Examining the factors that ended a historic classic

By Ron Brocato
Sports editor

A once-historic basketball tournament that had stood the test of time for 60 years has now been quieted for the past three Decembers.

The CYO Basketball Classic (1951-2019) was Louisiana’s oldest continuous high school roundball tournament until it met an abrupt end for a combination of reasons: 1. A pandemic; 2. The loss of the Allstate Sugar Bowl as its only sponsor; 3. Mostly importantly, the LHSAA’s decision to hold separate playoffs for Select and Non-Select schools.

Coaches of the teams that were the backbone of the tournament lost interest at that point, and I believe the CYO leadership did as well.

The split playoffs created a Division I bracket of just 11 teams, which included CYO staples Brother Martin, Jesuit, Holy Cross, St. Augustine, Archbishop Rummel and Archbishop Shaw from District 9-5A, along with St. Paul’s and John Curtis. Eight-time champion De La Salle was also a principal participant although it dropped down in class.

Catholic League coaches contended that the split created the likelihood that many of these schools would have to play each other four times during the season. They believed it made no sense to meet twice in district play, a third time in the D-I playoffs and possibly again in the CYO Tournament.

But Adrian Jackson, the current CYO director, wants to find a way to give the classic a new beginning and plans to encourage Catholic and even some public school coaches to meet with him in April following the Division I basketball tournament to explore the possibility of a restart. I applaud him for that.

The first CYO tournament, played at Tulane’s gym by just four Catholic schools (St. Aloysius, Jesuit, Holy Cross and Redemptorist), drew 3,000 spectators the first night of play and 4,000 for the championship and consolation games the following night, according to The Times-Picayune.

For the next 15 years, the tournament thrived until 1966.

Total integration had not yet reached the state’s high schools when the CYO invited St. Augustine, the city’s prominent high school for black males, which was not yet a member of the LHSAA, to participate in the 1965 games. The CYO also invited coed Xavier Prep. The two newcomers were eliminated in preliminary rounds.

They were invited back in 1966. Xavier Prep bowed to De La Salle, 71-56, on the first night, but St. Aug proved to be the class of the three-day event at the Loyola Fieldhouse.

Led by 6-5 forward Harold Sylvester and guard Calvin Johnson, the Purple Knights rallied from behind twice to beat Redemptorist, 59-54, and Jesuit, 57-50, then claimed the tournament title by downing defending champion De La Salle, 56-50. Sylvester was named the MVP. And, the CYO canceled the tournament.

But Catholic League coaches banded together in 1967 to continue a mid-December classic under the name Catholic Invitational Tournament (CIT), which was played at Jesuit. Among the teams invited were the original four (St. Aloysius, Jesuit, Holy Cross and Redemptorist), De La Salle, relatively new Archbishops Rummel and Shaw, Cor Jesu, Xavier Prep and St. Augustine.

It was a successful comeback, with the winner of the inaugural tournament of 1951, St. Aloysius, defeating De La Salle, 51-46, under new coach Andy Russo, in the title game.

Unfortunately, the CIT was a one-and-done event. In 1968, managers of the Rapides Parish Coliseum, in which the state championship (Top 20)tournament was held, asked the LHSAA to begin the state playoffs a week earlier to accommodate a livestock show in the Alexandria arena.

By then, the Catholic League had expanded to nine schools, which included St. Augustine, Rummel, Shaw and Cor Jesu. District games were played in two separate rounds, with the two winners meeting for the championship. So, there was no longer a need to determine a Catholic champion.

The CYO Tournament lay in state for two more years before it was revived in 1971 under director Matt Hill. The restart was a gala, 12-team tournament, which added Chalmette, St. John Prep and Newman to the mix. Rummel won the championship.

The tournament survived the next 48 years, thanks in part to the sponsorship by the Allstate Sugar Bowl. Then came the split playoffs, a global pandemic and a growing disinterest by coaches and CYO officials, which brought what had been Louisiana’s most momentous hardwood event to its end.

Can there be another restart?

rbrocato@clarionherald.org