WARWICK — While scores of guests generated a joyous din with their mingling, chatting, laughing, and cocktail-and-hors d’oeuvre indulging, one beleaguered gentleman sat quietly, unassumingly, in his chair at the back of a table in the farthest corner of this grand ballroom. Anyone unaware of his ongoing battle with cancer might have misinterpreted his behavior as introverted at best, antisocial at worst. Those who knew better understood that his very appearance here proved an accomplishment in itself. And when the surprise moment arrived, his mood immediately improved.
Clothed in their finest, a basketball team’s worth of fully grown young men suddenly entered the room and approached the man’s table, forcing a curious smile onto his lips. He evidently recognized them, but came fully unprepared for what unfolded next.
Removing their suit jackets, the men squeezed into navy blue youth basketball jerseys, emblazoned in gold with the words “St. Joe’s” and personalized numbers. Shrinkage from years of repeated laundering and the men’s natural growth in pounds and inches had otherwise rendered these items too small for adults, yet they did so anyway. One more time. One final time, perhaps, for their one-time coach to enjoy. A perfectly choreographed and executed play that the coach himself might not have drawn up any better.
This nostalgic act induced its desired effect, transporting each man, young and old, temporarily back in time. To a happier time? A healthier time? A simpler, more hopeful time? Whatever the case, while the inexorable passage of time has exacted its unforgiving toll to varying degrees, it has also marinated the collective memories of days past that everyone who gathered inside Warwick’s Crowne Plaza that Saturday evening, October 18, wanted to relive.
Once established in Rhode Island back in 1935, the Catholic Youth Organization soon gained renown for its basketball and its CYO acronym. Few institutions can long endure, though, as this one has, without neither adapting to inevitable societal changes, nor having dedicated people who give of themselves for a greater good.
CYO changed its name earlier this century to reflect the increasing popularity and proliferation of other sports on Rhode Island’s Catholic athletic scene. Now known as the Catholic Athletic League, CAL harnesses the combined sporting resources of Catholic schools and parishes across the Ocean State. Those currently overseeing its administration, led by director Ben Gorewitz, realized that CAL would not exist today absent the men and women who came before them. Nor will it see better tomorrows if prudent measures aren’t implemented today.
As a result, Gorewitz and his team have been planning for the past year to honor more than a dozen select Catholics — mostly lay people — throughout the Diocese of Providence who have contributed to CAL’s past nine decades. For this milestone occasion, CAL hosted an inaugural Hall of Fame Gala to celebrate its past, cherish its present, and cultivate its future.
Sponsored by the non-profit Catholic Foundation of Rhode Island, the CAL90 gala featured a multicourse dinner, a themed-gift-baskets raffle, and a silent auction of New England professional sports memorabilia. Proceeds are establishing a pair of endowment funds to help CAL flourish over the next century. One — the Catholic Athletic Scholarship Fund — aims to support promising student-athletes enrolled in local Catholic high schools, while the other — the CAL Financial Assistance Fund — seeks to defray various costs for parish and school sports programs.
The overlapping of sports and religion may not always seem obvious, but according to Bishop Bruce A. Lewandowski, C.Ss.R., who offered a benediction and opening remarks at the evening’s outset, many Catholic saints were athletically inclined, an admirable trait shared with the inaugural CAL Hall of Fame Class of 2025.
“Sports and athleticism,” the bishop proclaimed, “are good for the soul. We pray for you today, celebrate you, and are thankful for you, and we remember that the call of holiness, the call universally to be like Christ, includes being good sportsmen and sportswomen. We can be as good on the field as we are in church.
“Today, we give thanks for the athletes who inspire us. For the people who train their bodies. Who work in their minds strategizing. Who, in their hearts, desire to win. God set them before us as an example that we should strive for an excellence here on Earth that will one day lead us to Heaven.”
With nearly half of the 14 inductees having already been called home by Our Lord, loved ones accepted posthumous awards for administrator Daniel McDonald (Saint Matthew Church, Cranston), coach Walter “Buster” Wall (St. Teresa, Pawtucket), coach Armando Batastini (St. Pius V, Providence), coach Gene Fogarty (various parishes in R.I. and Mass.), and coach/official/administrator Charles “Chuck’ Vermette (Sacred Heart, East Providence). Gorewitz, meantime, represented the legacy of Sister Ann Keefe (St. Michael’s, Providence).
Inaugural class members in attendance included administrator Louise “Duce” Dussault (St. James, Lincoln), Bishop James Ruggieri of Portland, Maine (for his work at St. Patrick, Providence), administrator William St. Laurent (St. Theresa, Tiverton), administrator Stephen Martin (St. Rocco, Johnston), administrator George Manupelli (Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, North Providence), coach Kevin McKenna (St. Augustine, Providence), and official/administrator Paul Viveiros (Bristol).
On hearing his name among them, the cancer-stricken man, briefly ignoring his toughest-ever opponent, finally rose from his chair and slowly headed across the room to collect his award. Michael Murphy, basketball coach at West Warwick’s St. Joseph School for more than 35 years, did not walk alone, however. In a poignant display of sportsmanship and Catholic values that drew a standing ovation, Murphy’s former players accompanied him all the way to the stage.
Teammates, in sport and in faith, to the end.
