The CYO Basketball Diaries, Part I

One of my favorite legacies of Irish America is CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) basketball. Basketball was an unexpected gift for a shy athletic girl who spoke no English in a community with almost no other foreigners. In his brilliant comedy special The Great Depresh, Gary Gulman – another tall, sensitive & sporty Jew – said that if you ever meet someone who has an amazing foul shot, just know they spent a lot of time alone as a kid (being “seen” can hurt). I spent so much time in the driveway we shared with the Maguires, the hoop (regulation!) originally set up for their daughters in mind but quickly given over to me and my brother. 

Among the only recreational options for kids growing up in New York in a certain era was CYO basketball. The CYO arose in the 30s in Chicago during the Great Depression to keep young working-class men in cities from getting into trouble (the founder was a prison chaplain). Like the YMCA but Catholic, it was a fusion of Catholic social teachings and New Deal ideology. Integral to its legacy is the edict not to discriminate on the basis of race, religion or gender. It’s no coincidence that to this day, a wildly disproportionate number of Catholic colleges and universities are perennial basketball powerhouses. As Marc Tracy wrote about it once on the eve of March Madness (Why Catholic Colleges Excel at Basketball):

Several characteristics of Catholicism in America, both sociological and spiritual, have helped determine this affinity; the Catholic Church’s decision not to abandon the urban poor in America in the second half of the 20th century, when so many other institutions did…In basketball, with its inexpensive overhead, compact field of play and small number of participants, they found a sport that suited them…Black athletes, Catholic or not, often landed at these colleges partly because they frequently played basketball for the local chapter of the Catholic Youth Organization, which was originally founded as a kind of urban, Catholic parallel to the predominantly Protestant Y.M.C.A.s. The C.Y.O.s set many black players on the path toward Catholic colleges.

I wasn’t necessarily going to land a D1scholarship after high school, but CYO absolutely filled a vacuum for me. More accurately, it gave me a tool to integrate and fit in or just gave me a space to feel fluent in something in life for a few hours a week. Until then I had no idea sports were there for me. And they have always continued to be. For those of whose hyper attuned antennas keep them slightly apart, sports dissolve those seemingly impermeable social and emotional membranes. It almost goes without saying that it can also cut through class and racial boundaries and makes time stop, at least in the gym, or the outdoor court at a pick-up game. I’ve always referred to sports as a lingua franca, but in this way, it is so much more. 

Sports are often derided for doing the opposite:  they exclude and divide ; perpetuate fraught definitions of masculinity, patriotism and the worst kind of sectarianism and violence; and host of other sins. Hating sports is still such a reflexive defense mechanism for the smart kids (of any age) or just a flex to say, “Oh yeah, ‘sportsball” (I loathe the word “sportsball”). And I get it, but also, it was a savior for me, in every context where I did not feel at ease. 

Even for many not athletically able at all, sports hold a key to a certain passion, emotional and civic engagement, camaraderie, collective experience and memory. And there is absolutely a tradition of the best kind of sports nerd in Jewish New York. Some of the most gifted sports writers and sportscasters are fans who made it their life. At the moment, the best broadcast booth in baseball (the superlatives are justified) is mostly so because of Gary Cohen, and the legendary Sam Rosen will soon step down as one of the voices bringing the Rangers into our living rooms. And Howie Rose. Listening to baseball games on the radio already delivers the most potent and visceral nostalgia, but with Rose it’s home, it’s that magic hour on summer days before you were called home for dinner and the fireflies would start to mark the dusk. (Or if you’re like my friend Christian, Howie Rose and the Mets are there to help you fall asleep). 

Yet even within the sanctuary of the St. Francis de Sales gym (the parish where my friends attended church and where we played) or those of Our Lady of Perpetual Help or one of the other teams across Queens and Brooklyn in our league, those faint fault lines of difference would sometimes emerge. I do recall mothers coming up to me before away games, asking me whether I actually even went to church (maybe at a different parish I could pass, but not this one, though there were other girls who weren’t Irish; somehow they knew). The ref, whose name I wish I remembered, would pull me aside and say, “Don’t worry about them honey.” 

These moments were few and far between, at least that I noticed. Occasionally they’d sneak in before I’d realized anything had happened. One evening after Tuesday night practice, our coach Kelly Kelly (her real name), stopped things a few minutes early and had us sit on the bleachers. She handed out small, laminated cards — on one side was a pink cross I think, and the other had a word in bold on top that I’d never seen before — “Chastity” — and then some bullet points under it, giving examples of it. Again, I was not savvy enough to have a clue to just nod along and stay silent; instead, I told Kelly Kelly that I didn’t know what chastity meant. She said, “That’s ok honey, you can go home.” Thinking back on how many people gently called me “honey” in those moments both makes me wince and feel appreciative. 

Assimilating into the Irish America of Rockaway, NYC, was actually more seamless than may seem for an Israeli New Yorker. Against all odds, I was deeply shy and sensitive, and the understated manners of my Irish American friends and neighbors helped my very soft landing. I always wonder what it would have been like if we’d moved to Jewish Long Island or even an Italian part of Brooklyn.  I’m fairly certain they’d have eaten me up alive. The differences here were finer, the fault lines less obvious. 

St. Francis and its CYO weren’t perfect for everyone, and I know for a fact that Bonnie, who was head of its intramural league, was specifically told to look out for me. And I certainly did not have to contend with any aspect of the C part of it. But it opened up an entire world that I badly needed and would not have otherwise known existed.