Isiah. Magic. Gervin. How a Detroit church gym became the birthplace of legends

[Article first appeared in The Athletic in July 2020. Ceciliaville received permission to re-publish the article]

Joe Vardon and James L. Edwards III  

In the summer of 1981, on a basketball barnstorming trip through parts of northern Michigan and deep into the American South, George Gervin was wearing out Isiah Thomas.

Sometimes with his lightning-quick dribbling, other times with that goddamned finger roll that helped him win four NBA scoring titles, and then those trick bank shots. Mind you, this was all done in sweltering-hot gyms in Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, Mich., in Memphis and Birmingham, Ala., and places in between. Now, some 39 years later, Thomas recalls it didn’t help that Magic Johnson, who was on those trips, too, would always get the first pick over Thomas when assembling teams and would always take Gervin at the onset.

“Come on, man, that ain’t fair, you and George Gervin in the back court,” Thomas would complain.

But what Thomas was really getting tired of was The Iceman’s stories about this “cracker box” of a gym on Detroit’s west side, where Gervin, a legend in those parts, was king among the lot of NBA vets, college stars, high school standouts and streetball legends who played there every summer.

“All I wanted to do was get back to Detroit,” said Thomas, who grew up in Illinois, played collegiately at Indiana and had just been selected second overall by the Detroit Pistons in the ’81 NBA Draft. “Gervin would tell his stories, and all I wanted to do was get away from George Gervin and find St. Cecilia’s.”

To enter The Saint, one walks through a battered and gated parking lot with potholes and inch-thick cracks in the asphalt. The steps leading up to the entrance are split by salmon-colored rails, which match the color of the doors. The windows are covered by black, metal guards, and some of the glass is cracked, in the outline of a spider web. Behind the building sits the shell of what was a grand piano, left unattended like the other random pieces of junk and furniture surrounding it.

It might not look like much now, but St. Cecilia’s is famous for having been compared to legendary Rucker Park of New York because of all the big names who came through. Isiah. Magic. Gervin. Also, David Bing. That’s four of the greatest players in NBA history. Joe Dumars, Rick Mahorn and Dennis Rodman of “Bad Boys” Pistons fame. B.J. Armstrong. Chris Webber. Jalen Rose. Derrick Coleman. Steve Smith. Shane Battier. Jimmy Walker and Spencer Haywood and Ralph Simpson and Campy Russell. Dick Vitale (awesome with a capital “A,” baby). Dozens of others.

Twelve of these St. Cecilia’s alums agreed to share their stories, including Gervin, who regaled The Athletic with the same tales that drove Thomas nuts so long ago.

“It was almost spiritual,” Gervin said. “That was the spot. I’m telling you. I’m sad that the story ain’t never really been told about St. Cecilia’s. You’re hunting us down — it should’ve been done already.”

Welcome to The Saint

In the summer of 1967, as Detroit burned during a race riot, local athletic director and basketball coach Sam Washington opened the doors of St. Cecilia’s to give neighborhood children somewhere safe to play. And in the fall of 1968, Bing was in a contract dispute with the Pistons and held out, so he needed a place to stay sharp. He called Washington and the rest is history. St. Cecilia’s eventually turned into the proving ground, not just for the players from Detroit, but also for those across Michigan … and at all levels. For decades.

Sam Washington Jr., the son of the late Sam Washington, former Division I basketball player at Robert Morris and University of Detroit Mercy, and former St. Cecilia’s gym administrator: It was almost as bad as it is now (in the wake of the George Floyd killing) — curfews, lockdowns. Ironically, my family, we lived directly across the street from St. Cecilia’s. By default, (my dad) opened the gym for me and my two brothers to get out and blow off some steam.

Everyone wanted to be my friend because all of the guys knew my dad and what he could do. He could get a guy to play in college, full scholarship, without a coach even seeing him play.

Bing, the No. 2 overall pick of the Pistons in 1966 who played nine years in Detroit and was later the city’s mayor: Having won Rookie of the Year, I had a two-year contract with the option. If I had a good second year, we would renegotiate the third year. And so I won the scoring championship my second year, and with having had a great year it was time to go back in and renegotiate. But the Pistons rebuffed me and said even though we agreed to do that, we are not ready to go forward. Which made me hold out.

Washington, of course, agreed to host Bing’s workouts. In return Bing arranged for the fines he was being levied for holding out — about $5,000 — go to Washington for his new summer program at St. Cecilia’s.

Bing: After I signed my contract, that next summer we started playing at St. Cecilia’s. Myself, Jimmy Walker, we were the top two names on the Pistons at that time and we started going down there as professionals playing in a summer tournament, and then all of the high school and college players around this area, everybody started playing at St. Cecilia’s. It started with me and Jimmy, then Bob Lanier, all of my teammates from the Pistons would come down and play. It was a summerfest; we really enjoyed it.

