Tony Fauci - Captain of the 1958 Regis High School Boys Basketball
WSJ - The basketball team at Regis High School had a 1-16 record as the players entered a rival’s gym in the winter of 1958 fully expecting to leave with yet another loss. The other team’s star was a future NBA coach who would one day run the New York Knicks. Regis was led by a diminutive future doctor who would one day run the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “Nobody gave us a chance,” said John Zeman, a Regis alumnus. “Everyone figured it was going to be a blowout.” But there was one teenager who looked at this demoralizing collection of data and came to a wildly optimistic conclusion. “Tony said no,” he said. “We’re going to win this game. And we did.” Tony, the team captain better known as Fauch, a short kid with a thick Brooklyn accent who led his overmatched team to a highly improbable victory in the biggest game of his life, now answers to a name that most Americans have come to recognize: Dr. Anthony Fauci.
When he learned that Fauci was the captain of his basketball team, his former colleague Mike Goldrich once replied: “Tony, how could you possibly be the captain of a basketball team?” But he also knows that some people are smaller than their heights. Fauci was always bigger. Here’s the scouting report on Fauci: classic point guard, excellent ballhandler, pesky defender. Six of his classmates and teammates described him as a tenacious competitor in short shorts and striped socks whose feistiness on the court defied some parts of his personality and reflected others. “He was ready to drive through whoever was in his way,” said Bob Burns. “He was just a ball of fire,” Zeman said. “He would literally dribble through a brick wall.”
He also happened to be one of Regis’s best players. Fauci was the outside threat, and his pal Artie Guarino was the inside force. “It was like Mutt and Jeff with Guarino and Fauci,” said George Garces, one of the school’s three cheerleaders. Fauci scored 10.2 points per game, according to the school yearbook, but his teammates say those stats were deceptive. The team would have fallen apart without him. “The leader doesn’t always score the most points,” Zeman said. “He was the leader.” “He wasn’t a yeller, and he wasn’t a rah-rah-rah guy, but everybody looked up to him,” said Tom McCorry, a classmate and future college-basketball coach. “He worked hard and he was very unselfish—kind of the way he shows now. He really is the same person.”
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The exact details of what happened in this one magical game have been forgotten to history. But the game itself was unforgettable because of the final score: Regis 64, Fordham Prep 51. Regis’s players didn’t know how to react to this strange phenomenon otherwise known as winning a basketball game. They ran to the locker room to celebrate before realizing they were being called back to the floor to collect a trophy that Fordham Prep figured would be staying at Fordham Prep. “I remember that game like yesterday,” Zeman said. The upset was such a seminal event that Fauci’s teammates believe it must have left a permanent mark on him. This is someone who’s lived through the AIDS epidemic and the swine flu pandemic, cared personally for Ebola patients and now finds himself dealing with a virus that has long been his worst fear. But they insist he would remember this one high-school basketball game. “I would bet a lot of money on it,” Burns said.
Fauci couldn't be reached to reminisce about his high-school basketball career. It would take more than six decades for the other team’s star player to find out the name of Regis’s captain. Fordham Prep’s star that season was an all-city guard named Donnie Walsh who played at the University of North Carolina, coached the Denver Nuggets and built the Indiana Pacers and his hometown Knicks. Not until last week did he discover that he also crossed paths with a doctor he now admires on television. “I am sure Regis is proud to have him as an alumnus,” Walsh said in an email.
