The 44-43 Title Game
On a late winter afternoon at the Civic Center in 1995, Steve Kane's University City High School basketball team beat Bill Ellerbee's Simon Gratz 44-43 to win the first and only Public League boys basketball championship in University City's 22-season history. Junior forward Anthony "Chop" Harris — called "Chop" because of his propensity for fouling in practice — scored 12 second-half points and grabbed 13 rebounds for the Jaguars, who finished 22-2 against a Gratz team that had been 24-3 entering the game.
"It Was Like We Were Having a Little Conversation"
The Chop Harris championship-game story Ted Silary captured afterward — and it's the defining Steve Kane story — began the night before, when Harris went to the movies with his mother and siblings Friday night, decided not to stay at his grandmother's in West Philly (a short walk from school), and rode home to North Philly instead. Saturday morning, broke, with no SEPTA money, and with the entire Chop Harris personality braced for the wrath of Coach Kane for missing the walk-through practice.
He called Coach Kane instead. Kane was calm.
I thought I was going to catch it. I thought he was going to scream. But when I called him, surprisingly he was calm. It was like we were sitting right next to each other, having a little conversation. His response kind of shocked me.
That was Steve Kane: the guy who spent 26 seasons building a basketball program out of a West Philadelphia neighborhood high school, coaching players with nicknames like Chop, Wobbles, Showboat, Butter, and Skimoe — and treating each one of them like the kind of kid you'd want to sit next to on the couch and have a little conversation with.
