I was a Department of the
Army civilian employee from 1964 until my retirement in 1996. I worked at Southern European Broadcasting
(originally the Southern European Network), the Armed Forces Radio and
Television Service network for the American military audience in Italy, which
was eventually absorbed by the American Forces Network Europe.
As a broadcaster, I was for many years an observer
and reporter of American Schools in Italy sports. As a longtime friend of Joe Pellerito, I
watched his daughters, Becky and Jenny, play basketball for the Vicenza
American High School Cougars. In Jenny’s
junior season, as Joe and I watched the Cougars lose a game we both thought
they should have won, Joe asked me, “If I can get the job of coaching girls
basketball, will you join me?” I
surprised myself by answering yes without any hesitation.
The very next season, 1980-81, surprised again, there I was helping Joe
coach the Cougars (not the “Lady” Cougars, by the way; we insisted on being the
Cougars just like the boys’ team, unless they were to be called the “Gentlemen”
Cougars).
As only Joe could do, he insisted on me being called
the team’s coach, not the assistant coach and not the co-coach. That led to several funny exchanges between
Joe and league officials who, when asking who was the coach of our team, heard
Joe respond by pointing to himself and me and saying, “We are.”
And we were.
I recall any number of games when Joe and I alternated making decisions
about strategy or substitutions or questioning a referee’s call, etc. And I laugh out loud every time I remember
the game in which I was baiting a referee who was making too many calls against
us. He ran by our bench and yelled at
Joe, “Tell your assistant to sit down, Coach,” and Joe yelled back, “He’s not
my assistant; he’s the coach.” Later,
after the game, that referee approached Joe and said, “I thought you
were the coach, but you’re just the school sponsor and Mullen’s the
coach?” And Joe introduced him to a sort
of Abbot & Costello “Who’s on First” routine by saying, “No, I’m the
coach.” “Then,” responded the referee, “Mullen’s
your assistant coach.” “No,” said Joe,
“he’s the coach.” And the referee just
walked away, shaking his head.
Well, whatever I was, Joe and I coached the 1980-81
Cougars to their first American Schools in Italy League championship in Jenny’s
senior season (and Jenny did a lot of coaching herself on the floor as the
leader of that team). We coached through
the 2003-04 season and, in those twenty-four years, our teams won six more ASIL
championships, were runners-up in four other post-season tournaments, won
several ASIL North Conference regular-season titles, and finished third in one
of the early American Schools in Europe championship tournaments held in
Germany.
After Joe’s death in August 2004, I
was approached by a member of the Vicenza American School’s Booster Club
considering establishment of college annual scholarships in his name for the
top girl and boy athletes at VAHS. The Boosters
were asking me to help them determine criteria for these scholarships. Here’s what I wrote:
Joe Pellerito and our players taught me a great deal
about the role of sports in education.
So, I think I know what criteria Joe would use to determine the winners
of scholarships in his name. I detail some of those criteria here, but the
list is not exhaustive; Joe’s
coaching/teaching principles were far too extensive and complex to be summed up in one
page. I’ve just tried to highlight the
basics.
Joe Pellerito believed that sports are an integral
part of the high school
education
process – part of the curriculum, not just an extra-curricular activity. A Pellerito Scholarship winner would
demonstrate understanding of that belief by:
--Regular, on-time attendance at practices and all
team functions.
--Faithful attention to and performance of coaching
instructions, including rules of behavior.
--Fulfillment of the student’s athletic potential
through recognition from coaches, players, and officials of VAHS and other
schools; e.g., All-Conference, All-Tournament, All-Europe, Most Valuable
Player, Athlete of the Year, etc.
Joe taught his players leadership, selecting team
captains who he thought
would
be sources of psychological strength for the team both on and off the court. Pellerito Scholarship winners would
demonstrate those qualities by:
--Helping teammates realize
their potential as athletes and as human beings.
--Accepting responsibility
for team failures.
--Sharing with teammates the
accolades for team successes.
Joe believed religiously in
the tenets of fair play and good sportsmanship.
Pellerito Scholarship winners would demonstrate the
same belief by:
--Gracious recognition of
opponents’ accomplishments.
--Playing by the rules at
all times; never bending them to their own advantage.
--Never gloating in victory;
never whining in defeat.
I haven’t set down any
academic criteria because Joe and I always found that the athletes who met most
of the above criteria were excellent students as well.