Dr. Anthony Fauci really is THAT DUDE. I am fucking obsessed with this guy. I actually even bought a WSJ subscription just to read this article. I absolutely love him and think he is a shining star throughout this whole dark debacle. I have taken such an interest in all things corona virus over the last few weeks, probably more so than most of the bloggers here at Barstool. My sister is a nurse so I'm always hearing horrendous stories from the front lines of one of the hospitals in the epicenter of the American outbreak...we had a family wedding canceled because of this pandemic...we know several people unfortunately infected, one of which who's just 31 who's looking like hes not going to survive...and having lived in New York my whole life I take great interest in stories about the citizens of this city being in peril. Some listeners and readers think I'm a pussy for taking the quarantine so seriously, other people ridiculously think I'm fear mongering, when, in reality, I'm just relaying facts about how shitty this situation is. And I say all this because my one take away from all the coverage I've consumed, and all the people I've watched and listened, is that Dr. Fauci is fucking amazing. From his interview with Pardon My Take to his press conferences standing in from of that White House podium, I think he's just about the only person I trust in this chaos. I'm sure he errs more on the side of caution, maybe somewhat to a fault. And I'm sure a lot of people dont like when he talks because hes always telling you all the stuff you CAN'T do, and always relaying all the doom and gloom statistics. But from his bedside manner with the press to his ability to relate to the average person, I've found him to be incredibly impressive. I'd feel much more comfortable if he was running the whole show right now. The fact that Trump is just pushing him to the background now that hes not agreeing with the administration anymore is infuriating. Give me more of the Doc!
So, I'm admittedly a Anthony Fauci Stan. But even if you're not a diehard fan the way I am, these pictures and stories from him playing high school ball are great. A 5 foot 7 I-Talian from Brooklyn at the bougie and revered Upper East Side Manhattan prep school, running shit on the hardwood. Tony Fauci wasn't a point guard...he was a point GOD. Actually I'm completely lying, hes as far from the And 1 "Hot Sauce" type of point guard as you can get. All the classic subtly racist descriptors - pesky and tenacious. I'm sure he hit all his free throws and played fundamental defense too. That's all hes trying to do now, folks. He just wants to play solid, team defense. A lot of the same principals still apply. You must stay equidistant from each other and the ball at all times, just like proper social distancing from the virus right now. Ball-you-man is now Corona-you-loved ones. Keep your spacing. Remain active with your (clean) hands at all times. The only way we're gonna defeat this thing is with solid execution of help defense. When one of us gets greedy or lackadaisical and strays too far from home, someone else has to slide in and help this team stay fundamentally sound. Fauci is just the captain telling people to not leave their feet and not go for the steal. He's working a 3-2 zone like Boeheim in Syracuse - telling everyone just stay at home and do their best to defend against Corona and explaining that the minute just one of your teammates, who doesnt understand the principals of team defense, strays from their position, everything breaks down. Maybe if the Doc starts to explain this shit in terms of sports defensive schemes he might reach the population that's being idiotic.
PS - Admittedly the tale of this Regis vs Fordham Prep game Captain of a shitty 1-16 basketball team who pulled out the late season miracle win against a bombsquad team with a local superstar hits close to home for your boy KFC. Senior year I was captain (Yea yea, I know. You're shocked. 3 cone drill, skinny fat etc etc, yada yada. Life was different 20 years and 6 less surgeries ago) of a 2-18 basketball team. Final game of the season we beat Port Chester who was, I believe, undefeated. They had this kid on their team named Cruz or Castro or something extremely intimidating for a team comprised of, relatively speaking, completely unathletic white kids who were all between 5'7 and 6'1. He was their version of Fordham Prep's Donnie Walsh. This kid would pull up from like one step over half court, at a time when that just wasnt a thing. It was 2003. The world was still playing with their backs to the hoop. I dunno how the fuck it happened but me and the Pelham Pelicans somehow pulled off this upset. If I remember correctly, odds are my boy Albie DeSimon probably went off for like 30 that day and we had our Miracle on The Hardwood in Pelham, NY, We all learned a few weeks later they were bounced from the sectional playoffs. We derailed their whole season.
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Anyway, back to Tony Fauci and Regis... A solid 10.2 ppg in his senior year. I'm willing to bet he put up 3 or 4 scrappy boards a game. I bet 5 unselfish assists. And if I know the captains-who-arent-physically-gifted-enough-to-be-captains-but-earned-it-by-playing-hard-and-smart type, and I think I do know that type, I am willing to guarantee he averages like 2.5 charges per game. That was my goddam specialty. Never had to run any suicides because I took like 50 charges per season. Just me and Tony. Two peas in a pod. Both went on to greatness.