PRUDENCE PIONEER
Thursday March 12, 1987
SPORTS LOCAL
Banner Day For Prudence Academy
By Brett T. Calhoun
Come next October, Prudence Academy will hang its first championship banner from the Veterans’ Memorial Gymnasium rafters. After seventy years of trying, boys’ varsity are finally state champions in basketball. In a town that produced two NBA cagers during the 1950s, three Mr. Basketballs, and dozens of scholarship athletes at Division I and II NCAA schools, Thursday’s championship game at the Garden was a long time coming.
Seventy years ago, Prudence had the fifth largest population in the Commonwealth, only trailing behind Boston, Worcester, Lowell, and Lawrence. Seventy years ago, there were no television sets in our living rooms, let alone color sets with cable. Seventy years ago, people probably had to slice their own bread and fight dinosaurs on their way to work. You get the point. It well and truly has been a very long time coming. Now, none of that matters. The wait is over.
Tomorrow our town will pack the Vet and welcome Coach Rod Thomas Smyth’s team home. Oh, and we’ll probably celebrate that shiny new trophy their bringing back with them too. Their victory lap will be all the sweeter given star shooting guard Ricky Pardo’s tragic and senseless death in early October, at what should have been the start of his senior season. He led the Leathermen in scoring for his first three years and still ranks third on the Academy’s books for points all-time.
In the final, as throughout an impressive tournament run, it was senior point guard Elliot MacRae who tallied more points and assists than anyone else on the floor. He also launched the decisive 14-0 run on either side of the half with one of his three steals. The open fastbreak bucket for junior forward Craig Heaton punctuated a stellar team performance on the defensive end. Prudence held Springfield to only 17 of 41 shooting from the field in another typically gritty, dominant display. The only thing that kept the score line competitive in the first ten minutes of the contest was the nervous officiating. Once the whistles relaxed, the etching was on the trophy.
Chap Butler, who although saw limited minutes due to a late injury, ended his playing career at center court and was the first player to find his way to the medal presentation area. There he told the Pioneer,“When it all comes down to it, this was all for Ricky. They’ll remember our names forever, but only because we never forgot his.” McRae declined to comment as he brought over a portrait of Pardo, the unofficial captain and ultimate sixth man, to the podium. He then dashed off to find Pardo’s mother Mona in the stands. It was the first game she’s attended since her son’s passing.
Defensive stalwart and junior center Gino Petrosian fought through tears to describe the scene. “This is just incredible. I never thought [Prudence] would be a part of anything like this. It makes every effort for every rebound in practice feel worth it and more.”
Since he’s the man who ended the drought, and only two decades into his tenure as head coach, we’ll leave the last word to Rod Thomas Smyth. “Proud. That’s how I feel right now, and I’ll never stop feeling this way about such an extraordinary group of young men and the town that’s raised them up and turned up for them each step of the way. Just proud.”
Tomorrow we will turn up for them one more time. Proudly so. Admission is free to all, but donations to the Luciano ‘Ricky’ Pardo Memorial Scholarship fund are strongly encouraged.
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