IMO there is more to this than meets the eye. When the rest of the country talks about the "small" Catholic schools with a limited fan base, they don't understand where the fans of these schools come from. The Big East carries the banner not only for its members but for all Catholic schools. Basketball is the #1 sport at almost all Catholic colleges, not football. It's fans are passionate about the sport. Speaking only for myself, members of my immediate family (parents, sibs, kids) attended Manhattan, Holy Cross, St. John's, Fordham, Providence, and Boston College. When we're not rooting for our own teams, we're rooting for each other's.
There is continuity in the traditions from one school to another. Long after his playing days at Holy Cross, when he was a color commentator on Big East games, Ron Perry said that if he had been picking a college after the formation of the Big East, he would have been playing for Providence and not Holy Cross where he and his father had both been stars. In New England, Holy Cross was the first to rise to national prominence with their NCAA title in 1947 and their NIT championship in 1954. Eventually they passed the baton to Providence, coached by Holy Cross alum Joe Mullaney.
In Philly, it was Tom Gola's LaSalle teams who won both NIT and NCAA titles in the '50's and established themselves as the best in the country. They were followed by St. Joe's run to the Final Four in the '60's and then by Villanova. St. John's with all those NIT championships in the '40's, '50's, and '60's was always the top power in NYC where their biggest challenges came at various times from LIU, NYU, and City College more so than from Fordham and Manhattan. But they scheduled those Catholic school teams almost every year and often competed against them in the NIT. In many ways they share the same traditions. Back in the pre-Big East days upstate Catholic schools like St. Bonaventure (1971 Final 4) and Duquesne (1955 NIT champs) were also national powers.
Catholic schools don't have just a local following the way that state schools do. We have a regional following because our student bodies are drawn from across regions and even across the country increasingly so. Many of our students and alums went to high school together and have life long friendships with these high school and neighborhood friends who went to different Catholic colleges. And we still go to Church together.
These are ties that bind. When one of us wins and rises to national prominence, I think we all take pride in the accomplishment. I think that was the secret of the old Big East. Everyone watched Big East games because there was interest in all the schools, not just our own. And with 3 Catholic school went to the same Final Four in 1985 with 2 of them playing for the championship, we all took pride in that accomplishment together. It harkened back to 1954 when LaSalle won the NCAA tournament and Holy Cross won the NIT. Fans could debate all day who was better, but at the end of the day, it was one of ours either way. And we live for the day when it will happen again.
It's when we are declared dead and buried that we say, "We have just begun to fight." Because rising from the dead has a special meaning to us." We were all raised on that.
Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 9:10 am
