as though the two were, somehow, not coach and player anymore, but peers, “Thanks for everything you’ve given me these past three years. I really mean that.”
He then shifted his tone entirely and added quickly, “Practice Monday, okay? Rest up. And I’ll see you then.”
With that, Old Stoneface got up, grabbed his coat, and left to go find Lillian. He needed a beer and figured she might too. Maybe even a mile high Danzer’s corned beef sandwich on rye for the two of them, while they were at it.
Reddick, meanwhile, just watched his coach go, the door closing slowly behind him. His tears had dried. As he sat there, Joe Reddick bent over and began to unlace his sneakers, the sound of the locker room showers cleansing and comforting his young brain like the gentle wash of a soft, summer rain.
* * * * *
As the Heartsmen were combing their hair, tying their shoes, and packing their sweaty gear into smelly gym bags, and just moments after Billy had held up his hand and made an announcement that the Boss – Monsignor Piejda – wanted to see them all back at the rectory right away, two uniformed Syracuse policemen with stern faces and billy clubs by their side, came into the room. After conferring with Billy E, the older of the two began instructing everyone to follow them once they were fully packed and ready to go.
Save Billy, no one was quite sure why, or what was going on.
What was going on was yet another of Father Sammons’ race-based, ham-fisted attempts at security. The previous year, following Corcoran’s loss to Evangelist, a number of Black youths who’d been in the War Memorial and pulling for the Cougars apparently started picking fights with a number of white kids in the streets outside. In their rage and frustration, they'd also broken a couple of store windows, slashed a few tires, and turned over some garbage cans as they worked their way back home to the South Side.
Meanwhile, a few white students that very same day – among them, young J.J. Harrison, a terrific shooter and soon-to-be all-Parochial League star for St. Pat’s, along with some buddies, who’d, likewise, been at the game – were hidden in a building foyer by a cop who recognized them, knew they were at risk, and feared for their safety. The same cop later put the three boys into a nearby squad car and had them driven home to Tipp Hill.
The ruckus in the streets created by those few Black kids that day hadn’t boiled over into a full-blown “riot,” but, in the opinion of a few Parochial League players and families who’d been there, and who watched those kids’ anger take shape and gain traction, it was close.
That fact and others led Sammons to reach out to the Syracuse chief of police in the days leading up to the ‘67 All City game and ask him to make provisions for the protection of the Hearts players (along with their coach, staff and family members) – especially, of course, if they happened to win. The city’s top cop took that to mean protect them from the moment they left their locker room to whenever they got into whatever vehicle happened to be driving them home.
That’s why the two cops had come into the Sacred Heart locker room soon after the game had ended and why they almost immediately began marshaling everyone into a single group and ordering them to stay close as they walked.
That’s also why, rather than exiting through the main auditorium, where all their family, friends and fans were supposedly waiting to congratulate them, the boys were paraded through the bowels of the War Memorial and up a dark and seldom used stairwell that led to street level at the far northwest corner of the building.
There, they were instructed to wait while the first of the officers slowly opened the door and peered out, surveying the nighttime street.
Rich Dabrowski, the night’s unlikely hero, happened to be one of the first Hearts players to reach the door. When it opened, what the young sophomore saw were two things that surprised him and made him do something of a double-take.
The first was a queue of, maybe, seven or eight cars along the side street, lined up like taxi cabs, all of them with their lights on, all of them idling, and all of them with a Sacred Hearts parent at the wheel. The second was a row of cops leading from that side door of the War Memorial to the very first of those cars.
It was full-on police protection for a bunch of kids, their coach and manager – all of whom had been guilty of nothing more than winning a basketball game.
Race may not have been a part of those kids’ everyday vocabulary, much less their everyday lives. And even though every last one of them, like so many others in town, might have been largely ignorant of civil rights – at least as a social a moral issue – race had already started to make an impact, if only by the tiniest of degrees, on their lives, the place they called home, and the times in which they lived.
And that impact would only deepen and grow more profound in a few months time as 1968, Vietnam, and two especially shocking assassinations would rock the country, and bustling little Syracuse’s onetime gentle past would find itself standing on the precipice, poised and ready to become its soon-to-be far less-certain future.
* * * * *
