Subject: Here's the City Paper's take on the feud, but
Posted by: dpc1994 on Thu Aug 7 2008 1:12:22 PM
Message:
my cousins (who are all in their early 40's now) told me that there was
some big-time HS tournament that DeMatha lobbied to be invited to but
only if St. Anthony's was excluded. If you look at JT2's record at St.
Anthony's, excluding them from ANY tournament, if you said you had
the best schools from DC there, was tantamount to mental retardation.
The tournament folks took DeMatha and left St. Anthony's and, as they
say in the 'hood: it was on like popcorn.
And St. Anthony played the "little program that could" mantra to the
hilt. It was a DINKY little place tucker over near Catholic U. The HS
has long since closed, but I believe the parish is still there. It's right
down the street from Island Jim's and Colonel Brooks in Brookland.
Maryland's situation with the DC area recruits is a bit different. Some
fans point to the death of Len Bias and the tightening of academic
standards for incoming athletes and the bad publicity that went with the
aftermath. I'm sure Testudo Mike and D3Terp have better theories than
that, but when Lawrence Moten got that skinny envelope from Maryland
and the staff was making the Scooby Doo noise? "Roo? Rus?" That
wasn't good. Before that quite a few notable DC area ballers went to
Maryland. I mean, who can forget the Lewis brothers? Cedric and
Derrick both went to Carroll. They couldn't do all that much scoring but
EVERYONE over in NE DC that played pick-up ball knew this: The
Lewis boys could block shots for days. Jerrod Mustaf was a good
player for Maryland--an all-time DeMatha great. Duane Simpkins
played for Gary, another DeMatha kid. Adrian Branch was no slouch
for the Terps. I can still see him in that shiny yellow old school Terp
uniform. He's a DeMatha guy as well and he's a studio analyst
nowadays. A pretty good Terp. Steve Francis is from Takoma Park
and that makes him a local guy that played at Maryland. Johnny
Rhodes was from DC and had some of the quickest hands the ACC
ever saw during his time. That's not me saying it, El Deano did. Lonny
Baxter was a local kid that done good at Maryland.
Now the guys that didn't pan out like McCray and Garrison(one of
Wooten's last kids that he coached for all four years), that's going to
happen.
As for the DeMatha guys, you might want to do a mapquest from
DeMatha to Comcast and see if it might not be a tad too close for
comfort for some of those guys that want to see something a little
different.
And don't cry for Maryland too too much, now: some of their most
memorable players aren't local. Steve Blake, Drew Nicholas, Tahj
Holden, Ryan Randle, Byron Mouton. Those guys got 'em a natty.
Mike Jones helped 'em get an ACC title. They'll be OK.
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