Roman Catholic remains a basketball powerhouse despite playing almost all its home games off campus
The Cahillites rarely play in their historic gym and still have years to go before opening a new on-campus gym, but even as basketball vagabonds, they've kept on winning.
Welcome to the current home court for the Roman Catholic High School basketball team: a gym three miles north of campus that has “Blue Pride” painted on one baseline and three lions at center court. It is hardly a perfect match for the purple-and-gold Roman Cahillites.
The two-year-old gym at Cristo Rey High School, and probably other venues, will have to do for another three years or so, until a 1,200-seat campus gym is completed as part of a $30 million expansion project at Roman. Then at long last, the Cahillites’ days as basketball vagabonds will be over.
For decades, Roman has played only two or three games a year at its gym on school grounds, at Broad and Vine. The gym, with only 250 seats and a court that is 12 feet narrower and 12 feet shorter than regulation, was built in 1890, the year before basketball was invented.
“I like it that we play away so much,” said Daniel Skillings, a 6-foot-5 senior guard from Blackwood, N.J., who was named the Philadelphia Catholic League’s MVP and will continue his career at the University of Cincinnati. “We’re always fighting adversity, with everyone being against us everywhere we go.”
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Fact is, Roman is a remarkably good squad away from home. The Cahillites open postseason play on Friday at Cristo Rey as the top-seeded team in the PCL tournament, which will conclude with a boys-girls title doubleheader Feb. 28 at the Palestra. After Roman chases its 33rd league championship, it shoots for its fourth PIAA state championship since 2015.
According to MaxPreps, the Cahillites are the No. 3 team in Pennsylvania, behind North Hills of suburban Pittsburgh and Roman’s local rival, West Catholic. After taking five years off, Chris McNesby has returned as head coach this year, and Roman (16-3 overall) keeps rolling.
“Sometimes we even ask ourselves how we even pull this off,” said McNesby, a 1995 Roman graduate who is now a 45-year-old certified financial planner with a wife and three kids.
Roman is a perennial power because of its tradition: Players want to play for the school. At the same time, though, they also know they will need to make sacrifices. That means playing and practicing at seemingly every college and high school gym in the city. Roman has passenger vans to shuttle the team, but its players also make sure to always carry valid SEPTA TransPasses.
“Our kids are used to making adjustments and doing the best with what they have,” said the Rev. Joseph Bongard, the president at Roman. “Our guys are very resilient.”
Joe Mazur, a 1970 Roman graduate who lives in Plymouth Meeting and is part of an unusually large Roman alumni fan base, figures he has watched the Cahillites play games at least a hundred different venues, including one in Hawaii. He does not feel inconvenienced.
“It will be nice to have a bigger home,” he said of the new gym at Roman, “but there’s always going to be the allure of the bandbox.”
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Occasionally, Roman practices at the old gym, with just two baskets — “We do more conditioning to make up for it,” said Khalil Farmer, a 6-3 senior guard who will play at Hofstra University — and they do enjoy playing rare games there, if simply for tradition’s sake.
What a tradition it is. Under legendary coach Billy Markward, Roman won 20 Catholic League titles during his 41 years in charge. Speedy Morris took Roman to six titles between 1969 and 1980, and the Cahillites won 10 titles under Dennis Seddon between 1989 and 2007. Roman has won only three state titles since the Catholic League joined the PIAA in 2008.
But the Cahillites say they have become tougher in part because they have to make an extra effort not only to get to school at Broad and Vine, but then to shuffle off elsewhere to play basketball. Moreover, they know that Roman players who preceded them did the same thing.
“Just gives us more of a reason to play hard,” said Farmer, who is from Southwest Philadelphia. “It’s been that way forever. Makes us feel special.”
Part of the benefit of having a new field house is that Roman won’t have to spend literally thousands of dollars each season hunting for open gyms, then renting them. The going rate in Philadelphia to rent a gym for a junior varsity-varsity doubleheader is about $750.
The gym at Cristo Rey has been a great find. For a recent game against St. Joseph’s Prep, varsity players boarded vans at 5 p.m. at Roman for the 20-minute ride up Broad Street. Transportation is provided back, though players often go straight home from games.
Sometimes, the Cahillites practice at the Phield House sports complex a mile away at Eighth and Spring Garden Streets, sometimes at the Salvation Army gym at Broad and Fairmount, and sometimes even at the gym at St. Josaphat Church in Manayunk.
“As much as possible, we try to help,” McNesby said. “There are just times when it may be required to hop on a subway and get somewhere.”
The gym at Cristo Rey, with about 500 seats, is hardly a spacious arena, and Roman fans don’t seem to want to follow Cristo Rey’s directions, with many fans in purple shirts sitting in the areas designated for “visiting” fans, and adults finding seats in the “student” area.
But Roman tries to make Cristo Rey feel like “home,” offering a snack bar with pizza, a 50-50 raffle, and updates on scores from other Catholic League games. Admission is $5.
Roman also has female cheerleaders. Roman is an all-boys school, so the cheerleaders come from Little Flower High School, an all-girls Catholic school a mile from Cristo Rey.
“Roman makes them feel like they’re a part of the community, even though they’re not,” said Renee Park, the cheerleading coach.
Groundbreaking for the field house is scheduled for September 2023, and Bongard thinks construction will take another year and a half. The gym will be easy to access, and there will be plenty of parking.
Gone will be the years of scrambling around the city for gyms with a full-size floor, or sometimes using a cramped, two-basket gym that “we use for everything,” as Bongard said. McNesby, with a chuckle, said the old gym feels more like a living room.
But the Cahillites have goals to meet and titles to win in the meantime. When asked what he thought Roman games at the new gym would be like, McNesby said, “Honestly, that’s too far in the future.”