Hen Hud Hoping McGuire Hoops Tourney Will Jump Start Program
The Hendrick Hudson High basketball program hasn’t been the lead in a Direct Rays column since my man Tim McNulty was hitting two clutch free throws against John Jay in the 1991 Class B quarterfinals, leading the Sailors to their last Westchester County Center Final 4 appearance against Peekskill, which eventually ended the madness in the semifinal round after the Sailors had upset the Red Devils twice in the regular season.
I remember it vividly because my story almost got my boss, then-North County News Sports Editor Skip Pearlman, fired. McNulty stroked two of the biggest free throws any Sailor ever hit and the Sailors were County Center-bound, so, naturally, the kid was on a high when I caught up with him.
“It felt better than sex,” the 17-year-old McNulty said (and I’m not paraphrasing).
Remember, this was the wee-’90s and I was just a cub reporter with a journalism minor out of Oneonta (circa 1986), assigned to cover a Hen Hud team that nobody really believed in; unless you were named McMulty, Chris Kelly, Ted Leshinski, Chris Talma, Keith Friedman and/or Will or Steve Mauro ( I forget the rest, sorry).
There was no blogging or tweeting back then, and you usually didn’t say stuff like that in a public forum in the early‘90s, much less put it in print in an award-winning family newspaper; not without getting the editors in trouble and having your publisher rip you a new one. Nowadays, kids see that stuff in print and on the internet on a regular basis, so I think we’re okay.
I reckon that was a portent of things to come as I’ve walked this beat the last quarter century, giving you the lay of the land through an imaginary alter-ego, which can even Tweet now (hit me up @Directrays). We got past the rocky start once I realized I wasn’t writing for Hustler, but it was pretty hairy for a few days.
“Yeah I remember that game, those free throws and the quote pretty vividly,” McNulty said Sunday night from his home in Boulder, Co. “No hard feelings, Ray; you were just doing your job, bud. It was my dumb-ass quote. Luckily, I didn’t have a serious girlfriend at the time, if I remember correctly.”
That’s good to know after all these years, but local legend has it different. The Mauro boys like to poke fun from time to time when I see them along the local softball circuit.
So, what was my point? Oh yeah, Hen Hud basketball and its virtual irrelevance since 1991. Well, Sailor A.D. Tommy Baker, one of the best in the business, went ahead and hired Jordan Hirsch to replace Kurt Thomas, another Hen Hud icon, as the front man of a very average program, which finds itself in the midst of a long County Center dry spell with no tangible playoff success to speak of (through no fault of anyone in particular).
Hirschy’s Sailors (2-1) went out and won the Pawling Tournament last Saturday night, which is simply a starting point; nothing to get excited about or even make a big deal of.
So why am I? Well, what would really put the Sailors back on the Section 1 map would be a Hen Hud Holiday Tournament chip this coming weekend; when the Sailors hit the hardwood in memory of former classmate Jack McGuire, who would be a high school junior and likely member of this particular team if it weren’t for unspeakable tragedy (childhood leukemia).
“I don’t know that I can put in words what this week means to our program and for me personally,” said Hirsch, a next door neighbor of the McGuire family and a connected party to the devastation of child mortality. “I think we’re up for a very tough test against an athletic Yonkers Montessori team and the Jack McGuire tournament, and I do know that our guys are very aware of how meaningful this week is. They are very excited for this and up for the challenge of taking on this week with great enthusiasm.
“Our guys have put a lot of work into building a brand of basketball that we can call our own,” added Hirsch, who graduated Hen Hud in 2001 and played in the Sailor program when Baker coached it before going all A.D. on us. “We’re beginning to develop the identity of our program, but if you asked any of our guys I think and hope they would say “Sailor Basketball” is based on energy all over the floor, attention to detail, and a great care for each other and our community. This team has really bought into the idea of getting things done by any means necessary and they really don’t seem to care who gets the credit or stats. Every guy on our team pitched in to the success we had in the Pawling Tournament in some way shape or form.”
Don’t just play that angle up this weekend during this emotional tournament; play it up all season, and take the court every night like it was your last time, every time. And maybe, just maybe, this likeable bunch takes the Hen Hud Bleacher Creatures (@HenHudFanBase) on a run to the County Center that would end a drought that is 22 years in the making should another year go by.
Then again, I’ve been a dreamer with a glass-half-full type of mentality since before McNulty’s infamous line, Have at it, boys (#DoIt4Jack!).
Ray has 33 years experience covering and photographing local sports in Westchester and Putnam counties, including everything from Little League/Travel Baseball to varsity high school prep sports and collegiate coverage. He has been a sports editor at Examiner Media since its inception in 2007.
Visit Ray’s author bio page for more details. Also read Ray’s archived work here and his Direct Rays column here.
