Says Shinnecock Casino Hamptons is opportunity to help Native American group that has been mistreated for too long
Bob Hurley remembers it like it was yesterday.
When St. Anthony traveled down to Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia during the 1995-96 high school basketball season to take on Lower Merion High School, Kobe Bryant was the No. 1 senior player in the entire country.
Prior to the game, a former scout from the Boston Celtics went over to Hurley and asked for his thoughts on the 17-year-old, who in just a few months would be drafted into the NBA and end up being one of the greatest players to walk the face of the Earth.
“I was just telling him how I thought he was a tremendous player,” Hurley recalled. “He was so versatile and poised… But I had no idea that he was going to be this great. I could only see that he would have been a really good player in college. But I couldn’t see at 17 years old, by the time he was 19 or 20, what was apparent to everybody.”
Hurley then went into the locker room to share with his team that NBA scouts were at the game to see Bryant play. St. Anthony was without its two best players at the time, Anthony Perry and Rashon Burno, due to missing school and practice the previous day. And since it was a day before the game, if you didn’t practice, you didn’t play.
Even without Burno and Perry, St. Anthony held a halftime lead and eventually pulled out a 15-point victory over Lower Merion, despite 28 points from Bryant. But it was after the game, what Hurley remembered most about Bryant.
“I thought the really nice thing was after the game ended, he asked me if the two of us could sit down and talk,” Hurley said. “And he just wanted me to go over the things that I saw with him, and the things that I thought he needed to get better at.
“When the second half started, we were up one point, and I didn’t think he had everybody ready for the second half of the game,” he added. “We jumped into a 10-point lead. I told him that he should have been all over his team in a dead-even game to win the first four minutes of the third quarter. He came out and played terrific, but he didn’t have the rest of them fired up. So, we got up 10 and maintained that the rest of the game. He thanked me and I told him to keep doing everything he’s doing.”
The previous year, Lower Merion actually made the trip up to Jersey City, and the Friars hosted Bryant as a junior at the No. 28 school in the Heights, which at the time was St. Anthony’s home court.
Hurley said it was unusual because when an out-of-state team would play St. Anthony, the Friars would normally go to them first, and then the following year the opposing team would say they have a scheduling conflict, and they couldn’t make the trip to Jersey City. But Lower Merion’s head coach Gregg Downer called up Hurley and said that they wanted to come up and play in Bryant’s junior year, only if they agreed to go down to Philadelphia for his senior season.
Hurley recalled that “a normal crowd was at the game, and nobody knew that a tremendous talent was in Jersey City that night.” Bryant ended up with 35 points and was phenomenal, according to Hurley.
“In my own household, my wife didn’t think Kobe was that good because we beat them twice in a row,” Hurley said. “And she felt that he should have been able to beat us on his own, which I thought was a little disrespectful to our team because we won the Tournament of Champions both in ’95 and ’96. We had two really good teams with eight or nine kids that ended up playing at the college level.”
When Hurley was at his Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2010, Bryant was there for the Los Angeles Lakers late great owner Jerry Buss, who was also inducted. Hurley recalls due to the madness of that night, he didn’t even know Bryant was there, but he would have loved to share a few minutes with him and just talk to him.
On Sunday afternoon, Hurley was just minutes into his drive leaving UConn’s Harry A. Gampel Pavilion after watching his son Danny coach the Huskies, and he received a call from Danny’s wife, Andrea, with the heartbreaking news that Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were among nine people who had died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California.
“Things happen in life, but for three different families to be decimated with this, the effects that it’s going to have on the remaining family members, it’s just something we are going to remember for a long time,” Hurley said. “In its own way, when John Kennedy died in the plane crash, and the biggest one in my life the assassination of John F. Kennedy, this is up there with them. I’ll remember this the rest of my life. On the ride home from UConn, we turned on the radio because we had hours on the way back from the game. And as you piece together all of the information, it was just tragedy.”
Cento Amici welcomes NJ real estate leaders as newest membersThe nation’s newest Medal of Honor recipient, Staff Sgt. David Bellavia, and New Jersey real estate developers and leaders Jack Morris and Joe Marino became the newest members of Cento Amici at the organization’s annual dinner Oct. 14 at the Stone House at Stirling Ridge in Warren.