The highlight of every basketball season for Joe and
me was the post-season banquet for Vicenza High’s winter sports, basketball and
wrestling. Every year we put on a show
of rhymes or songs or both about each girl’s foibles during the season (and the
coaches’ foibles, too). And, of course,
we tried to outdo one another during the “Joe & Mike Show”. No matter how good or bad our team record –
championship or sixth place – we tried to leave ‘em laughing, and most of the
time I think we succeeded.
Our first post-season banquet, however, was not
sponsored by the school; I think they didn’t start or resume having banquets
until somebody recommended it after they heard what we did for the 1980-81 ASIL
Girls Basketball Champions. We staged a
little party in our house, Barbara and Mary providing the drinks and snacks,
while Joe and I roasted each of the girls with “You Turkey” awards. The only one I still have among my Cougar
memorabilia is the one Joe gave to me, but it demonstrates perfectly
what we tried to do in our writing about the girls. My “You Turkey” read:
Awarded this 4th day of March 1981 to Mike “The True Turkey” Mullen. In recognition of his daring design of plays
one particular player couldn’t understand…and the rest of the team wanted to
forget. To their everlasting credit, the
team listened
politely
to his instructions…and won the championship inspite of them.
The next post-season we were at a
school-sponsored banquet with team members’ parents in attendance. Still, Joe and I spared no one’s feelings –
well, maybe we were a little softer this time -- with our roast. We had members of another team and their parents to be concerned
about, too, because our team finished second in the ASIL Girls Tournament ,
while the boys’ team lost every game that year.
I tried to introduce that “softer” approach this way:
I think it was a great idea
to have this get-together tonight, so that we can re-live
the memories of the past season while they’re still fresh in our minds. I know, some of the boys were hoping we’d
just completely forget this past season and talk about soccer or
something. But, I’ll tell you, I don’t
want to forget what for me – and for all the other coaches, I think – was the
most important part of the season: sharing the time with one of the finest
groups of young people – girls and boys – that any of us has ever been
associated with. You may not always have
been successful as
basketball
players; but, as good human beings, every one of you is a winner.
And that’s enough of the
nice-guy stuff. Those of you who were on
the girls’ team last year know that I like to use this occasion to remind you
of some of your…uh…less noteworthy accomplishments during the season. Last year we called them the “Turkey”
awards. This year I’m calling them the
GO-rilla awards.
I give credit for that
idea to (Boys Basketball Coach) Mr. Dempsey, who told me earlier this evening
that it wasn’t so bad going oh-and-14 with a great group of
human
beings; but next year he’d sort of like to go 15-and-oh with a bunch of gorillas. Uh…That should be…GO-rillas.
So, anyway, the
following awards to a team that went 13-and-2 this season, the Champions of the
North, the Vicenza High School “Lady GO-rillas”.
I won’t go through the whole set of
Lady GO-rillas here; but I guess I should explain the use of the term “Lady”,
since you know Joe and I were opposed to calling them the Lady Cougars. I was simply poking fun at media types and
their followers who think all girls’ or women’s teams must be identified as Lady
Something-or-others to distinguish them from their schools’ boys’ or men’s
teams. As I said earlier, that thinking should then require the boys’ or
men’s teams to be called the Gentlemen Something-or-others. I saw the ultimate stupidity of this in the
American Schools in Europe Tournament on AFN-TV this year: Bitburg High School calls its teams the
Barons; so the girls’ team in the championship game wore uniforms calling themselves
the “Lady Barons”. Sorry, but there is
no such thing as a Lady Baron; she’s the “Baroness”, so their uniforms
should have read “Baronesses”. I blame
the coaches (most of whom are teachers) for teaching their students this
uninformed lesson in incorrect English.
Okay, I got that off my chest. Now, back to the awards. But I won’t bore you with all of them, just
the ones I think were the best from this season. I hope the girls don’t mind my using their
names again; most of them laughed about
this stuff the first time around:
To Rosi Carrascosa: the
GO-rilla-Don’t-Want-the-Basketball Award…for refusing to acknowledge the last
syllable in the name of the game. We
enjoyed watching her play “Basket-thing”.
To Sue Cuddy: the
GO-rilla-Don’t-Score Award…for eliminating the other two syllables from the name of the game. No baskets.
She played a great season of “Thing-ball”.
To Roxy Urner: The
GO-rilla-to-the-Toilet Award…for leading the team in trips to the john…during
timeouts. For next season, Joe and I
have devised a new way to give Roxy instructions during timeouts: We’re going to write them on the bathroom
wall.
