We Won!

In a prior episode, I talked about when I was director of a residential treatment center in Westchester County, New York, called St. Christopher's.

This was in the early 1990s.

Eighty-four teenage males and females lived there in cottages.

I lived in a house right off of the campus.

These were young people from the lowest income, highest crime neighborhoods of New York City.

Most of them had been in and out of foster homes their entire lives.

And St. Christopher's was kind of the end of the line for them.

When I arrived at St. Christopher's, there were no activities, no structure.

Kids were getting bored, always getting into trouble, fighting each other.

So I thought, okay, let's start with the basketball team, all right? A lot of these played hoops in the city.

And let's start a boys' team and a girls' team.

And we'll call ourselves the Cougars.

Why do we call ourselves the Cougars? Well, it kind of matched with St.

Chris.

But also, when I went to high school, the Cougars was the name for the high school I played.

So we were the St. Chris Cougars.

We played area high schools in Westchester County.

The girls did okay.

They won, let's say, you know, almost half of their games, you know.

The boys...

Got demolished.

Every game.

Every game because they were playing against these kids who probably started in middle school together.

And then they had like real coaches, okay? We were just throwing these boys together.

We just met each other.