Read more here: https://njbiz.com/cento-amici-nj-real-estate-leaders-medal-honor-members/
If you’re looking for another metric that shows just how important St. Benedict’s Prep is to Newark — and how many individuals and corporate sponsors are determined to keep it that way — consider this: Moments after the school publicly announced its ambitious fundraising goal of $100 million, Father Edwin Leahy told the crowd it already has raised more than $60 million.
To good people (and good institutions) go good things.
Father Ed, the school’s headmaster, announced the fundraising campaign during the scholarship gala that celebrated the 150th anniversary of the school — one at which three benefactors were given the school’s highest honor, The Medal of St. Benedict’s.
“It’s great that we have you all here to celebrate with us our 150th year,” Father Ed said. “We are looking forward to the next 150 years. We trust that those coming behind us will continue in the tradition that began in 1868.
“This is a large team that is required to help these kids grow up in difficult environs. We continue to rely on you and thank you. Pray for us.”
The campaign is called: Forever Benedict’s: The Campaign for St. Benedict’s Preparatory School.
“We have been working hard, but quietly, over the last few years, speaking to our closest alumni and friends,” Leahy said. “But, now, we are ready to publicly announce the largest campaign in our history.
“With Forever Benedict’s, we will raise $100 million, with $50 million dedicated to our Annual Fund to ensure our daily operations continue. The other $50 million will be earmarked to grow our endowment. And, thanks to those who have already participated, I am pleased to report that we have surpassed more than $60 million in gifts and pledges from donors throughout the country.”
Click here to learn how you or your company can contribute.
St. Benedict’s Chief Advancement Officer Michael Fazio said he has been energized by the campaign’s progress to date.
“When you think about it, how does a private K-12 school in Newark serving students — most of whom struggle to pay the cost of attendance — raise $60 million?” he said. “Well, the St. Benedict’s community always comes through.
“We could not be more blessed with a strong cadre of alumni and friends who believe in this mission. I have no doubt we will reach our $100 million target. It won’t be easy. And we need everyone to participate. But we’re going to do it. That’s just how St. Benedict’s works.”
For those who do not know, St. Benedict’s is a K-12 school devoted to students in and around Newark, and has earned a national reputation for its student leadership program and student-run accountability system.
St. Benedict’s leaders say their innovative approach to helping students discover and develop their voice has led to the creation of the Vox Institute. Vox (Latin, for voice) is a multifaceted program in which St. Benedict’s experiences and practices are shared with schools and cities around the country. Ninety-eight percent of students attend college, and 87 percent have either graduated or are on track to do so.
At the event, the school also bestowed The Medal of St. Benedict’s on three recipients: Dean Ivan Lamourt, along with staunch supporters Prudential Financial and Steven M. Grossman.
Lamourt, St. Benedict’s dean of counseling services, graduated from St. Benedict’s in 1982. He returned in 1990. Among his contributions since has been spearheading the development of the St. Benedict’s Counseling Center, a comprehensive mental health services department that is at the forefront of applied school psychology and is a resource virtually nonexistent in other urban school settings.
“I’ve been privileged to work with the young men of St. Benedict’s who display courage every day when they live in a world that tells them they don’t matter,” he said. “These young men have the courage to face a world that is uncertain and, many times, unjust. These young men show courage in the face of extreme adversity and face that challenge by showing incredible love and compassion towards each other and the world.”
St. Benedict’s Counseling Center wouldn’t be possible without support from groups such as the Grossman Family Foundation.
Father Ed also announced during the gala that the counseling center would now be named in honor of Steven Grossman, whose family foundation has endowed a fund that supports the center, along with the Backpacking Project, College Guidance, Leahy House and need-based financial aid for students.
Prudential Financial was the first corporate donor when the school reopened in 1973.
“This is a tremendous honor for us, made particularly meaningful by the fact that we have an incredibly longstanding partnership with St. Benedict’s Prep,” Lata Reddy, senior vice president of diversity, inclusion and impact at Prudential Financial and chair and president of The Prudential Foundation, said. “We couldn’t be prouder of the partnership that we have with St. Benedict’s and look forward to the next 150 years.”
