On Saturday, January 27th, Fieldston Athletics hosted the 23rd annual Coaches vs. Cancer Basketball Classic. Featuring teams from the CHSAA, ACIS, Fairchester, NYCAL and the Ivy League, the event raised over 60,000 dollars through ticket sales, ad purchases and donations, breaking the 900,000 dollar total from the past 25 years (COVID-19 took away two years). All money fundraised goes to the American Cancer Society.“The energy of the event is amazing,” said Fieldston’s Athletic Director Gus Ornstein. “It’s one of the best events Fieldston does.”
Ray Barile, who recently retired from the Horace Mann School where he worked for 41 years and coached both boys and girls varsity basketball, started the Classic 25 years ago. The first Classic, a three-team round-robin at Manhattan College, raised 2,700 dollars. The next year, there were four teams, the year after that 5 teams and soon enough the whole Ivy League joined in. The event remained boys only until its sixth year when, after 12 hours of boy’s basketball, Steve Bluth, the Fieldston Athletic Director (AD) at the time, said to Barile, “Let’s do a girl’s event.” Barile laughed as he recounted the memory, “I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Despite initial skepticism, they met and decided to do it the following year. Fieldston hosted the girl’s event and Manhattan College hosted the boys. “It was like we’d always been running a girl’s event,” said Barile. “It went perfectly.” Each year it alternated between who played on what day. One year the boys played on Saturday and the girls on Sunday, the next it was flipped.
When Bluth decided to leave Fieldston to be the AD of the Trinity Preparatory School in Florida, Barile grew concerned about all the games held at Fieldston, and whether or not the new AD would continue the event. After a long search, Fieldston hired Gus Ornstein, former Fieldston, collegiate and NFL football player. Barile’s initial reaction to Gus’s hiring was, “Oh no. This young whippersnapper. I’m not gonna get along with this guy. College football player, Fieldston stud. I can’t deal with a guy like this.” Ornstein quickly proved Barile wrong. “I knew him for about two minutes and I fell in love with him. I knew it was going to be a perfect match.” Ornstein’s perspective was a little different. “I’ve known [Barile] literally my whole life,” said Ornstein. “He coached against me when I played football at Fieldston.” The rivalry was real. But after their meeting, a serious friendship formed. “I’m now retired,” said Barile. “But if I had to come back and work, I’d come back and work for Gus.”
This year’s Classic tipped off at 9:30 am and concluded around 9 pm. 12 hours of basketball, over 13 teams participating and over 60,000 dollars raised in total. Fieldston’s girls team played at 3 pm and the boys played at 4:10 pm.
Fieldston’s girls team got off to a hot start. With their ferocious full-court press and team play, they jumped to a huge lead early on. At the end of the first quarter, Fieldston led 27-3 and had 11 steals. The team never looked back, at halftime the score was 44-10 and by the 4th quarter, every single member of the team had touched the court. The resounding final score, 64-24, cemented the girls as a serious league title contender. Post-game, Captain Zoe Hort (Form V) emphasized that it was a team win. “Everyone on the team played a role and did their part, that’s the reason we won, not because of one person scoring.” The big win came with a lot of emotions: “The team really wanted to play hard,” said Assistant Coach Crystal Eng Won. “A lot of them know a family or friend that had cancer so this fundraiser meant a lot to them.”
While the girl’s team celebrated their win with smiles and snacks, Fieldston’s boys team began a fierce game against Trinity in the lower gym. The stands were packed, the gym was hot and Amiri Moreno (Form VI) announced – it was awesome. Fieldston got off to a slow start and trailed early. At halftime, Coach John Dwinell said to the team, “stay consistent and play hard.” The team played the previous night and fatigue had an obvious effect. Nevertheless, Coach Dwinell encouraged his team to stay resilient. He told them, “We gotta keep going, everybody has to contribute.” Led by team captain Gavin Wright (Form VI) and Ellis Lynch-Kahn (Form V), Fieldston soared in the second half. At one point their lead was 20 points Final score: Fieldston 54 – Trinity 40
As the team came out of the locker room, Coach Dwinell beamed with pride and encouraged them to eat from the massive stack of pizzas. He has emotional ties to the event, something he expressed often to his team. “When [Coach Dwinell] talked to us about it, he would say it’s a privilege to play basketball,” said Wright. “He would always tell us about one of his older players in college who died of cancer. We knew this event meant a lot to us and Coach, so we had to go out and get a win and that’s what we did.”
As the long day neared the final buzzer, Barile showed no signs of fatigue. He took a minute to take in the roaring crowd; the on-court chatter and the players joking around on the bleachers. When he spoke, he beamed, “I just love it. For something to last 25 years, it’s bigger than one person. It’s not about me, it’s about every single team and every single player who has ever participated.”
