Coach Bob Mackey, center, goes over game strategy in the huddle with the Christ the King Royals during a game this season. Photo courtesy of Christ The King High School.
It’s hard to believe that to find the breeding ground for future college, NBA, and WNBA stars—and even Olympians—one doesn’t need to look much further than a Middle Village school hidden in an alcove of trees on Metropolitan Avenue.
For the last 49 years, Christ the King Regional High School has earned a reputation as an athletic powerhouse, producing a virtual Who’s Who list among basketball players that have played for and won championships at nearly every athletic level available.
Most recently, with the selections of former alumni Sue Bird and Tina Charles to Team USA’s Women’s Basketball Team for the Summer 2012 Olympic Games in London, the Queens private Catholic high school has produced more Olympians for women’s basketball than any other high school in the country, with three alumni becoming Olympic athletes. Chamique Holdsclaw was the first.
That only adds to the list of accomplished athletes that have emerged from Christ the King High School’s heralded athletic program in recent years, the school already boasting current or former NBA players such as Lamar Odom, Speedy Claxton, and Erick Barkley as well as WNBA players such as Bird, Charles and Holdsclaw.
Yet the school has always maintained a strict policy of putting academics first, priding itself on molding something more than just model athletes—but model citizens.
The Men Behind the Lines
Longtime varsity basketball coach and Athletic Director Bob Mackey remembers well what he initially thought when the late John Savage, then the school’s athletic director, offered him a job as an assistant coach of Christ the King’s girls basketball team in 1991.
“I told him flat out ‘I don’t coach girls’ sports,” said Mackey, a Rockaway Beach native who then had primarily coached men’s basketball for years at St. Nicolas of Tolentine Catholic High School in the Bronx before the school closed that year.
The reason? During the travels that led Mackey into coaching, he ended up coaching a girls team at Oneonta High School during what he described as a terrible season, resulting in a 1-21 win-loss record.
However, as a favor to Savage—who helped lay the groundwork for Christ the King’s rise as a regional Catholic school athletic powerhouse during the 1970s—Mackey decided to take a chance and coach the girls’ basketball team, the Royals.
The rest was history. And Mackey’s run with the Royals certainly made its share of it, winning nine New York State championships as an assistant coach with the Royals before he took the head coaching job.
From there, the Royals continued to thrive under Mackey’s leadership, winning a myriad of accolades including the New York State Class A championships, multiple New York State Catholic championships, the team’s first-ever undefeated season in 2004-05, No.1 rankings in USA Today’s national poll of high schools, and Brooklyn/Queens Diocesean titles, including this year’s championship.
At least three players under his watch—Bird, Charles and Holdclaw—have gone on to be WNBA No. 1 draft picks.
Mackey, who also teaches chemistry at the school, doesn’t let that success stop him from putting a strict value on academics for the school’s players.
“The school rule is that if you’re failing two subjects, you’re disqualified until the next report card,” he said. “But to me, if you’re failing even one subject, I don’t think you should be playing.”
The GPA for the girls’ varsity basketball team is one statistic that Mackey finds great pride in, with the girls earning just under a 92 average collectively last year.
Guard Sierra Calhoun, a sophomore at Christ the King High School, goes one-on-one with a defender, showing off the skills that make her one of the city’s top female basketball players. Photo courtesy of Christ The King High School.
“The kids are worth it. The kids make it worth it, it’s all about the kids,” Mackey said. “It was great to win [Daily News] Coach of the Year, but it was much better for me to see Sierra Calhoun win [Daily News] Queens Player of the Year. Or for Rayne Conell, who had surgery to take out a cyst from her back, to come back and it worked out really well for her.”
It’s his bond with his players and passion for coaching that keeps Mackey—a married man with one daughter, Kerry, a sophomore at Christ the King—coming back after two decades to a grueling daily schedule that can extend to as long as 16 to 18 hours on game days during the season.
