Philadelphia hoops: A unique subculture

Wilt.

The Big Five.

The Sonny Hill League.

Dr. J.

Jack Ramsay.

John Chaney.

The Palestra.

March Madness is coming this week to Philadelphia - a town that revels in its basketball history, in producing more NCAA tournament teams (counting Villanova) than any other city, in sending all its Big Five teams to the Final Four.

But for all our history, are we as good a hoops city as we like to think? The Wachovia Center is sold out for the NCAA tournament games on Thursday and Saturday, but our buildings aren't usually full for 76ers or college games.

Nobody local has been to the Final Four since Villanova won in 1985. Is Philly just getting by on nostalgia?

Even though the stands aren't packed, it is clear that Philadelphia has a still-thriving, even unique, basketball subculture.

Los Angeles probably would claim superiority. UCLA has more NCAA titles than Philadelphia. Kobe Bryant wanted to be there - not here. But that was about marketing, not hoops. Go to the courts at 33d and Diamond in North Philadelphia and someone will be able to point to where Bryant's dad, Jellybean Bryant, made somebody look silly.

"There's no better city if you're going to compare," said Norm Eavenson, a retired schoolteacher who scouts high school players as his hobby. "Philadelphia produces good high school players, good coaches. It produces referees. It can satisfy the cravings of any basketball junkie on any given night."

Eavenson figures the Philadelphia area easily produces 25 to 30 male and female Division I prospects every year.

Therefore, it also produces bushels of hoop families. Look at one, the Pearsons, from West Chester. Their basketball season never ends. Mom and Dad both played at Cardinal O'Hara High School. Dad then played for legendary coach Jim Phelan, a South Philadelphia native, at Mount St. Mary's.

Three Pearson daughters have gotten Division I scholarships, and the oldest son is a referee working high school games. Dad just coached the local CYO team to an archdiocesan title.

And Uncle Duke? He's an NBA referee.

Wherever a dinner-table conversation starts at the Pearsons', "somehow we always end up talking about basketball," said Rita Pearson, the mother.

Mike and Rita Pearson were at a gym in Lancaster County on Wednesday, rooting for the area's top-rated high school girls' team, Archbishop Carroll. Their daughter Rachel is a freshman playing for Carroll.

At halftime, Rita Pearson text-messaged the score to her mother in Drexel Hill; to a daughter who plays college basketball for Holy Cross; and to another daughter who is a freshman at Villanova, on scholarship but redshirting this season.

Rita Pearson also texted her sister, Anne, who has her own daughter starting for Carroll's archrival, Cardinal O'Hara.

"You sit down with a spreadsheet in front of you to figure out what games you need to get to," Rita Pearson said.

Even if it's not all in the family, in Philadelphia basketball, everybody pretty much knows everybody. Ed Stefanski may be president of the Sixers, but he's still a guy from the neighborhood. Mike Pearson briefly coached the junior varsity at Monsignor Bonner High School years ago when he was just out of college. Stefanski was on that team.

Only Indiana University has sent more alumni to the NBA than St. Joseph's. But in analyzing the Jack Ramsay coaching tree, this can get overlooked: An untold number of kids around Philadelphia still learn their hoops from coaches who learned from men who played for Ramsay or one of his disciples.

No other city can match this family affair: Dominique Stephens coaches the men's team at Cheyney, a Division II school. His sister, Marilyn Stephens-Franklin, is the women's coach. They grew up on Archer Street in North Philadelphia and are believed to be the first brother and sister to be head men's and women's basketball coaches at the same NCAA school.

Dominique Stephens doesn't know if he'll get to the NCAA games at the Wachovia Center. It's recruiting season now. But if he decides to go, he figures he can get in.

"The Wachovia Center, they've got their cracks," Stephens said, laughing. "You find your way in."

That's another Philadelphia thing. Getting in.

Bob McTamney, an assistant coach at Eastern College, remembers how, when he was a student at La Salle, he'd sometimes slide into Palestra doubleheaders because one of the security guards ran the intramural program at La Salle.

Paying for tickets can be another matter. Through their first 30 games, the Sixers were 24th in the NBA in average attendance (14,953), and had the 15th-best record in the league. There was even a lag between home and road attendance, since the Sixers were 19th in drawing a road crowd. Traditionally, Philadelphia's NBA teams have had to work to sell out, even when Julius Erving was the star and during Wilt Chamberlain's days with the old Warriors.

"It's a good basketball city with an awful lot of choices," said Dave Coskey, who used to be in charge of marketing the Sixers and now works for the Borgata Hotel, Casino & Spa in Atlantic City. "Tickets aren't $5 or $7 anymore. I think kids still love going to games. I think it's more difficult."

For Philly hoops fans, the big event isn't always a televised event. Bryant obviously was a draw during his days at Lower Merion High School. Many remember his district-playoff duel with Coatesville's Rip Hamilton at the Palestra. But Ted Monaco, an assistant coach at Chestnut Hill Academy, remembers the night Lower Merion played Norristown in the PIAA playoffs at Wissahickon High.

"They were scalping tickets for $50 outside," said Monaco, then a Norristown assistant. "This is an unbelievable basketball town. Who's a better basketball town? Put somebody up?"

Los Angeles has Wilt and Kareem, and Magic and Kobe. And UCLA.

"There's only been a basketball tradition there since [John] Wooden," Monaco scoffed.

One interesting part of the local scene: "Girls' basketball has just taken off in the last 10 years," said Mike Pearson, who coaches an Amateur Athletic Union team that practices at the Westtown School.

Pearson ran into an old Cardinal O'Hara teammate at a PIAA playoff game on Wednesday. The teammate's daughter was playing for Springfield (Delco) High School in the next game.

The Pearsons' 26-year-old son, Mike, didn't make it out to Rachel's game in Lancaster County. He has been busy with a full slate of refereeing assignments.

"I went to the dark side," he joked. That's in the family tree, too. Uncle Duke is Mike "Duke" Callahan, a veteran NBA official.

For a time, Mike Pearson Jr. worked in sales support for And1, the basketball apparel company. That meant lunchtime pickup games every day at the Paoli headquarters, before And1 was sold to a California company. Pearson now works in software consulting, which, he said, allows him the time to referee.

And more basketball is on the way for the Pearsons. Mike couldn't get to Rachel's game because he and his fiancee had wedding invitations to get out that night.

"My fiancee," Pearson said, "is an assistant women's coach at Cabrini."