Archive 2007 January 22 - 31 Port Chester Sports Wire

Port Chester Travels To Tapan Zee

January 26th

Port Chester Rams out scored The Dutchmen 64 to 60.

This Win gives Port Chester a better chance to win the leauge.

This win placed Port Chester in to second place be hind Spring Valley.

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A true hoops coaching legend

Jan 22, 2007 SI.com
BRIARWOOD, N.Y. -- Dennis O'Grady, looking as though he just changed out of an altar server's cassock and into a navy blue practice jersey and shorts, walks the length of the Jack Curran Gymnasium floor as the clock inches toward noon last Saturday.

"That's our point guard over there," says Archbishop Molloy coach Jack Curran. "All six turnovers of him."

O'Grady hears his 75-year-old coach's quip and laughs it off as he begins warming up. Curran moves on as well, a wry smile rippling across his wrinkled face.

"The reason he has six turnovers is because we trust him so much with the ball," says Curran, who also has won more than 1,300 games as coach of the school's baseball team that lost in last year's city title game to LaSalle. "He may look like an altar server, but he's got toughness about him, and can run a team. He's going to Duke next year as a pitcher in baseball. I called Mike [Krzyzewski] and told him to let his baseball coach know about him. He's a good one."

Curran should know. Now in his 49th year as the Stanners' head coach, the winner of 874 basketball games and five New York City Catholic league titles, was named as the inaugural recipient of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame's Morgan Wootten Lifetime Achievement award last week. Wootten, who won 1,274 games at DeMatha (Hyattsville, Md.), is the only high school coach to be inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame.

"I've always had great respect for Morgan," says Curran, who coached his first of two McDonald's All America games in 1975, a year after Wootten coached the inaugural game. "He did so much for the game on the national scene. We had our battles over the years, playing down in Myrtle Beach, at the Bishop O'Connell tournaments, and others across the years."

A lifelong bachelor, Curran has stayed loyal to Molloy, choosing to endure broken bats and heartbreaking losses with teams that never changed in age, only in personnel.

"Methusedah has nothing on Jack," says retired St. John's coach Lou Carnesecca, who preceded Curran as the varsity basketball coach at Molloy. "All the changes that have gone on through the years with kids and the game, and he has adapted each time, and still won."

Once a vibrant redhead, never shy to shout or invoke a higher power to instill discipline, the coach's red hair has since gone white. A daily communicant at Corpus Christi parish in Port Chester, N.Y., a suburb of the city, Curran has sat on the wooden bleacher bench in the same building for nearly five decades, as much a constant in the gym as the American flag and crucifix hanging on the walls.

Full Story: SI.com

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January 24th

Southern/Central Westchester notebook: Ardsley thriving on balance
“We have to work hard every game.”
Last season, coach Julie Ford always knew what was coming: 20 or so points from Jenna Franciosa, 10 from someone else, and away Ardsley went to victory way more often than not. via Journal News

January 27th

Spring Valley's stock continues to rise
“Every time we seemed to make a surge, they'd hit two or three free throws.”
WEST NYACK stood among the county's elite. The Tigers were ranked third in Class A by The Journal News, having lost only to undefeated Lakeland. via Journal News