That schedule includes juggling four chemistry classes, constant meetings with teachers, administrators, players and parents, study hall, two hours of practice—or a regular season game—closing the gym around 9 p.m., heading home at 10 p.m., sleep and waking at 4:30 a.m. to start the whole cycle over again. And in between, Mackey’s phone is constantly ringing with scouts from colleges asking about the school’s athletes.
However, Mackey insists, he has grown to love the schedule, and for the chance to teach and coach the girls he has worked with through the years, it makes it all worth while.
The same passion is expressed by boys basketball coach and co-athletic director Joseph Arbitello, a Christ the King alumni who has coached at the school since 1997 before taking the reins in 2000.
The Queens Village native, married to Veronica Oswiecimski-Arbitello, the school’s 11th grade Assistant Principal and with two young daughters, has garnered a state championship in 2010 as well as several city championships and the Daily News Boys Coach of the Year award under his belt.
“I go in thinking that we’re going to win every year, because I feel that we have the best coaches and the best student athletes and I don’t think there is a reason why we can’t compete for a city championship every year,” he said.
Regarding his academic philosophy, Arbitello said he and Mackey both carefully monitor the grades of each player. In fact, they know right down to the last test score how well their athletes are doing, with both coaches not hesitating to call in parents to discuss any slump in grades.
“We take academics very seriously, and it becomes something where it’s just part of the culture,” he said.
Boasting SAT scores for their school that rank among the top 15 percent in the nation, the school’s history regents test scores have historically been over 90 percent with the past three years scoring an average of 97 percent, according to Peter Mannarino, principal of Christ the King High School.
Mannarino praised both Arbitello and Mackey for their commitment to academics, noting that a recent study by the school showed that students within the athletic program have often achieved greater academic success in comparison to many of their peers.
“They work really hard to make sure their athletes succeed academically,” he said. “For these two, academics is first with them.”
Stars of Tomorrow
If asked to pick a standout of his team, Mackey doesn’t have to point much further than Sierra Calhoun.
Recently turned 16, Calhoun, a Brooklyn-born sophomore who grew up around the game her whole life, started out wanting to play basketball at age 6 as she spent time with her brother, Omar Calhoun—another current Christ the King standout star.
“I wanted to do the same thing he did, so once I started, I never stopped,” Sierra said.
In only her second year, Sierra has already begun turning heads, winning the Daily News All-Queens girls basketball Player of the Year award this year. In addition, according to Mackey—who called her a “great ambassador for Christ the King and a great ambassador for basketball”—Sierra is trying out for Team USA’s 17 and under team that will play in the World Games at the Netherlands this summer.
Sierra, who boasts a 90.1 GPA, credits the school’s coaching staff for her development.
“I have a great coach in Bob Mackey,” she said. “You never want to slack in practice…you always have to work hard, and he pushes us to get us better.”
A very serious and focused student off the court, Sierra is always doing something related to basketball and schoolwork. “I’m not really the type to hang out,” she admits. “That’s not something that’s productive. I’m usually watching basketball, working on my game, doing homework, studying the game.”
Despite playing in the same school with Omar—considered widely as being among the top basketball players in New York City—Sierra said she does not feel competitive with her brother, but rather very close, and even protective.
The only time Sierra—who is hoping to be in the WNBA one day and aspires to become a sports announcer—feels competitive against Omar is when the two play against each other one-on-one .
“We don’t practice against each other that much now; it gets too competitive. When I was younger, I didn’t have a chance against him. But now, he has to play me; now, he has to be serious; there’s no playing around,” she said before adding with a laugh, “now he really has to play me, and he just might lose.”
That’s quite a statement, considering Omar, 18, a former Gatorade High School Player of the Year award winner in 2011, averaged 25.7 points, 8.0 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.2 steals this past season, leading the Royals to a 19-8 record.
Arbitello calls Omar, a senior now with a GPA of 90, “by far the best player I’ve ever coached. He’s what everyone else will be compared to.”
By Jean-Paul Salamanca
jp.salamanca@theforumnewsgroup.com
