GLENS FALLS – To Jackie Michel, Christ the King isn’t just the high school she goes it, it’s family. Her uncle, Michael, is school president and her father, Dan, works at the Middle Village, Queens institution.
So the fact that all Michel heard for four years is that Christ the King’s girls basketball dynasty is dead has been downright hurtful. The comments on message boards, the articles written, the sniping at games. It all became just mean spirited.
“It’s terrible to have to hear all the things said about us,” the senior Columbia-bound sixth man said.
In all fairness, Christ the King was in a slump. This is a program that had won five mythical national championships and 13 New York State Federation titles at the highest classification, including 10 in a row in the 1990s. Going four years without a ‘AA’ title is almost an eternity.
But, of course, nothing that hasn’t happened before.
“Pat Summitt lost last night [in the Sweet 16],” Christ the King coach Bob Mackey said of the legendary Tennessee women’s coach. “It happens. It’s rare. Coach was not happy at the postgame press conference and I can understand why. She’ll be back. If Tennessee is not in the Final Four in the next three years, then I don’t know anything about basketball.”
Comparing Christ the King to Tennessee or UConn isn’t unfair either. Especially since the Royals have sent players to both storied institutions in the past. Each time they lost a girl of that magnitude, Mackey said, the critics have come out of the woodwork.
“When Chamique Holdsclaw graduated in 1993, the ’94 team was written off as being dead,” Mackey said. “We weren’t back, Chamique graduated, all was lost, the sky was falling. In 1998, Sue Bird graduated with a litany of players and the sky was falling, the world was coming to an end.”
This year’s Christ the King team used all that negativity as a driving force, though. It was a rallying cry all season. From the Nike Tournament of Champions in December, to the CHSAA Class AA state tournament, right up until now.
“Personally, it pushed me to work harder,” CK superstar guard Bria Smith said. “It pushed my whole team during practice and everything to work harder. We played with that chip on our back – everybody is doubting us and we want to prove everybody wrong.”
And there was Christ the King on this afternoon doing just that in the Glens Falls Civic Center, the site of so many of the Royals’ classic wins. They beat defending champion St. Michael Academy in the CHSAA Class AA state final. They beat longtime rival Murry Bergtraum up here yesterday in the semifinals. After dispatching Sachem East (L.I.) today, that ‘AA’ trophy was all theirs.
“You don’t want to feed into all the negativity and all the pressure that’s put forth in front of you,” Michel said. “But you just gotta show them that Christ the King is back.”
But maybe it never went anywhere in the first place.
This was Mackey’s 20th time up here. That’s an amazing thought considering the Federation has been around just 29 years.
The scene will shift to Albany next March, the first time the tournament will be anywhere else but Glens Falls. Christ the King is hoping it carries its legacy to the new digs.
“It definitely gave a little push to know that we need to step up, we need to show everyone that Christ the King is still the same Christ the King it was all 14 times,” Michel said. “And it’s not going anywhere.”
