Turning the Wheel: A New Age for CAC Basketball
by Jason on
Turning the Wheel: A New Age for CAC Basketball
Before I take a self indulgent trip down memory lane, I want to give you the cliffnotes, the highlights, the tl:dr for any of you born after the year 2000.
- I’m not going anywhere! You can’t get rid of me with a corporate buyout.
- CAC Basketball isn’t changing. Staff, Stats, write-ups, draft leagues, podcasts, everything you love will still be right here
- There are a lot of fun and exciting perks headed your way should you choose to take advantage of this partnership with Volo Sports
An Age of CAC Basketball has come to an end and a new one with Volo Sports is beginning today. This quote from one of my all-time favorite fantasy series feels appropriate.
“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.” ~Robert Jordan
I’ve had an amazing 19 years as part of the CAC Basketball Leagues (née CRFC Basketball) and while I am looking forward to many more, I’m going to take a few hundred words to reminisce before this Age fades to myth.
To say CAC Basketball has changed the course of my life is a gross understatement. I knew all of two people in the city when I picked up and moved to Cambridge after college. In 2005, I was bored out of my mind at my first desk job, contemplating giving it up and going to cooking school. My roommate took Tang Soo Do classes at a gym around the corner from our apartment near the Cambridge Galleria. He said, ‘they have this weird little basketball court at the Cambridge Racquetball & Fitness Club. A bunch of guys play, you should give it a shot.’ All it took was a couple of hungover Saturday morning pick-up runs to know that these were my people.
League sign-ups for a Fall Basketball season were already open so I took a look. They would track my stats and post them on a website? My mind was blown. Did some guy named ‘The Wolverine’ refuse to acknowledge my presence and ignore me in the first few write-ups of my league games? Obviously, because who the hell was I? Finally, after blocking his shot a couple times in pick-up, he put my name in a write-up. My name, on the internet, for playing hoops. I hadn’t had that feeling since my mom was clipping Worcester Telegram & Gazette articles about a 3-0 loss as my high school soccer team dropped our 5th straight game. I did make 25 saves though (ALL-STATE).
I was hooked. That’s all it took. The morning after playing in my league I’d get to work at 8 (or 9, or 10, depending), check the website to see what else had happened last night and then again after lunch to see what had been posted on the message boards. There was someone named ‘Mixtape’ that was both hilarious and absolutely insane, calling out anyone who ruffled his feathers the previous week. His posts got me through each and every day. The anonymity of the old message boards feels like another world.
I decided to take the plunge and sign on as a stat-keeper, pumping out a couple blogs a week and seeing how much I could get away with. Yes covering the games on the court, but also tracking the drama off it and throwing in some mockery of basketball players that were much more skilled than I am. Was I a little proud when they would look up to the balcony and taunt me, an innocent bystander, after making a nice play against an opponent on the court? What do you think? They were taunting me, ME!
Stepping onto that weird little court, I have made life-long friends. Three guys I only know because of CAC Basketball were groomsmen in my wedding. In 2006 Dial-a-pizza was offering a $5 pizza deal, so Adam Kneeland and I would walk around Cambridge and Somerville after games obsessively talking about how we’d be better next week and scheme to beat the next league all-star we came across. Yes, we referred to B league players as league all-stars because that’s exactly what they were.
Thanks to a young, but already bald, Josh Smith, I was the first full-time hire for the basketball leagues as the Player President in late 2007. I was also the last full-time hire, so make of that what you will. Why Josh hired me and thought I was the person who could expand the leagues beyond the walls of that weird little gym I'll never know, but am eternally thankful for. I brought gasoline to an already burning fire. None of us were going pro, but it didn’t matter, it mattered that we were hooping.
Did I mention my wedding? I’m not sure if you’ve heard of the 4-time MVP and one of the best female ballers that stepped foot in CAC, but Caitlin Vestal Tibbetts is HER. My wife, the love of my life and much, much better half thanks to CAC Hoops. We have three amazing, wonderful, precocious, and TALL girls thanks to the Co-Ed Leagues. Hashtag girldad. While on the court the CoEd competition was fierce, from 2007-2010 it off the court there were not one, not two, not three, not four, but five weddings. FIVE, from people meeting each other playing rec league hoops! Of all the decision tree branches that could have altered my life, getting out of bed that Saturday in July of 2005 to play pick-up was the only correct choice.