We skip a couple of years, now, to
1983-84, another championship season which earned the girls some of my famous
limericks at the post-season banquet. The
rhymes I’ve picked, unusually, were mostly in praise of the players.
Patty’s teammates almost always out-stepped her
But, in time, she got slightly
adepter.
I have to admit it
It’s her last name that did it.
Her last name is Keepers. We kept her.
A Reppond whom the players called
“Frog”
All too frequently played in a fog.
But, then, often as not
She’d get really hot.
This “Frog” was no “bump on a log”.
Kelly Barnett was our non-shooting
guard,
And she didn’t find that very hard.
She preferred to play “D”,
Using elbow and knee,
And leaving our opponents all
scarred.
The next two rhymes need some expanded explanation
and story-telling. Yvette Caver was the
best player we ever had and maybe the best player ever in the history of
American Schools Girls Basketball in Europe.
She was relatively small, maybe
5-foot-3-or-4, but she could do it all -- shoot, dribble, pass, rebound, and
play defense – better than any girl we ever saw. In the 1984-85 season’s tournament
championship game against Naples, she scored six points in 25-seconds to tie the
score with five-seconds remaining (unfortunately, we fouled a Naples player in
that time and they won the game on free throws). Still, Yvette was the unanimous choice as the
tournament’s Most Valuable Player and was later named the Player of the Year in
Europe.
Yvette exhibited her only “flaw” on
road trips to other schools, when the girls slept in a classroom and Joe and I
declared “lights out” at about 10:00 p.m.
Just as Joe reached for the light switch, Yvette would say, “Mr.
Pellerito, I cannot sleep in no dark”; so we’d find a way to keep some sort of
light shining in the room, usually by opening the curtains and letting outside
lights shine in. That story, then,
explains part of what I wrote in her 1983-84 rhyme:
A story ‘bout Caver – a lark –
And it’s one that we savor; so hark!
You can bet ‘fore the night’s out
Yvette’s shooting the lights out,
Though she says she can’t sleep in
no dark.
Celeste Richardson was the MVP of the 1984 ASIL Tournament
because, with Yvette hitting her with passes from all angles, she was our
leading scorer. One of our few four-year
players – most of them were with us for three years at the most because their
American military families moved to new posts every three years – Celeste was a
psychological project for Joe and me. It
was obvious to us in her freshman year that she had the talent to be a great
player. She was about 5-foot-7-or-8, had
a great shooting touch, and smooth movements all over the court. But Celeste was a “head hanger”, getting down on herself whenever she
didn’t play the way she thought she
should. No confidence for almost three
years. But, in her senior year, she
finally began believing she was as good as we’d always told her she was. And, in that 1984 championship game, she sank
some free throws under pressure down the stretch that kept us in the lead and
eventually spelled victory. That
performance earned her this rhyme:
For three years this girl named Celeste
Thought she didn’t stand out from
the rest.
But, in this championship season,
She displayed every reason
Why she’s always been one of the
best.
We’ve already talked about the
1984-85 season, ending in disappointment after Yvette Caver seemed to have
taken us to overtime in the tournament championship game. My post-season banquet rhymes for the girls
reflected that disappointment , and I don’t think any of them deserve
publication here. Maybe just one, about
Joe and me, because I like the way I ended it.
For five years, now, it’s been Joe and me.
Guess that makes this our fifth
anniversary.
Though I ain’t got no rhythm,
I’m sure glad to be with him
‘Cause without him I’d have to pay
for the beer myself.
The 1989-90 season ended with
another championship at the tournament in Naples. I remember the final against the American
International School of Milan. Their
team came on the floor for pre-game warmups chanting “No Mercy…No Mercy”, and
our girls paid close attention to that, beating them easily, showing them
no mercy. Lots of good players on this
team, but at the post-season banquet I switched back to “awards”, instead of
rhymes, and the only two worth repeating here, I think are about our first pair
of twin players, the Schmidt sisters.
To Allison Schmidt: The “Don’t Call Me
Heather” Award for not answering
to
that name when she was clearly wearing Heather’s jersey.
To Heather Schmidt: The “MVT
Award” for being the “most volatile twin”
with
a shot demonstrating “minimum vertical takeoff”.
We won our fifth straight
championship in 1990-91, our seventh and final ASIL title. So, I was writing limericks again for the
post-season banquet. Here’s the
beginning, middle, and end of the rhyme I called “The Best Team We Ever Had”:
There once was a championship team,
Which was built on the two coaches’
scheme
To combine speed and size
And a few other guys
For the makings of what was a dream.
