Growing up the best basketball team in our area was the Fatima Academy Royals...heck, they were one of the very best teams in the province! Coached by the legendary Gord Pike, Fatima played some serious ball! Led by their on court floor general Carl English (the best basketball player ever to come from NL) the Royals routinely crushed anyone who dared step on the floor with them! This is the first of many, I hope, basketball stories I hope to tell in this blog. Check it out, I hope you like it! Feel free to drop me a line if you would like to chat!
Basketball and The Cape Shore
The island of Newfoundland can be described as remote, given its location in the Atlantic Ocean. Unless you fly, it is a seven-hour ferry ride from the Canadian mainland. The Cape Shore, a string of ten communities on the south west coast of Newfoundland, is considered to be even less accessible once you are on the island itself. First settled in the late 18th century by immigrants from Waterford, Ireland, the Cape Shore has not witnessed very much change in the lifestyles of its residents in all that time. Cape Shore folk still lead a very traditional way of life that involves fishing, farming, and rearing livestock. In their speech, they even sound the same as they did back when their ancestors arrived here from Ireland! They still speak with a strong Irish accent and frequently use Gaelic phrases in their language. However, one thing has happened over the years on the Cape Shore that ties them to the outside world-- the development of an absolute and blinding passion for high school basketball.
The largest Cape Shore community is St. Brides, home to Fatima Academy. The Royals come from one of the smallest schools on the island but historically, the team has been one of the most successful on the basketball court. The current school opened in 1968 and since then, they have won eight provincial championships, in six of which they played against schools three times their size. They even produced a talented shooting guard named Carl English who made the final cut for the Indiana Pacers in 2002 before playing in the D League! English had a productive four years playing Division One NCAA Basketball for the University of Hawaii where he finished as the seventh leading scorer in their history. He has recently retired after spending his last two seasons playing for the NBL’s St. John’s Edge following a highly successful eleven-year career playing professionally in Europe. Carl spent time in Italy, Spain and Croatia. Carl also represented his country on the international stage for eleven years. During his time with Canada Basketball, the program experienced rapid growth, and his hot shooting was a big reason for this success.
What Made Them So Good
It all began, where it always does, with hard work and an exceptional coach. When Gord Pike arrived at Fatima Academy as a physical education teacher, he brought competitive basketball with him. Given their remote location on the Cape Shore, the students did not mix with others often and had little opportunity to develop bad habits. The kids were dedicated, passionate, and highly mouldable. The result of these factors coming together was a perfect storm of success provincially. It was hard to believe they could be so good and compete with the larger high schools at the 4A level when they did not have as many players to choose from or the opportunity to play as many games on a regular basis. The last factor that made the program so successful was the one advantage they had over bigger schools…everyone played. Grade Six students drove the lane against Grade Twelves at Fatima Academy with the older students encouraging the younger ones to play harder, get better, or go home. It was like having a built in AAU club system in a public school, and it worked because everyone played hard and wanted to get better …and man, were they tough to beat!
My Personal Experience
When I was growing up, my high school competed in the 2A classification whereas Fatima Academy was 1A. Despite the fact that we had more students in our school to choose from, when we played them…we lost. The games were very competitive and exciting, but we just could not get past them. After completing my education degree, I returned home and took a teaching position at Laval High School in Placentia where I coached the basketball team. Our first game was on a Wednesday afternoon during the first week in November. We all loaded into the team van (donated by the American Argentia Naval Base when it closed in 1994) and made our way out the twisting, winding road that leads to the Cape Shore. When we arrived, our first clue that the odds were stacked against us was the school parking lot. It was jammed full of cars, and we had to go back out on the road to find somewhere to park. The gym that afternoon was something I will never forget. It was a full house with standing room only, and the Fatima Academy Royals put on quite a show. Waves of kids with English on their back made quick work of my team to say the least. Full on press every possession, steals galore, kids dunking, throwing alley-oops, pulling up for three on the fast break…you get the picture! It was like we were playing in a New York City public school game, and the environment in that packed gym on a Wednesday afternoon could only be described as raucous and truly unforgettable. You really could not hear yourself think. We may have lost the game, but driving home in our donated van, we kept our chins up after we all agreed that this team was special, and we were fortunate to even get on the same court with them in a season where they went on to win the 4A Provincials.
Conclusion
Sadly, rural Newfoundland continues to experience population decline with communities such as those found on the Cape Shore being the hardest hit. Losing their young people to the larger centers has had a devastating effect on Fatima Academy where the current school population sits at just 54 students from kindergarten to Grade 12. On a brighter note, last year they still had ten boys suiting up to play for the Royals, and last year finished with a 1 and 2 record at the 4A Provincials playing in a division with two of the largest schools in the province who both have over a thousand students. Pretty impressive stuff for the Fatima Academy Royals who believe hard work and a sincere love for the game will always keep them in the running for a win. Unfortunately, while in the process of writing this article, I learned that the Royals will not have enough players to field a team this year. Two boys remain, and they will make the fifty kilometre drive to Placentia each day to suit up for their one time arch-rival Laval Cavaliers. Basketball surely will be missed at Fatima Academy in the coming years. However, they plan to focus on remembering all the fun the student-athletes from Fatima had over the years and their remarkable success!
Some pics to make the article more interesting and a link to a great documentary about Carl's life.
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