THE NEW MEETS THE OLD (Clockwise from top left): The '68 Cross basketball team brought home one of the nine state titles won by a New Haven high school during that decade. Jason Benton '00 (51) goes for a lay-up against Hillhouse at the New Haven Coliseum as Curtis Miller '00 (25) looks on. Maurice Williamson '88 played basetball at Louisiana State with Shaquille O'Neal. Louis Bosley '00 (42) blocks a shot in front of 5,300 fans.

Wilbur Cross hoops brings back the magic

Five minutes remaining, and the first few shuffle out the door. Four minutes remaining, and at least a hundred are gone. There's an attempt to halt the exodus and rally the crowd. "One," a fan stands and cheers, "We are the Governors, two. We cannot hear you, three. A little bit louder, more, more, more..." But his shouts are drowned out by a raucous Bridgeport crowd, and the thousands in the stands dwindle down to hundreds and finally to tens. In the end, it comes down to a pair of double digits. 81-64.

Before that night, it had been 24-0, the only unblemished record in the state. It had been a No. 1 ranking and a third straight conference championship. It had been huge numbers in the bleachers, with up to 5,300 fans for a single game. And not one of those fans had ever questioned that Wilbur Cross, the largest public high school in New Haven, was the best boys' basketball team in the state—that is, until their team was upset by Bridgeport Central in the quarterfinals of the state tournament on Mon., Mar. 13.

After the loss to Central, Wilbur Cross forward Marquis Mitchell '00 was not in the mood to talk to anyone. Head down, he hurried out of the locker room, past reporters, teachers, and a few kids who had started a pick-up game with a loose basketball. He paused, however, as a man twice his age stepped out of the bleachers and approached him, offering his hand. As Mitchell, class of 2000, slapped palms with John Migliaro, class of 1980, two eras collided in the middle of the gym. It was a strange juxtaposition of time periods, there in the center of the court. It was an old varsity warm-up, worn by Migliaro, a polyester relic that showed its age next to Mitchell's leather jacket and baggy jeans. It was present encountering past, slapping five and engaging in conversation—about a basketball game.

In New Haven, basketball has always had a way of narrowing the gap between generations. As Migliaro watched Mitchell, 20 years his junior, playing against Bridgeport Central, he intermittently turned his attention to a notebook full of Cross basketball memorabilia that he had brought to the game. During the third quarter, he quickly looked up from examining an old photo as center Jason Benton '00 grabbed a cross-court pass and stuffed it into the basket. Then, a memory. Another dunk 20 years before. "Remember that time when Cross was playing Norwalk?" he asked, turning to a friend a few seats away. "Mickey Heard stole the ball, ran all the way down the court, jumped up, put the ball inside of the rim, and let it go almost like it was a dunk." When Heard was a senior at Cross back in the '70s, high school players weren't allowed to dunk, and Migliaro remembered that "the crowd went crazy" with the flashy performance.

His ability to recollect a game 20 years past might seem remarkable, but Migliaro is hardly an anomaly around New Haven. Since the beginning of the century, basketball has been a defining element of the city's culture, a fact of life as real as Democrats in City Hall or great pizza at Wooster Square. Maurice Podoloff, the first commissioner of the National Basketball Association (NBA), came out of New Haven. So did "Super" John Williamson, an All-American at New Mexico State whose jersey, No. 23, was recently retired by the New Jersey Nets.

COURTESY BOB SAULSBURY National newspapers have always taken notice of Cross's hardwood prowess.

Some New Havenites would say that the heyday of high school basketball has passed. Back in the 1960s, New Haven's two largest high schools, Cross and Hillhouse, captured the state title in every year but one. Games were televised or held at the old New Haven Arena because the high school gyms could not hold all the fans. But Cross has not won a state championship since 1985. Legendary coach Bob Saulsbury has retired. And the crowds, while large, are not the gargantuan ones of 30 years ago.