Two reasons why we won it all
Are the captains named Rogers and
Hall.
Dear Jacinta and Christy,
Our eyes get real misty
When we think of the way you played
ball.
Now, just two more names left to go:
The coaches, who put on this show.
With Joe pacing the floor,
While I pounded the door,
We won it, our fifth in a row.
And we proved that we weren’t just teasin’
When we said we have every reason
To believe you’re the best
Among all the rest
In our seventh championship season.
The 1991-92 season provided me
little inspiration for roasting the girls at the post-season banquet. In fact, in my introductory remarks, I
apologized to those who’d attended previous banquets and expected to hear my
“traditional, insulting remarks” about our players. “I tried to come up with some solid insults,”
I said, “but my heart just wasn’t in it; this is just too nice a group of young
ladies.” I gave each girl a nickname for
the season, but only two of them, I think, are worth repeating here.
Charlotte “Sure Shot” Hawkins: She had the best outside shot on the team. Unfortunately, all our games were played inside,
so she didn’t get to shoot much.
Pam “Three-Point” Torio: She led the team in shooting three-pointers. She led the team in missing
three-pointers. She led the team in
missing the point. The point is, Pam, we
still love you.
1992-93 wasn’t much better in terms
of wins and losses and in terms of creative writing for the post-season
banquet. I gave out nicknames and awards
this time; but, again, I think only three are worth repeating – the first two
because they sort of play off one another, the other because it recognizes our
jayvee team for the first time.
To Pam “The Galloper” Galapon: The “No-Look Pass” Award. She didn’t look because she couldn’t see
after the coach stepped on her glasses.
To Stacie “The Miser” Bryza: The “No-Pass Look” Award. She looked and looked, until everybody
knew where she was going to pass; so she had to shoot.
To Dawn “Daylight” Sims and Dianna “Banana”
Fierro: The “Coaches Of the Year”
Award. They showed true Cougar colors in
coaching our jayvees to a perfect season.
I wrote a “Cougar Rhyme” to
commemorate the 1993-94 players and our not-very-exciting season. I think I’ll just give you the final stanza.
Yup, that was our team. And that was our season.
Sometimes we played it without rhyme
or reason.
But that’s not the reason I’ve
written this rhyme;
I wrote it because it was still a
good time.
We finished in sixth place at the
1995 ASIL Tournament, our worst showing ever, which naturally inspired one of
my best efforts at the post-season banquet.
I wrote a Rap, pointing out to the players and their parents that, since
it “may seem critical of the girls and since it’s being recited by an old,
white guy, in at least two senses of the phrase, it’s a ‘bad rap’.” Then, I asked our players to be the chorus in
performing “The Sixth Place Rap”.
Mike: We went to Sigonella on a
very cool day,
Flying Air Meridiana nearly all the
way.
We went down there just to have some
fun,
To see Mount Etna and to get some
sun.
We thought a good time would be had
by all
‘Til somebody told us to play
basketball.
Chorus: Say what?
Say what?
Mike: They made us play ball,
darn it all.
Mike: They said we were playin’
the home team first,
And right off we knew our bubble
would burst.
Though we tried to shoot hoops and
to have some fun,
We ended up shootin’ six for
eighty-one.
And that kind of shootin’, on the
basketball scene
Gives the game to Sigonella, 17-14.
Chorus: Say what?
Say What?
Mike: If they don’t kick that field goal, you know
what I mean?
Mike: Next up came Milan, and it
got quite scary.
When you play the Panthers you
better be wary.
The girls from Milan, those such and
suches,
Two Chinese guards and two others on
crutches,
They put us through hell, but we
made it to heaven
When we finally beat them, 30-27.
Chorus: Say what?
Say what?
Mike: Yeah, we won a game
and we were in heaven.
Mike: Now we played the Saints
when we got to heaven,
And we held Aviano down to 37.
So you’d think the Saints were in a
big fix
‘Cause the last time we played they
got 66.
Just one small problem with this
time then:
They got 37, but we only got ten.
Chorus: Say what?
Say what?
Mike: Yeah, the league’s best
team beat us again.
Mike: So we played for fifth ‘gainst
them Marymount Royals,
And the zebras fouled out four of
our best “goils”.
But the Cougars got hot and put on a
show
And we’re up by five with one
quarter to go.
Then, quick as a flash, we’re down
by four.
31-27 is the final score.
