Want History Lesson? Talk With Savage

 (Zachary Harrison)

By: Keith Mills

With the 37th Baltimore Catholic League basketball tournament at Loyola College set for this week, it seemed the perfect time to check in with Jerry Savage, the local high school hoops icon who has served as one of the league's founders and one of its unofficial commissioners and historians. I recently met with Savage to plow through nearly four decades of records and listen to one of the true gentlemen in local high school sports talk about the league and the game he loves.

Since 1972, when his Loyola Blakefield Dons beat Calvert Hall to win the first Catholic League championship, Savage has not missed a tournament. Even after he stepped down as Loyola's coach in 2003, he has been a regular at courtside, keeping the official scoreboard and adding to his vast collection of historical archives that he may one day turn into a book.

"It's kind of a hobby with me now," said Savage, who just finished his fourth season as coach of the Maryvale Prep girls team, which earned a spot in this year's Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association B Conference semifinals. "I've been connected to the league since it started. I have all the records and would like to piece that all together."

There are few coaches as revered and respected as Savage. For 61 years Loyola had just two basketball coaches, Ed Hardigan and Savage, who replaced Loyola's longtime athletic director and coach in 1968. Savage went on to win 607 games, five Catholic League tournament titles and the respect of everyone who competed against him.

He won with dignity and lost with class, and he developed some of the finest players ever to wear a uniform in the Baltimore area -- Mark Rhode, Morris Cannon, Robbie O'Connor, Pete Budko, Tony Guy, Kenny Johnson, Bob Selby, Kevin Anderson and Wes Unseld Jr., to name a few.

CATHOLIC LEAGUE IS BORN

In February 1971, Baltimore City public schools and Catholic schools played in the same league -- the Maryland Scholastic Association.

"There were two divisions of the MSA," Savage said. "And there were some very good teams. Edmondson with Marvin Webster. Carver with Leon Love. Dunbar was very, very good. City, Mount St. Joe, Cardinal Gibbons.

"Both Dunbar and St. Joe had lost one game in their division and were playing each other at Dunbar. The winner of that game was going to play Carver for the championship. We were playing City that game and their athletic director Harry Dubek said we don't have to worry about crowd control because everybody was at Dunbar."

Behind Barry Scroggins and Milt Walter, Mount St. Joe beat the Poets that day, triggering a near riot at the school and forcing the police to escort the Gaels out of East Baltimore.

"As a result of the disturbance the Catholic schools’ ADs got together and said they wanted to play independently of the public schools, and that's really how the Catholic League was formed," Savage said.

1970s

The original Catholic League consisted of Loyola, coached by Savage, Cardinal Gibbons (Ray Mullis), Mount St. Joe (Gene Neiberlein Sr.), Towson Catholic (Mike Farabaugh), Calvert Hall (Joe Binder) and Archbishop Curley (Paul Strong).

After graduating from Mount St. Mary's, Savage began teaching at Mount St. Joe in 1961. He was Neiberlein's junior varsity coach from 1961 to '67.

In one of the most memorable tournament games ever, Loyola beat Calvert Hall for the first tournament title in February 1972 at Essex Community College although it was the Dons' semifinal win over Mount St. Joe that Savage will never forget.

"We won, 29-28," said Savage, whose Dons were led by Cannon and Rhode, who both went on to play at Loyola College. "There were no points scored in the fourth quarter. The score at the end of the third quarter was the score at the end of the game. Gene played a matchup zone and we held the ball trying to bring them out of it. I guess we held the ball for six to seven minutes. Nobody scored. It never happened to me before and never again."

Savage's Dons dominated the league throughout the 1970s. Loyola won or reached the tournament finals in seven of the first eight years. The Dons won four in a row from 1975 to 78 behind 6-foot-9 Budko, who went on to North Carolina and played in the 1981 national championship game against Indiana, and Guy, a marvelous 6-foot-5 swingman who played at Kansas.

Meanwhile, the talent pool in the league was improving every year. Paul Belz replaced Farabaugh at Towson Catholic and brought in 6-foot-10 Larry Harrison, who went on to Wake Forest, and 6-foot-7 Adrian Hubbard, who went to St. Joseph's.

