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By Anthony Bosco
The loss of Paul Gilvary, who is stepping down as the head coach of the Holy Cross High School soccer team, will leave a gigantic hole in the athletic program of the Flushing school, but it also will leave an even bigger hole in these sports pages.
While the always modest Gilvary continually refused to take credit for his team’s immeasurable success during his tenure at the helm, one thing he can’t shake is the moniker bestowed upon him by me and other reporters who have had the pleasure of shoving a mini-tape recorder in his face. Quite simply, Gilvary is the best quote in the business, period.
No matter what the question or how incredibly stupid I may have been to ask it, Gilvary always seemed to have an insightful and selfless response at the ready. Like a gunslinger in the Old West, Gilvary was the quickest off the draw with the proverbial “sound-bite” quote, even though it was mostly print media within earshot.
And the best thing about that is Gilvary’s soccer teams were always in the thick of the city championship race, meaning that come playoff time, Gilvary would always be around to get a quality quote.
One look at what Gilvary has accomplished as head coach of Holy Cross and it is clear just how important he has been for the soccer program. In just 14 years Gilvary has guided the Knights to nine Brooklyn/Queens Diocesan championships, seven CHSAA city crowns, two CHSAA state titles and during one stretch won 55 consecutive league games.
I mean, those are Joe Torre-like numbers. And while he loves to say that he “just drives the van,” there can be nothing further from the truth.
While Gilvary may not possess the soccer knowledge of some of his colleagues, coaches such as Molloy’s Andy Kostel or St. Francis Prep’s Franco Purificato, Gilvary always got the most out of his team. He knows how to win, knows how to motivate his players and is certainly smart enough to know that he needed to rely on his best players, the natural leaders, to help out during the toughest games.
Maybe it was his demeanor or the way he approached coaching that kept the top players in the borough heading for Holy Cross year in and year out. From Dennis McGowan and Vinny Maimone through Joe Navarino, Jimmy Buscemi, Armando Petruccelli, Carlo Acquista, Dennis James and on and on, Gilvary’s teams always were stacked with Division I players.
And it is no surprise that those players went on to phenomenal success at the next level, including a few who won the NCAA National Championship with the St. John’s Red Storm in 1996.
Over the years I have covered many Holy Cross soccer games, most of which the Knights won. The most memorable, without question, was a city title encounter against arch-rivals St. Francis Prep, a school which also happens to be Gilvary’s alma mater.
That match-up featured some truly spirited play — so spirited that a brawl erupted right in front of the fans’ seating area at the Merchant Marine Academy at King’s Point. What ensued was a melee of truly spectacular proportions.
And while the brawl may be what I remember most about that game, I also remember that Holy Cross won, 1-0, after playing most of the game a man down. For my money, that game may be Gilvary’s crowning moment as a soccer coach. His team never lost its cool, even when punches were being thrown, and still managed to prevail.
It may seem hard to believe that a man as young as Gilvary with so much success as a coach would leave a post with which he has become synonymous, but in this case it certainly is understandable.
In addition to being the school’s head soccer coach, Gilvary is also the director of admissions, the commissioner of the CHSAA basketball league, president of the North Shore Baseball Assignors Inc. and the head basketball coach at the school. Something had to give and soccer was the most logical choice.
Dominic Cinelli, the school’s junior varsity coach for the last three years, will be the man called upon to fill Gilvary’s mighty big shoes. He can only try to maintain the high standard of excellence Gilvary has instilled in the program. It may not be like replacing Joe Walsh at San Francisco or Casey Stengel with the Yankees, but it’s in the same category.
Luckily, especially for members of the press such as me, we aren’t losing Gilvary totally. He still will be involved behind the scenes in the CHSAA soccer league and will be back to coach the school’s basketball team.
Gilvary might claim ignorance as a soccer coach, but as a basketball coach, he gets all the credit. Two years ago he guided a team that lacked a single Division I player to the CHSAA city semifinals, which is no small feat by any means.
The CHSAA is widely regarded as the best basketball division in the country and Gilvary still will be a fixture in it come tip-off time this winter.
He may never have won the TimesLedger Coach of the Year honors, but that’s because we have only just begun to hand them out. Even if his main job was to “just drive the van,” he did a lot more than that. And when push comes to shove, he might even one day admit it.
Reach Sports Editor Anthony Bosco by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 130.
