Members of 1988-89 boys basketball teams reunite to watch game tape of the glory years

Michael Matros

“It was a commitment to one another, by people with apparently nothing in common, who decided they wanted to do something special,” says John Green, who coached SPS boys basketball during its glory days from 1987 to 1990. “These four teams were composed of students who arrived on campus with individual athletic talent, but hailed from as wide a variety of backgrounds as any group of SPS students could have – black and white, urban and rural, from in state and out.”

This past May, team members and a few hard-core fans from the era – the “bleacher creatures” (Oyé Carr ’88, Aaron Wensley ’88, and Brian Berlandi ’89) joined Coach Green in the New York City apartment of Kyle Lonergan ’88 to watch film from the 1988-89 New England Class C Tournaments, celebrating the only regional championships ever earned by SPS boys basketball teams. St. Paul’s earned a 53-6 record during those years in the Independent School League.

The reunion was an idea devised last year by Lonergan and teammate Charles Buice ’90 during one of their lunches, where they shared the news that Green still possessed videotapes of their championship tournament games. “I had stored those game tapes away in a cardboard box,” recalls Green, who handed them over to Lonergan for digitizing. “I’m not sure why I did not throw them away long ago.” Planning proceeded with a November dinner at a city barbecue restaurant, attended by New Yorkers Lonergan, Buice, Green, Gary ’89 and Tarik Campbell ’89, and Art Richardson ’90. Their conversation led, through a lively e-mail chain, to the May get-together.

The planners were joined at the reunion by Carr, the original videographer, who came down from Boston. It was a scene of multiple high-fives as the teammates and friends watched the tapes of their tournament games. The frontcourt starters on the 1988 team were three tall white guys from the Concord area: Lonergan, along with David Kolojay ’89 and Mike Ricard ’89. Bringing the ball up court were the Campbell brothers, twins Tarik and Gary, who’d grown up in Harlem. Drew Gauldin ’89 and Will Forney ’89 also earned significant time on the court, along with Buice. “We played upbeat and fast,” Lonergan says, “because we had arguably the two best guards in our division. We could rebound and then make an outlet pass to them streaking down the court for easy layups.”

The team also relied on set plays devised by Green, says Tarik Campbell. What made the team so successful, he adds, was “a collective commitment to hard work – a commitment to doing what was necessary to win.”

“The magic of our success was the cohesion we established as a group among students at St. Paul’s who were not in the same social circle,” Lonergan explains, recalling that his preferred warm-up song, the Doors’ “L.A. Woman,” typified a different cultural perspective than that of many teammates. “We found that common ground and we found that right speed,” says Campbell. “There was no guy on our team that anyone disliked. You don’t find that very often.”

***Alumni basketball players are encouraged to join us for the SPS Alumni Winter Athletics Day on Saturday, February 22. Compete in the coed alumni basketball game, have lunch with Rector Kathy Giles and fellow alumni athletes, and support the Big Red basketball and hockey teams. REGISTER HERE.***