Still, the traditions are not completely dead. For a time in the late '80s and early '90s, they did indeed seem moribund as Cross began to finish with losing records for the first time in its history. Since current coach Jim Reynolds took over in 1994, however, he has brought the team from 2-18 to 24-1. Now, after a season that nearly culminated in a state championship, the enthusiasm—and the fans—of yesteryear seem to have returned. `The Best Team in the World'

Amid the 1,800 in attendance at the Bridgeport game were Richard Abbatiello, a member of the New Haven Board of Education, and his friend Remo Pacelli. They graduated from Cross in 1959 and 1960, respectively, a time when crowds frequently surpassed the one at this year's tournament quarterfinal. "There used to be the tournament at the New Haven Arena," Pacelli recalled. "It seated 3,000 and you would have 4,000 inside the place, right Dick? There would be people sitting on folding chairs beneath the baskets."

During Pacelli's years at Cross, the highlight of the season was the New England Tournament, a showdown at the Boston Garden that was often played before crowds of up to 15,000. To the dismay of Cross fans, Connecticut withdrew from the tournament in the early '60s after riots broke out in the tournament final between Cross and Somerville, a Massachusetts team, in 1958. With under a minute remaining, Cross was ahead by 11 points, and Coach Salvatore "Red" Verderame brought his subs off the bench. "As soon as they got in the game, one of the Somerville kids socked one of my kids and cut him over the eye," Verderame recalled. "Naturally the other players jumped in, and people started coming out of the stands. It was bedlam for about 10 minutes until the Boston police took over." Dom Perno, a member of the '58 team who went on to coach at UConn, recalled, "It was a free for all, absolutely crazy. People were throwing garbage from the stands. They had to take us out in police wagons." Fights continued in the parking lot after the game, and dozens of cars were flipped over or burned.

After the demise of the New England Tournament, Cross continued to earn recognition throughout New England—and across the country—for its remarkable output of championship teams. The man behind Cross's extraordinary success was Bob Saulsbury, who took over as coach when Verderame left in 1966. Over the course of his 28-year career, Saulsbury brought home 497 wins and nine state titles and coached a virtual pantheon of superstars. The best-loved of Saulsbury's players was probably Super John, who averaged nearly 40 points per game for Cross in 1970. Two decades after Super John graduated, Saulsbury coached his son, Maurice, who scored 78 points in a single game in 1988. Maurice continued his basketball career at Louisiana State, where he roomed with Shaquille O'Neal.

Perhaps Saulsbury's greatest achievement was his '73-'74 season, during which the Washington Post ranked Cross the No. 1 high school team in the nation. After the Governors defeated DeWitt Clinton High—New York City's defending champion—that year, a headline in the New York Post proclaimed Cross "The Best High School Team in the World." The Post quoted Saulsbury as saying, "A kid in New Haven starts thinking about Wilbur Cross when he's 10. There isn't much football or baseball. Basketball in the city has the charisma to stimulate the kids."

Up from Goffe Street

COURTESY BOB SAULSBURY National newspapers have always taken notice of Cross's hardwood prowess.

Even today, 10 years old seems an overestimate of the age at which New Haven kids begin to dream about basketball. From the time they're old enough to talk, kids hear about legends such as Super John from family and neighbors. "There's tons of old-school players that live in your neighborhood and talk to you about how it was to put that Cross uniform on," Migliaro said. "It makes you develop an interest in basketball from a really early age." For some families, basketball is more than an interest—it's a lifestyle. Maurice Williamson grew up in New Jersey while his dad played for the Nets, but when he turned 14, his family moved back to New Haven just so he could play for Saulsbury. "My father, uncle, and cousins all played at Cross, and I grew up hearing about players like [Bruce] "Soup" Campbell, John Thomas, and Mickey Heard," Williamson recalled. "It was built into me, playing for Cross."

For many New Haven kids, a love for basketball is also born out of the city's playground culture. In the tougher neighborhoods especially, where expensive equipment for football and other sports is scarce, kids begin to gravitate towards neighborhood courts as soon as they're old enough to lace up a pair of Nikes. "What I love about high school ball in this city is that it's often that run-and-gun street ball," Cross Principal Judy Falaro said. "Look how fast our kids can bring the ball up. This is hundreds and hundreds of hours of practice. It isn't even `Let's go practice'—it's more like everybody is out looking for a game. At the Goffe Street courts over by Hillhouse, especially, there's a lot of tradition." Super John himself started his career on the Goffe Street playgrounds, where legend has it that he once beat an older kid one-on-one while wearing a cast.

