Roman Catholic’s PCL championship meant the world to Sixers analyst Marc Jackson and his sons

Before everything got really crazy at the Palestra on Monday night … before Roman Catholic and Archbishop Ryan went to overtime in the Philadelphia Catholic League boys’ basketball championship game … after Archbishop Wood already had beaten Archbishop Carroll in double overtime in the girls’ championship game … before Ryan Everett flushed a three-pointer with 8.3 seconds left that could have won Ryan its first PCL title … before Kabe Goss drilled a 19-foot pull-up jumper at the buzzer that did win Roman its 34th PCL title, one year after Roman had won its 33rd … before everyone wearing purple and gold screamed out of sheer joy and rushed the court … before everyone wearing red and black quick-melted into puddles of tears … before social media and SportsCenter started running and rerunning the whole beautiful and chaotic sequence for the nation to see … Marc Jackson looked like some dude sitting in a library, not a dad with a storm raging inside him.

He was there, in a courtside seat, for every second of Roman’s 46-45 victory, a proud alumnus and father slowly suffering through every second of a thrilling game without ever showing it. Jackson has had one of the great basketball careers and lives in this city — two PCL championships at Roman, a Big Five Hall of Famer for his two outstanding seasons at Temple, a solid seven years in the NBA, a 76ers postgame analyst on NBC Sports Philadelphia — and now he gets to watch his sons try to surpass his achievements at his alma mater.

Shareef is a 6-foot-7 junior center, wide and strong, and Sammy is a 6-6 sophomore forward, thin and wiry. And they combined for 23 points Monday night. And Shareef played the final 4 minutes, 12 seconds of the fourth quarter and all of overtime with four fouls and still scored 16 points, matching Ryan’s 6-9 center Thomas Sorber — the league MVP and a Georgetown recruit — basket for basket, dropping in a game-tying left-handed layup with 2.1 seconds to go in the fourth quarter. Two PCL championships for each of them now, just like their dad. “We need just one more to beat him,” Sammy said. And Marc never so much as smiled.

It was a remarkable display of parental self-control. How did he do it?

“Praying,” he said. “The whole game. Just praying, man. And more praying and more praying and more praying.”

It was more than praying, actually. Watching Shareef and Sammy, Marc gets so nervous that he tends to grind his teeth. So once the PCL playoffs began, he started wearing a transparent mouth guard to their games. He lifted his upper lip to show it off. It was a wonder it was still intact after Monday night.

“It was like hell, man,” he said. “It was like torture. It really was. That’s the Catholic League, though. We won in overtime my last year here. That’s one more step in learning, man, one more step in life — just putting you in situations to learn and build from. Respect to Ryan; they played a hell of a game. It was a great game.”

Better than great. Between the boys’ semifinals last week and the two championship games Monday night, the biggest games in the Philadelphia Catholic League have become what the Big Five used to be — roughly 9,000 people filling the Palestra, all of them showing such fierce loyalty to their schools, all of them keeping these local rivalries fresh, so many of them with long memories of their programs’ pasts. Take Jackson. There was his son, going toe-to-toe with Sorber, and he couldn’t help but see himself.

“I wanted something for my selfish reasons,” he said. “I played against the great big men of my era — Rasheed [Wallace], Jason Lawson, Tyrone Weeks — and I wanted Shareef to beat the best big man in the league. That’s who Thomas Sorber is: the best big in the league, the best big in the state.

“My whole thing was, he’s been working. We’re working at 6 a.m. every morning. On the weekends, he’s up, doing workouts twice a day. We’ve been doing this since he was 5 years old. I’m happy that it led to this.”

Both Roman’s and Ryan’s seasons will continue in the district playoffs. Perhaps beyond that, too, toward a shot at a state championship. Just understand: There isn’t going to be a setting, an atmosphere, a matchup for either team that carries the same meaning that Monday’s did. “The PCL,” Jackson said, “there’s nothing like it. Nothing like it. Nothing like it.”

When Goss’ shot rattled through the rim, Marc Jackson’s stoicism finally shattered. He leaped out of his courtside chair and raised his arms in a V. Close by, Darren Williams, Ryan’s brilliant senior shooting guard, bent over at the waist and started bawling, and Jackson put his hand on one of Williams’ teammates and said softly, “He needs you.” Then he waded into the crowd of Roman players and coaches and fans to find his sons, wrapping Shareef in a hug so long and warm that the two of them wept. “I can’t think of anything to describe it,” Shareef said. Neither can your dad, kid. No father could.