Port Chester High Could Be Flirting With Disaster
by Zach Smart
PORT CHESTER, N.Y. – Port Chester High School is where NBA replica jerseys are in and Abercrombie & Fitch is out. It’s where kids play pick-up basketball hourly and rowdy students deluge the bandbox gymnasium for home games. The Westchester County high school has evolved into a perennial powerhouse the past few years, producing a number of college players along the way.
It all started during the 2003-2004 season, when then-coach Jeff Charney re-crafted a near-laughing stock program in his first year. Charney took a team that flew around .500 the previous year and quickly converted them into one of Section I/NYS’ elite.
Charney guided the Rams (which hadn’t advanced to the Section I “final four” in 20 years) to a 20-2 season, their first league championship since 1984, and the school’s first-ever undefeated league record. The season concluded with a frustrating loss in the Section I championship. The Rams ended up on the wrong end of the scoreboard, falling 40-34 to 6-9 center Taj Finger (a menacing shot blocker who now plays for Stanford) and Bedford’s Fox Lane High.
As I recall, the Rams contained all the indispensable ingredients of a championship-caliber program, starting with the coach. Charney came aboard two years after leading nearby Blind Brook high school to an undefeated season and state/federation title. That scrappy team, which had just one low D-I walk-on, is still recognized as perhaps the greatest New York State-small schools team ever.
The 2004 Port Chester team had a rock-solid backcourt: a flashy, top-shelf point guard in Melvin Calhoun (Milford Academy, Jeff Ruland and Iona showing interest) and the Section’s three-point assassin in off guard Chad Charney (Jeff’s son, who now balls for SUNY Purchase). Ron Miles (SUNY-Oswego), a transfer via the prestigious Trinity Catholic (Stamford, Conn.), was a bullet-quick guard who scored at will. Athletic swingman Leon Hill (Nazareth) and forward/center Jeremy Thomas (Fulton Montgomery Community College) provided a strong punch inside, helping catapult PC to the near-top of the state map. All these players have played significant roles in the systems of their current institutions.
This past season, the Rams were led by a pair of versatile forwards – Mohammed Lo and Greg Avila. Lo is a mammoth shot-blocker who can score around the key. He’s a solid ball handler at 6-7, but needs to limit his shot selection. The 6-6 Avila (Notre Dame Prep) is astounding offensively, can handle the rock and break a press better than any big man in the county. How well he improves defensively will likely dictate where he ends up. However, both players’ academic issues are concerns.
In 2005, a stunning victory over Bronx power St. Raymond’s (the alma mater of players like Julius Hodge and Allan Ray) made evident their wherewithal in the world of high school hoop.
But times have changed, and though they’ve been just as successful each season, the Rams aren’t moving in the right direction. Right now they are toying near the borderline of legitimacy.
Each year blossoming players are imported in, none of whom reside or have relatives in Port Chester. It was Lo and Avila in 2005, Roberto Parker in 2006. Now it is rumored that PC will have the services of two standout big men next year, one from Boston and another from Long Island.
Like Christopher Walken in King Of New York I ask, “How do you explain that?”
This has caused controversial mayhem on Syracuse.com’s high school hoop forum, where posters have indicated that there’s a booster involved.
Colin Brennan, a Section I basketball guru, feels that the vicious pattern started with the school’s unexpected, unexplainable firing of Charney.
“Terrible move,” Brennan said. “Fire a top-of-the-line coach that resurrects your entire program, there’s something awry about it, that’s for sure.”
Is someone buying these players? It’s a question that comes to mind.
I’m not for certain, but what I’m sure of is this: Section I has never been forgiving to teams that discard the rulebook. We all remember when Tuckahoe was forced to forfeit several games for using an illegal player two years ago.
Whether players are being bought or something else is behind the controversy, Port Chester needs to straighten out before it’s too late.
