By Joseph Staszewski
C.J. Davis knew something was different not because of what he saw, but because of what he didn’t hear.
The booming voice of legendary Archbishop Molloy Coach Jack Curran wasn’t emanating from the bench during a 65-27 season opening win against James Monroe in Briarwood Saturday night. It was the start of the first boys’ basketball regular season without Curran, who died at 82 in March, at the helm of the Stanners.
“He’s usually the one that’s yelling,” said the Columbia-bound Davis. “It was a lot quieter on the bench. It just wasn’t the same.”
The school remembered Curran respectfully with a moment of silence before the game. The players all wore basketball patches with the letters J.C. on them to honor their former mentor. New Coach Mike McCleary, Curran’s assistant for 15 seasons and the Molloy athletic director, said the school didn’t want to overdue a tribute, but Curran’s immense importance needed to be honored.
“We can never do enough,” he said.
The game not only closed a more than five-decade-long chapter in New York City basketball history, but signaled a new beginning for the Molloy program under McCleary. Senior guard Gabe Kilpatrick said life at the school has been different without Curran, who could always be found by the players in his office. McCleary brings stability and is slowly filling the “deep hole” Kilpatrick said was left in Curran’s absence.
“I think Coach McCleary is helping us a lot,” Kilpatrick said. “He is making us feel like we are Molloy, still Molloy.”
He is doing so by tweaking Curran’s teaching to fit the Stanners’ young, athletic and guard-orientated roster. He is trying to make Molloy play a more up-tempo style and is giving his players more freedom to create offensively.
“I want to open up driving lanes as much as possible so we can attack the rim,” McCleary said.
Molloy has one of the city’s best guards and penetrators in Davis, a three-year varsity player and another athletic wing in Kilpatrick. The duo combined for 29 points against Monroe.
McCleary said 6-foot-5 senior forward Jayson Celhoute was the team’s best player in the preseason and classmate Michael Buckley has shot the ball well. Super athletic sophomores Issac Grant and Aaron Walker join them and explosive junior guard D’Ante Warren, who won a junior varsity city title last season. The group is beginning to mesh.
“Coach McCleary is making it easy,” Kilpatrick said. “He is bringing new ideas to practice, continuing what coach [Curran] did.”
