BCHerbert {l Wrote}:BCMurt09 {l Wrote}:innocentbystander {l Wrote}:HJS {l Wrote}:Dick Rosenthal {l Wrote}:BCMurt09 {l Wrote}:Pelham is the most interesting town in Toughchester. Sandwiched between New Roc, Mount Vernon, and the Bronx they live with a siege mentality there. It's no way to live.
Yes, and there is that one dead end street where the houses sit directly on the border with the Bronx that is (or at least used to be) inhabited by a bunch of First Department Judges and certain city officials who were able to check off the requirement that they live in the 1st Department or City while still sending their kids to Pelham public schools.
This is true (Elm Tree, Beech Tree, Park, Shore)... whatever abuts Spit Rock.
Freshman year of college, my best friend grew up in Mahopac (wherever that is.) I don't know if it is Toughchester or not, but I'll bet is pretty close.
It is the first town in Putnam across the border from Toughchester. Every so often there is a fight over which county gets it. It's not far from Donald J. Trump State Park, so you'd probably fit in well.
Back to hoops, Stepinac had a kid sign with Carolina this year, RJ Davis. After Ty Jerome (Iona Prep) the only notable hoops recruit I can think of in recent memory our of Toughchester. Marlon Taylor from Mount Vernon plays for LSU and they had someone go to Kentucky in the last five or so years.
Iona and Stepinac are basically just turning themselves into sports schools. Iona offers athletic scholarships (though they don't call them that, they just tell the kid a rich alum will foot the bill for four years). The school in the Bronx likes to think of itself as Regis Monday-Friday, Iona Prep on Saturday.
You need to brush up on your Toughchester history, son! Allan Griffin Jr. from Ossining/Stepinac signed with Illinois in 2018, Jordan Tucker from White Plains/Stepinac signed with Duke in 2017 and now he's with Butler, Bryce Wills from White Plains/Iona Prep signed with Stanford in 2018, Aundre Hyatt from White Plains/Stepinac/Some other Prep School signed with LSU, Obi Toppin from Ossining and 2020 Player of The Year signed with Dayton, Jacob Toppin from Ossining signed with Rhode Island, and the dorks from Scarsdale are sending a kid named Jayshen Saigal to play D-1 at Lehigh.
This is all interesting information. I did not know Toppin had a brother or that he was headed to Rhode Island. As I said, the changing demographics of the River Towns lead me to believe that the basketball talent would be going down significantly. I had heard through the grapevine that Stepinac was going the North Jersey Catholic School route of being an athletic program attached to a nominal educational institution, but of course, Stepinac was always a nominal educational institution. Did not know Iona was all in on the same thing—although there were some shenanigans that went on back in the day when I was coming out of the NYBC, but that was strictly football only.
Speaking of which, is there any football talent left in Toughchester/Section 1? It was always a spotty—but Roosevelt and Gorton were usually good for a couple of D1 players every year in Yonkers. Ditto for New Roc and White Plains. And Iona and Stepinac as well. Hackley had a stretch of seven or eight years where they decided to match Poly Prep and recruited the Tri State Area aggressively, but they deserve-emphasized the program for a variety of reasons. Mahopac, Carmel, Lakeland and Fox Lane (alma mater of the tragic David Greene) usually had couple of kids between them and way up north Po-town High School used to have about one kid per year, usually a WR who would usually end up failing out of Syracuse or Pitt.
And of course the biggest public school program, North Rockland turned out a couple of D1 players every year until the North Jersey Catholic Schools started recruiting out of there hard in the mid-90s—although it is now my understanding that because of the aforementioned demographic shifts there really isn’t any talent there anymore.
The funny thing about Toughchester football back in the day was that almost of all of the public school kids that got a lot of hype (Harold Gayden and Sammy Moldanado come immediately to mind) ended up being complete busts in college, while the kids who did end up playing well—Nealon Greene and Derrick Lassic come to mind—got only nominal press.