Other corporate supporters include Chubb, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, WH Connolly, RBH Group, NJM Insurance, Preferred Freezer, Public Service Enterprise Group and RWJBarnabas Health.
See original post on ROI-NJ: http://www.roi-nj.com/2018/06/08/education/st-benedicts-prep-announces-ambitious-fundraising-goal-of-100m/
The speech was short (maybe two minutes or so) and the message was simple (metaphorically use these three arms movements to guide your life).
The hope is that it was profound.
If just a few of the three dozen or so scholarship winners at the annual Cento Amici awards dinner truly understood it — and used it as a roadmap for their continuing studies and life journey, then Joe Grano will have once again did what he does best: inspire people.
“Reach, lift and embrace,” he said.
“Two seniors, please.”
The man behind the ticket table at the Seton Hall Prep gymnasium has spent the past 45 minutes making change for a steady line of customers, so he barely looks up from the cash box when he hears the latest request. Then he catches a glimpse of the gray-haired man standing in front of him.
Read more here: http://www.nj.com/sports/index.ssf/2018/03/how_do_you_get_bob_hurley_sr_to_watch_hs_hoops_the.html
The School Closed. The Players Left. But the Coach Can’t Quit.It was 3:50 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon when the gray-haired coach parked his silver Toyota Camry and strode purposefully toward the gym.
Bob Hurley, 70, wasn’t heading into his gym and he wasn’t getting set to coach his players — he no longer has either — but he needed a basketball fix just the same.
So wearing gray sweatpants, gray sneakers and a blue pullover, and armed with the black notepad he takes with him nearly every time he sets foot in a gym, Hurley entered Linden High School and took a seat in the first row of bleachers.
Since the closure of St. Anthony High School in Jersey City last spring, Hurley, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame who has won more than two dozen state titles, has become a coach without a team. He has found homes for the old trophies and scrapbooks, and even for his former players at new schools, but it will take more than a few months for him to adjust to basketball as a consumer experience, not an occupation, for the first time since 1972.
“This is weird,” Hurley told Linden’s coach, Phil Colicchio, when the latter came over to exchange pleasantries before the November practice. “Usually I’d be doing this stuff. But I’m stealing from you and I don’t know what I’m going to do with it.”
Of course, Hurley could have just found another team. When the news broke that St. Anthony was closing, he fielded calls from a high school in California and another in New Jersey asking if he would be interested in coaching this winter. Walking away from basketball was never an option, but leaving Jersey City, or taking over another team after decades at St. Anthony, just didn’t feel right, either. So Hurley has become a spectator instead.
By the time he settled into his seat at Linden High School, Hurley had already attended nine college games in four states this season. He had watched his son, Bobby, coach Arizona State on television and had seen his younger son, Dan, lead Rhode Island in person at least four times. He had attended more than half a dozen college practices and spoken at nearly as many clinics.
“It’s sad,” Dan Hurley said. “It’s the first time in 50 years where he’s not leading a group of young men.”
The transition has been easier for Hurley, in some ways, because his legacy lives on through the St. Anthony diaspora. Nearly 20 former St. Anthony players are on college rosters this season, and several dozen more have scattered to other New Jersey high schools through what Hurley jokingly refers to as the “dispersal draft.” Then there are the coaches and the assistant coaches, the old rivals and the old friends.
“I coach basketball,” Colicchio said. “He loves basketball. It’s two different things. And not too many people love basketball the way that he does.”
Hurley, who won nearly 1,200 games and 28 state championships at St. Anthony, drove the 15 miles to Linden not only to see Colicchio, but also to watch the progress of a former St. Anthony junior varsity player. Point guard Myles Ruth is expected to start for the Linden varsity this winter.
As much as Hurley tries, sometimes it is hard for him to keep a low profile. Before the Linden workout began, all 16 players, including Ruth, made their way to Hurley, forming a line to shake his hand. Once they began playing, Hurley lost himself in the action, occasionally scribbling in his notebook.
After one player took 11 dribbles and ended up right where he started, Colicchio, who shares Hurley’s dry sense of humor, reprimanded him loud enough for the whole gym to hear. “You took 11 dribbles,” he shouted. “You took 11 dribbles and you went from here to here!” Everyone, including Hurley, laughed along.
