Meet Roman Catholic’s most dedicated basketball fans, ‘fine gentlemen’ who follow them near and far
The alumni on "Expert Row," many of whom graduated in the 1960s and '70s, are fervent followers of the Cahillites. That loss to Father Judge in the Catholic League final still hurts.
READING — Just before settling into the bleachers to watch yet another Roman Catholic High School basketball game, Butch Adamo fished in his pocket and pulled out a small photo of his late wife, Pam. Oh, how Butch and Pam enjoyed watching the mighty Cahillites together.
“This Roman basketball keeps me going,” he said.
Butch, 72, lost Pam in 2023, but he still joins a crew of loyal Roman alumni at games. This crew of about 25 to 30 does not have a cute nickname, like student cheering sections, although Roman coach Chris McNesby says he has heard the name Expert Row used.
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“They’re super loyal,” McNesby said after Roman had blown out Central York, the defending PIAA Class 6A state champion, by 50 points in a playoff game Wednesday at Reading High School. “It’s nice to see friendly faces when you’re in a tough environment.”
These friendly faces also can have loud voices, particularly when the referees make bad calls or no calls against Roman, and sometimes an official will later steal a glance at Expert Row to acknowledge that he might have blown a call. Expert Row loves Roman, and knows hoops.
“The PCL refs and state refs know them, so maybe that’s not good,” McNesby said, laughing.
A couple of times, in fact, a member of Expert Row has been kicked out of a game.
“You do what you’ve got to do,” said Joe Mazur, another member of the Roman Class of 1970, a retired management consultant who grew up in Roxborough and Manayunk and lives in Plymouth Meeting. “You’ve got to get their attention.”
Mazur figures he has been to more than 100 venues to watch high school basketball — and not just Roman. But the Cahillites are his true love. They have given him and every other Roman basketball fan so much to cheer for merely the last century or so.
Nine Roman teams won Catholic League titles under Billy Markward from 1922 to 1934. Speedy Morris jumped to Roman from the CYO team at St. John the Baptist Church in Manayunk to lead the Cahillites to six Catholic League titles from 1969 to 1980. Roman won 10 league titles under Dennis Seddon from 1989 to 2008. Big-time college recruits have abounded.
“They think we’re some kind of a cult,” Mazur said with the hint of a smile. “The bottom line is that we’re just alums with a big-time love of the game.”
What Roman does not have much of — yet — is a lustrous pedigree in the state basketball playoffs, primarily since the Catholic League did not join the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association until 2007. The Cahillites are working on their fifth state championship.
Winning the Catholic League championship before a noisy packed house at the Palestra still seems to be paramount to the longtime Roman fans, which explains why the 41-34 loss to Father Judge in this year’s title game on Feb. 23 hurt so much.
(Still hurts, actually.)
“I took the loss at the Palestra harder than if the Eagles would have lost the Super Bowl,” said Angelo Altomare, Roman Class of 1967, who grew up in East Falls and lives in Jenkintown. He retired after 35 years as a teacher in the Hatboro-Horsham School District and is now an adjunct professor at La Salle University.
McNesby, in his second stint as Cahillites coach, pointed out that it is difficult for Roman students to travel to state playoff games in such burgs as Reading or Hershey and that the state playoff games won’t, and maybe never will, carry the weight of the Catholic League playoffs.
So the Cahillites will take all the support they can get. The crew, most in purple, found each other a half hour before Wednesday’s game and formed a fortress a few rows behind the Roman bench. The game was so lopsided that Expert Row felt little need to ride the refs.
Mazur, for one, had done his pregame scouting report on Central York and had decided that the Panthers would have trouble with Roman’s size, depth, and quickness. With Roman up by 23 points at halftime, he checked his phone to provide a player’s career scoring update.
The Roman players know all about Expert Row, too.
“Makes me a little nervous, but at the same time, confident,” said Shareef Jackson, a Lafayette-bound senior center whose father, Marc, played at Roman before playing at Temple and in the NBA for seven seasons, two with the 76ers.
Jackson, whose brother Sammy, a junior, scored 30 points against Central York, says he sees the “old guys” all the time, but then stopped himself, smiled and said, “These fine gentlemen come out and see us no matter where we are.”
These fine gentlemen (and in some cases, women), he said, add to Roman’s mystique. At the same time, McNesby said, they respect the circle of the basketball program not to intrude. Roman had no cheerleaders Wednesday, and Central York had most of the fans.
“Keep your foot on the gas, Roman! Keep your foot on the gas!” one Cahillites fan yelled as Roman scored one fast-break basket after the next.
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Expert Row won’t have to travel as far to Roman’s next game, a quarterfinal matchup against Coatesville at Norristown High School on Saturday at 1 p.m. It is not exactly a secret that the old guys, or fine gentlemen, would love a rematch with Judge in the state final. Judge plays Saturday, too, against Hazleton Area in Easton.
Roman, which made 63% of its shots Wednesday, made only 24% against Judge at the Palestra, with Shareef and Sammy Jackson sinking a combined 2 of 19.
In any case, the Cahillites’ tradition is never too far away. They wear a patch on their purple uniforms this year to honor Tom McKenna, the inscrutable statistician nicknamed Hockey Puck, who died at 74 of esophageal cancer just before the season started.
Adamo, a retired mechanic who became sort of famous as the regular caller Butch from Manayunk on Angelo Cataldi’s old sports-talk radio show, plans to be in Norristown, or Hershey, or wherever Roman will be playing, and Pam will be there, in spirit.
But Adamo did say of the Judge loss, “I’m still having a hard time getting over that.”