Dan Popera, who played for Savage on his JV team at Mount St. Joe, replaced Strong at Curley and brought in the Fornoff brothers, Bob and Carl, Curt Serafin and later Leroy and Kurt Keller and Joe Stallings.

The late '70s saw two things happen that would change the league forever -- the arrivals of Quintin Dailey at Gibbons and coach Mark Amatucci at Calvert Hall. Whenever talk turns to the greatest players in Baltimore history, Dailey's name is always mentioned. He was a scoring machine who led the Crusaders to the 1979 Catholic League title and was selected out of San Francisco with the seventh pick of the first round of the 1982 NBA draft.

1980s

After Delmar Harrod and Gene Neiberlein Jr. graduated from Mount St. Joe in 1976 and Budko left Loyola in '77, Guy and Dailey were tearing up the Catholic League when Amatucci replaced Tom Ackerman as coach at Calvert Hall.

Budko, Guy and Dailey were Baltimore's first three McDonald's All-Americans, and Amatucci knew if Calvert Hall was going to compete, he needed to upgrade his talent pool.

"Of course Mark taking over at Calvert Hall really changed things," Savage said. "He brought in some great players."

James "Pop" Tubman, Mark Wilson and Paul and Darryle Edwards left East Baltimore every morning and caught the bus for Towson, immediately turning Calvert Hall not just into Catholic League contenders but into one of the best teams in the country.

The Cardinals won three straight tournament titles, capping the run with an 81-62 win over Loyola in 1982. One week later, Calvert Hall beat DeMatha in the Alhambra Tournament championship game to finish a perfect 34-0 and win the national championship.

In 1983, the Crusaders won their third championship behind Marty Johnson, who won the tournament's first Most Valuable Player award, while Calvert Hall rebounded in '84 behind senior Duane Ferrell. He capped off a brilliant four-year career, leading the Cards past Rodney Walker and Gibbons, 69-66.

Then the landscape of the league changed. St. Maria Goretti of Hagerstown, coached by Cokey Robertson and featuring sensational sophomore guard Rodney Monroe, joined the league, as did coaches Mike Daniel and Will Wells.

Both Daniel and Wells had ties to Baltimore's flourishing inner-city recreation leagues and growing AAU programs while Monroe still owns the state scoring record with 3,047 points. He also led Goretti to three straight tournament championships and earned three consecutive MVP awards.

Daniel took over for Bill Spotts at Towson Catholic in 1985 and, like Amatucci, immediately increased the Owls' talent pool. Mike Manns, Jerry McClain, Dana Marshall and Calvin Scruggs all came north to Towson Catholic as the Owls followed Gibbons' fifth title in 1988 with its first in 1989.

The 1980s ended with a shift in the power base of a league that had expanded to eight teams as it approached its 18th year.

1990s

In 1988 Jim "Snuffy" Smith took over as commissioner of the Catholic League.

"Snuffy did a lot for the league," Savage said. "He really cared about it and was committed."

In 1986, the tournament moved from UMBC to Loyola, where it enjoyed a nine-year run that coincided with one of the great dynasties in Catholic League history -- Mark Karcher and the St. Frances Panthers.

St. Frances played its first varsity Catholic League schedule in 1989. One year later, behind the tenacious scoring and rebounding of 6-foot-7 Devin Gray, the Panthers beat Towson Catholic, 52-49, for the 1990 title. Gray, who went on to play at Clemson and in the NBA, gave Wells and St. Frances instant credibility in a league that was both thriving and changing.

"It was an avenue for St. Frances to build up their athletic program," said Savage, who worked directly with Sister Rita Michelle to make the transition into the league a smooth one. "You knew with their location [in East Baltimore] they were going to be a good team. Basketball is the city game, and having them definitely added to the league."

Towson Catholic won the next two titles while Steve Wojciechowski and current Loyola coach Josh Davalli gave Mullis his final championship at Gibbons in 1994, a 70-66 win over St. Frances.