Hurley does seem to be enjoying himself in his retirement. He takes two of his grandchildren to school every day. He is fascinated by the television shows “Mountain Men” and “Homestead Rescue,” and he and his wife, Chris, are regulars at their favorite Jersey City restaurant.
He is still coaching, too. After St. Anthony closed, Hurley set up a nonprofit organization, the Hurley Family Foundation, and through that program he spends a few hours a week working with elementary school and high school players. But he still seeks out more basketball.
One day in October, he attended a practice at Fairleigh Dickinson in Teaneck, N.J., to check in on another former St. Anthony player, Kaleb Bishop, who is a sophomore forward for the Knights.
“The first thing he did when he walked in was he sat down and started taking notes,” said F.D.U. Coach Greg Herenda, who has known Hurley since attending his summer basketball camp in 1977. “I came full circle in my life in that I was conducting a practice and Coach Hurley was taking notes.”
Hurley has made a career habit of taking those notes, recording them in a black notebook that says, “Bob Hurley — St. Anthony Friars,” on the cover. He has years of these observations stored in plastic folders in his closet.
“There isn’t only one way to play,” he said, “so that’s why I think when you go from one place to another, you always should have pen and paper. You pick up something: It might be a phrase. You pick up a drill. There’s always something.”
In November, Hurley’s journey took him to the New Jersey Institute of Technology, where he watched two of his former players help defeat another who is now an assistant coach at Wagner, where Dan Hurley coached for two seasons. On the weekend before Thanksgiving, Bob and Chris took in three games in a tournament at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut — two on a Saturday and one on a Sunday. (That is the maximum number of games, Hurley joked, that Chris will allow in one weekend.)
And at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving, when most people were home with their families, Bob and Chris and their grandchildren Anna and Gabe headed to Brooklyn to see Dan coach Rhode Island against Seton Hall in a tournament at Barclays Center. The next night, around the same time Bobby was coaching Arizona State past No. 15 Xavier in Las Vegas, the elder Bob Hurley was back at Barclays Center, seven rows up, for Rhode Island-Virginia.
“I think it’s probably the hardest time of the year for my father and mother and former students,” Dan Hurley said. “I don’t want to just make it strictly a basketball thing. It was a community of young people that are suffering that a school that they loved and were nurtured and developed in is no longer there.”
Bob Hurley knows where he will be on Friday, when the New Jersey high school regular-season begins: at the Dickinson-Ferris game in Jersey City. On Dec. 30, he and Chris will head back to Rhode Island to watch Dan and Rhode Island face George Mason. The next day, he’ll continue on to Merrimack College in Massachusetts; three of his former pupils — Juvaris Hayes, Idris Joyner and Jaleel Lord — play for the Warriors.
After that there will be dozens more high school teams and dozens more high school players to check in on. Roselle Catholic. Mater Dei. The Ranney School. And more college trips, too.
“To this point, do I miss it?” Hurley said. “No, it just began.”
View online here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/sports/bob-hurley-st-anthony.html
Cento Amici (100 Friends) was founded 30 years ago by Thomas Zito, executive director of the Bayonne Housing Authority, and Robert Zito, then an executive at the New York Stock Exchange. The two had been members of Tiro a Segno, a New York organization that was both a private dinner club and a nonprofit that raised money for scholarships. With other members of Tiro a Segno who lived in New Jersey, the group formed a similar group to support education in New Jersey.
This documentary film explores the legacy of the Vietnam War through the experiences of veterans from the New York tri-state area. Veterans highlight stories of their service in Vietnam and the treatment they received upon coming home, along with a discussion of how the Vietnam War has affected how American civilians view veterans of all wars.
View the whole show here: http://www.wliw.org/programs/legacies-of-war/
In response to the ongoing controversy surrounding NFL players kneeling during the national anthem, the owner of Flemington Car and Truck Country has pulled the dealership’s ads from broadcasts of games for the remainder of the 2017 season.
Read more here: http://www.nj.com/hunterdon/index.ssf/2017/10/flemington_business_owner_pulls_tv_ads_over_nfl_pr.html