Chorus: Say what?
Say what?
Mike: Yeah, we got 27, but we
needed some more.
Mike: Now, we’re not the champs,
y’understand;
But somehow, you see, we’re still
feelin’ grand.
You know what I’m sayin’, we’re
feelin’ glad
‘Cause we didn’t do anything bad.
We had lots of fun, I’m tellin’ y’all,
Except when they made us play
basketball.
Chorus: Say what?
Say what?
Mike: We didn’t want to play no
ball at all.
Mike: But you know what, folks,
this team of girls
Is more than pretty faces and hair
that curls.
The only thing is: they don’t know
it yet;
They can dribble and shoot with the best, you bet.
And I’m willin’ to bet, I’m makin’ the call:
Next year these girls will be playin’ ball.
Chorus: Say what?
Say what?
Mike: That’s right, Cougar
Girls, you’ll play basketball.
It seems as though the Cougars Girls
did not play winning basketball in 1995-96 because I have no post-season
banquet material to share with you. My
material jumps to the 1996-97 post-season banquet, where I was rapping again
like this:
We had a good season, all in all.
We had some fun and we played some
ball.
Only bad thing: We couldn’t shoot hoops.
When we lay it up, we be sayin’
“Oops”.
Say oops inside the head. Say oops inside the head.
Still we finished third in the ASIL Tournament, and
that means we won our final game that season.
Joe and I wanted things to get better, however, as I indicated in the
final stanza of “The ‘Mighty Cougar’ Rap”.
The coaches were happy, but slightly sullen.
And, come next season, Pellerito and
Mullen
Will not be happy and won’t have fun
‘Til the Mighty Cougars are Number
One.
Say hoops inside the head. Say hoops inside the head.
The next season wasn’t much
different. We came up short again,
losing the 1997-98 ASIL Championship in the final game to Aviano. Then, in our first European Championship
Tournament appearance, we lost our opening game, but beat Aviano in the second
round, and were eliminated in the third.
I was still inspired to write a rhyme entitled “The Nut-Kissers Sweet”
for the post-season banquet. The title
was inspired by a poem one of our players, Candida Kilgore, wrote, in which she
mentioned the girls’ pre-game superstition of kissing a nut. It was a “buckeye”, the famous Ohio State
symbol which, as we talked in the locker room before a game, would be passed
from player to player, each of them kissing it in turn. My banquet rhyme started with some highlights
of the various basketball foibles of our team members; then I ended it this
way:
There’s still hope that our shots are no longer
misses.
Perhaps, if we give the “buckeye”
more kisses?
Oh well, what’s it matter if the
game-time runs out?
What’s really important, what this
rhyme’s all about,
Is your coaches’ desire to repeat
and repeat
That what we’ll miss most is our
nut-kissers sweet.
My post-season banquet material now
jumps all the way to 2002-03, the final season for Joe and me, which was
shortened by cancellation of four games because of security concerns due to the
war in Iraq. Our team had great
potential not completely realized because of minimal practice time – practice
seldom attended by all eleven players.
Frequently, there were just nine girls; so, when we scrimmaged, I had to
be the “tenth girl”. This inspired me to
become “The Cougar Eminem” and present my version of one of the famous rapper’s
big hits.
I introduced myself by saying, “In
America, our best golfer is black and our best rapper is white. But, in Cougarland, our players are black and
gold (the team colors) and our rapper – tonight – is red.” Then, I started to roast the players, ending
each girl’s rhyme with the refrain that she couldn’t have done it “without me.” I began changing that refrain in the
following “raps”:
Our beloved ERIKA
Came from America.
But you’d think her place
Was in Outer Space
When she brought that ball down
around her knee,
The cryin’ you heard was comin’ from
me.
The laughing BRITTANY
The one who didn’t see
The need to get serious.
She was so delirious.
When she started playin’ finally,
She made me laugh
deliriously.
And here’s NAKIA.
We’re glad to see a
Good small forward
Keep goin’ toward the bucket.
But she sometimes did that
recklessly,
Sending bodies flyin’, including me.
That leaves us ASHLEE,
Our Captain Flash,
She made games borin’.
She was always scorin’.
She sank that line-drive
sporadically,
But she didn’t learn that shot from me.
Now, I should mention MR. P.,
The guy who made us who we be.
He likes to sing
And do his thing,
Tell jokes to us
While we ride the bus.
And he likes to stir up controversy.
So, I let him do that without me.
In they charge each Fall
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