Even as I took over all day-to-day hoops operations, the best part of this gig was always hiring, helping and marveling at the next generation of league coverage all-stars in the years that followed. It was an absolute privilege. Calling what Jesse Corwin did with “Hangin’ With B Draft” a ‘podcast’ is an insult to his wit, effort and skill. Calling Bobby Haas’ prodigious write-ups anything other than novellas sells him short. We had on-court villains like Brian Fabry, Marc Frail and Mike Gerrity all turn around and cover leagues. Like their personalities on the court, they’d poke and prod in the write-ups too, keeping players active, entertained and involved in the league. Rory Duyon pulled double duty as a play-by-play guy but also taking the time to rank the all-time CoEd League teams for no reason other than the love of the game. A young Sam Boyer came up with the insane idea to give league captains a salary cap to bid on players and sign players for multiple seasons, it made me so proud. No other rec league has anything like the Franchise League, which has lived on for over a decade since its inception. 1 on 1 challenges, 3v3 tournaments, the Hall of Fame, League Nights Out and the CAC CUP are all things outside our league play and very, very much within it.
I honestly could spend another thousand words celebrating the innumerable players, officials and staff that have made our leagues what they are. CAC Basketball has been a part of my life for almost half of it. There are only a handful of guys (Kap, Jamil and Ruff) who are still around and can say the same. Matty Bells started the B Draft League, and told guys, it doesn’t matter how good you are or aren’t on the court, I LOVE YOUR GAME. Francis Plaise covered the Women’s 4v4 league in their heyday and celebrated half court bombs at West Somerville Neighborhood School from our women hoopers long before Caitlin Clark entered the public consciousness. Seth Mclaughlin made everything about wrestling for some reason. O’Cal, Hinkel, JRod, Manning, Bradshaw, Rubiano, Roach, Zuckerman, Graham, Popko, Wolf, DMac, Foreman, Finn, Preston, Weitzer, Said, Counts, Rubin, Hopp, Tejeda, and Englander are all names that don’t mean anything to many of the players today. But to me, they mean everything. The institutional knowledge and history that lives within every bounce of the ball, every made basket and every championship run continues to grow since the leagues were first started in the Fall of 2000 by Josh.
When Covid shut the leagues down in 2020, like many, I was a bit lost. No job and two kids at home all-day everyday, it was somehow over and underwhelming all at the same time. I focused on the little things, every single day. Start a house project, ignore the one that was already started but unfinished, wipe down the groceries, try to keep the kindergartner learning how to read and survive until 4 pm. After 4 PM the rules in the house were suspended. Do whatever you want, go nuts. No one really wants to remember, but you do. Through it all I needed to hear a ball bouncing and live-tweet Joey Lisella taunting bigger, stronger defenders after lighting them up for 30.
Josh and I were waiting in the wings through it all, plotting a comeback. When I got word that we were able to start back up in March 2021, even with only four leagues, I was ecstatic. So much so that I was at the scoreboard every. single. night. I was so happy CAC Basketball was back in my life even though I didn’t know how long we would last. I wasn’t the only one, every player was so happy to be back that only one technical foul was called across all four leagues. You know it was KD, don’t act surprised.
The fact that we still are still here, to the extent that we are, has made me so proud. Every season, every team, every game, is a small victory. Over the last three years, all the Harrys, Ians, Chas(es?), Alans, Jamils and Devins, have carried on a legacy that stretches back to the turn of the century. That’s bananas. This is rec league hoops!
Look, I know this is reading as a very long-winded goodbye, but that’s not what it is. It’s a celebration of what has come before and what is still to come. Celebrating an Age that has passed by while looking forward to the Age yet to come. Am I basically Rand Al’Thor? Is that what I’m implying? My editors insist I not be too niche, but too late. I started reminiscing and the words and emotion wouldn’t stop. Also I haven’t put together a write-up in a long time and miss it.
I’m not going anywhere. Most importantly to you, CAC Basketball isn’t going anywhere. Our leagues, structures, stats and write-ups aren’t changing. Even still, I can admit that things won’t be exactly the same. We’re not drinking on the balcony any more (Reeves) and I’m certainly not ’23 like that’ any more either.
Volo Sports recognizes the value of our community, camaraderie and obsession with hoops. It’s been 17 years since I’ve had a legit boss in a corporate structure, so I need to get in where I can fit in while carrying CAC Basketball forward into this new Age.
I’m excited to utilize the resources, know-how and expectations of a much bigger company to raise our leagues to even higher heights in the future. There will be new locations, more perks, more sports to play and volunteering opportunities with kids. All that is right around the corner.
Let me close with this. I love CAC Basketball with every fiber of my being and I’m thrilled to be able to move forward with Volo Sports. Nothing is going to change, our Winter 2025 leagues will run like we would with any other season. We are going to play more games, track more stats, talk more trash and crown new champions.