Transition Game: Construction of new school venues helped drive city hoops into modern era

BY MICHAEL GRIFFIN

The words may seem a bit strange to read now, but a story by Bob Palmer, Jr. in the sports section of the Waterbury Republican from December 8, 1970 — 50 years ago this winter sports season — opened with the following words:

“The unusual arrangement of having three Waterbury high school basketball teams playing at home in three different gymnasiums — which could very well be a first — is on the agenda for tonight.”

Believe it or not, there was a time when some of the city’s schools did not have their own spiffy gymnasiums expansive enough to accommodate crowds of a decent size to watch a high school game.

Sites such as the Crosby Palace and the large Wilby gym that now regularly hosts the Naugatuck Valley League tournament had not yet been built. Both schools were still located downtown, in older buildings with tiny gyms (if judging by today’s standards).

The lack of top-grade gymnasiums in Waterbury was not an indication that high school basketball had yet to command a following among local sports fans. To the contrary, the State Armory on Field Street had regularly drawn crowds of over a thousand to doubleheaders involving Waterbury schools throughout the 1940s, ’50s and early ’60s, with the likes of Bob Markovic, Dick Clary and Billy Finn among the standouts who dazzled the crowds with their hoop skills.

Sacred Heart and Wilby captured state titles during the Armory era, while Leavenworth’s 1947 squad provided Waterbury with its only New England champion — when future major league baseball player Jimmy Piersall led the Engineers past Durfee High of Fall River, Mass., 51-44, in the final before a crowd of 13,000 at Boston Garden.

That storied period in the city’s hoops history had begun to give way when Kennedy High replaced the Armory as host site for most city games, upon its opening in 1965. The 1970s then ushered in a number of changes – including the building of three more new schools and gymnasiums – that helped to transition Waterbury basketball into the modern era.

That decade of change began with a new school added to the host of rivalries among city teams. As noted in Palmer’s article previewing the scholastic schedule for that December evening half a century ago, the night’s action included home games for Kennedy, Kaynor Tech and Holy Cross – with Holy Cross competing on the varsity level for the first time, in the school’s third year of operation.

By the end of the 1970s, both Crosby and Wilby would move into impressive new school complexes and gyms on the outskirts of town, while a trio of new coaches would take over at city schools – with each to eventually have those gyms renamed in their honor after outstanding coaching careers.

This series of articles will look back on the four venues built in that short period between 1965 and 1978, and their impact on the city’s hoop scene.

Click on the images and links below to read historical profiles on the Kennedy, Holy Cross, Crosby and Wilby gyms.