One year later, Mullis died of cancer, making Savage the lone coach still around when the league was formed 22 years before.

"Losing Ray was tough," Savage said. "He was synonymous with the league and the only coach Gibbons had ever had."

Bryan Moorhouse took over for Mullis at Gibbons and was his assistant when Davalli, then just a sophomore, hit four key free throws to lead the Crusaders over St. Frances, led by freshman Karcher.

It would be the only tournament game Karcher would lose at St. Frances. He ended his career as the league's only four-time, all-tournament selection and, along with Monroe, the only three-time MVP. In 1996, Karcher led the Panthers to a 61-46 win over Gonzaga and the school's first and only Alhambra title, joining Towson Catholic (1962), Calvert Hall ('82) and Mount St. Joe ('05) as the only Baltimore teams to win that prestigious tournament.

A shift in tournament venue to Goucher College took place in 1996, as did the arrival of Archbishop Spalding and the return of Calvert Hall as a league power.

Amatucci left the Cardinals after the '82 championship season to coach at Loyola College. After a stint at Anne Arundel Community College, he returned to Calvert Hall in 1993, leading the team to three straight tournament finals, the last two in 1996 and '97 behind Juan Dixon.

Pat Maggio had taken over for Neiberlein Sr. at St. Joe in 1979 and coached 14 years before stepping down in 1992. Pat Clatchey took over on the fall of 1993, and by the end of the millennium had the Gaels knocking on the door of their first tournament title ever.

At the same time Tony Martin was taking over at Spalding, which won the MIAA C Conference title in 1997 and became a force in the Catholic League one year later.

2000s

Like Amatucci, Daniel and Wells, Martin brought in tremendous talent from the local rec leagues and AAU programs. Derrick Snowden and Tremaine Robinson grew up around Spalding's Severn campus and led the Cavaliers to their first tournament title ever in 1999.

One year later Martin was gone, replaced by Mike Glick, though Snowden again led the Cavs to the tournament title, a 48-41 win over Towson Catholic. The next year, with Snowden at Villanova, St. Maria Goretti beat Towson Catholic to win its first title since Monroe left in 1987.

But the story that year wasn't so much Goretti's fourth championship but the amazing play of Carmelo Anthony.

"I'm sitting there watching that game thinking there's nothing he can't do," Savage said. "He single-handedly kept them in the game. He was unbelievable. Of course the next year he was at Oak Hill, and the year after that he won a national championship at Syracuse. And now he's one of the best players in the world."

And that makes Savage beam with pride. Anthony, Dixon and Rudy Gay are the three current Catholic League alumni playing in the NBA.

"Turn on the TV any night now," Savage said. "Donte Greene's at Syracuse, Malcolm Delaney's starting at Virginia Tech. Will Thomas played in the Final Four [for George Mason] two years ago. Dino Gregory and Braxton Dupree are at Maryland."

Green and Delaney led Towson Catholic to last year's tournament championship in Josh Pratt's second year as coach, but this decade has been dominated so far by Mount St. Joe. J.J. Outlaw earned three all-tournament selections (2000, '01 and '02) for the Gaels, but it wasn't until Thomas started flexing his muscle inside that Mount St. Joe won its first championship.

In three years, Thomas led the Gaels to 82 wins and the 2003 and '04 tournament titles. In '03 they beat Gay, Will Bowers and Spalding in the finals, and in '04 Thomas got the best of Gay again, scoring 12 points with 13 rebounds as he and Brian Johnson led St. Joe to a 36-33 win.

One year later, freshman Sean Mosley led St. Frances past Towson Catholic before Mount St. Joe rebounded in 2006 with one of the greatest seasons ever. The Gaels finished 38-1 and were ranked fifth nationally in USA Today. Now, Mosley, Henry Sims of Mount St. Joe, Brandon Greene of Towson Catholic and Jamar Briscoe of Gibbons take aim at the 37th Catholic League title.

As always Savage will be courtside.

"We still have five of the six original teams in the six," Savage said. "The addition of Goretti, St. Frances and eventually Spalding added more players and great talent. It's been fun to watch."

Issue 3.9: February 28, 2008