New Haven kids have historically shown a unique grit and competitive edge that arises partly from the city's marked neighborhood segregation. "People in New Haven are so invested in their neighborhoods," Falaro noted. "What happens is that if I met you and found out you grew up in one area, and I did too, well, then you're like my family." This fierce loyalty to one's own neighborhood often means an even fiercer sense of competition with other neighborhoods. "Players begin to say that they are better than the people who live in the next area," Saulsbury said. "They begin to challenge each other. The rivalry starts when someone from Newhallville plays someone from Fair Haven plays someone from Hill."

Discipline and renewal

COURTESY BILL O'BRIEN Louis Bosley '00, who will attend Hartford, is one of two Cross players to receive a Division I scholarship this year.

Rivalries aside, New Haven residents take pride in their city's basketball programs as a whole. They take pride in the fact that New Haven owns more state titles than any other city in Connecticut. And they take pride in their players. "These kids have a lot of class," Falaro gushed, referring to this year's team. "When we went to Shelton, there was a lot of taunting that went on, but I never saw our kids get dirty or nasty." During his tenure at Cross, Saulsbury demanded such civility from his players. To instill manners and discipline, he required that his players always be clean-shaven. He forbade jewelry and long hair, and he insisted that his players wear a tie to school every day during the season. "If you're going to be your school's ambassadors, you have to dress a certain way," he explained. "It was important that they looked like champions and played like champions." Saulsbury was also known to hunt for players in pool halls across the city. "I always looked for them, and my wife used to get upset because I spent so much time following them around in the summer," he remembered. "They called me `Uncle Bob.' All their friends knew who I was, and they would warn them when I was coming."

In the late '80s, it became increasingly difficult for Saulsbury to discipline his players. "The kids didn't want to follow the traditions," Falaro said. "They didn't really care, and they weren't committed. If they showed up to practice, they showed up, if they didn't, they didn't." As dedication declined, so did Cross's reputation. In Saulsbury's last year, 1994, the Governors slipped to an abysmal 2-18, and fans stopped coming to games.

Cross basketball stood at a crossroads. The following year, Reynolds came to Cross from the Farnam Neighborhood House, where he had coached kids from all over the city. He immediately tried to re-instill the discipline and commitment that Saulsbury had demanded of his athletes. "In the beginning, the attitudes weren't that good," Reynolds remembered. "They had to transform those attitudes or they couldn't stay on the team. We lost some good players, but in the end it was beneficial to the program." With traditions renewed, Cross again began to win. In 1997, the team went 11-10. In 1998, 23-4. In 1999, 24-2. Now, 24-1.

And the fans are excited. As in years past, spectators are spilling out of the bleachers and clogging the aisles of the Cross gymnasium. Students are making banners and painting their faces. "There are a lot of parents, a lot of faculty, a lot of students. It's like old times," Patty Schread, who has taught at Cross since the early '70s, said. When Cross faced Norwalk at home on Thurs., Mar. 9, Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. was there. So was Chief of Police Melvin Wearing.

After Bridgeport upset his team in the quarterfinals of the state tournament, guard Greg Gallagher '01 commented, "From the start of the season, from the first practice, what we had on our minds was the state championship. Anything less was disappointment." Although the Governors ultimately failed to take home the state trophy, their season can hardly be construed as a disappointment. "They've brought basketball back to New Haven in terms of being something the community could respond to," Superintendent of New Haven schools Reginald Mayo said. "People have started coming back to games. They've brought a lot of pride to this city and have made this community a place to be."

Throughout the decades, names such as Mickey Heard and Super John Williamson have lingered in New Haven's collective memory, because, through their athletic talents, they brought the community together and fostered a feeling of pride in the city. When high school basketball declined for a time, it threatened to dissolve the community ties along with it. This year's Cross team has succeeded in fortifying those ties, an accomplishment that is ultimately more admirable than bringing home a state championship.

Clockwise from left: cover photos of Jason Benton '00 and Louis Bosley '00 by Bill O'Brien; cover photo of Maurice Williamson '88 courtesy of New Haven Register; cover photo of 1968 Cross team courtesy Bob Saulsbury; photo of Cross fans by Bill O'Brien.

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