Greg Kelser, a Detroit Henry Ford High School graduate, NCAA champion with the 1979 Michigan State Spartans and top Pistons draft pick in 1979:  Sam realized it was an opportunity for him to provide a place for kids to come to compete and stay out of trouble. It got them out of the streets and to occupy their time. If they’re in the gym playing, in there watching, they’re not in the streets.

Before I was a pro, I played against Dave Bing and other pros. This was unbelievable because I was in high school. How many chances do you have as a high school student to play against pros other than at St. Cecilia’s in the summer?

Vitale, coach for the University of Detroit from 1973-77:  Let me tell you this, St. Cecilia’s made my career as a coach at the University of Detroit. We had some really good players.

Grant Long, a Romulus (Mich.) High graduate, Eastern Michigan alum and 15-year NBA veteran:  What was crazy about it was that it was a very small gym. The bleachers were all on one side. There was a wall behind one rim, and you couldn’t even run off the court. Then there was a wall on the other end and some steps, so you couldn’t even run out of bounds. If the ball was running out, you just had to let it go.

Bing: No air conditioning. You can imagine playing there in the heat in the summer. It was like a sauna. You’re playing there and it had to be 100-plus degrees playing in that gym. Some of the big guys, they’d lose eight, 10 pounds at a game, because they sweated so much. But we went out into the parking lot and they’d put it back on with some beer.

Earl Cureton, a 1975 graduate of Detroit Finney High and star at Robert Morris and the University of Detroit, as well as a 17-year pro: It was a hot spot, it was a proving ground for Detroit. Like the Baker League and Rucker Park League, St. Cecilia’s was that in Detroit. Everybody that was a good basketball player, and not just from Detroit but Flint, Saginaw and Pontiac … people would drive in from anywhere just to play because that’s where the competition was. To me, St. Cecilia’s is like Motown or any other museum in Detroit.

Campy Russell, a 1971 graduate of Central High in Pontiac, Mich., and University of Michigan alum who said he played at St. Cecilia’s from high school through his fourth year with the Cleveland Cavaliers:  It was a great place to be to give you a better understanding of where your game is, and where you are skill-level wise, where you are confidence wise, where you are toughness wise, where you are to be able to be an impact guy, whether it was in high school, college, and then if you have the privilege to go on and play professionally. Generally you saw those guys that were at St. Cecilia’s that ended up in the NBA. Similar to how the Rucker League was. It was that kind of environment that really tested your fortitude, and tested your abilities, and tested whether you were going to fold or play very, very well. A lot of times, that building elevated your status.

B.J. Armstrong, a 1985 graduate of Detroit Brother Rice High and three-time NBA champion with the Chicago Bulls: Growing up in the city of Detroit, I would play against professionals. I had played against Isiah Thomas and these guys my whole high school career, every summer at Detroit’s St. Cecilia’s gym. So I knew Joe Dumars, I knew Isiah, I knew Vinnie Johnson, and all the professional guys who were coming back playing in the summer. And I knew the mentality of “what you did in college doesn’t matter.” I remember talking to all those guys, Magic, Isaiah, all those guys who would come back and play in the summer. I wasn’t in awe of a pro player. I had known George Gervin and all these guys who were from Detroit, everybody who was coming through Detroit to play. Roy Tarpley and all these guys.

That’s what you did. You earned your stripes and your respect and that was going to happen when I started competing. For me, as a guard, I knew I was going to have to find my way.

Rose, who attended St. Cecilia’s school in fifth and sixth grade, played there as a Detroit Southwestern High star, Michigan standout and throughout his NBA career: For fourth and fifth grade — rest in peace to my aunt Jackie, who was a teacher at an elementary school — my mom sent me to go to school with my aunt so that she could save up money for me to go to St. Cecilia’s. This is like all I knew: diapers, basketball, St. Cecilia’s.

Initially, when we stayed on 6 Mile and Greenlawn, we lived in a two-family flat. When we moved to the northwest side, as far as I was concerned we had a mansion. It wasn’t a mansion. When I got to St. Cecilia’s, it was like the Taj Mahal. All of these people, all of these great basketball players.

St. Cecilia’s poppin’ all day Saturday, Sunday, everybody’s going. Line outside, gym full, all of that.

Kelser: You would hear names of people from certain schools, but you never met them or never saw their faces. You knew their names from the roundup in the newspaper. You knew the names, but St. Cecilia’s gave you the chance to put names to faces and see what they’re capable of. You might play at St. Cecilia’s at 2 p.m., but chances are you’re getting there at 11 a.m. to watch one or two games before yours, and then chances are you’re staying to watch one or two games after yours. That’s what I mean by it being a vehicle for staying in pursuit of your dreams. It kept you out of trouble. You would spend five hours there, even if your game was only 90 minutes.

Washington Jr.: We still had landlines and stuff like that. People would make calls from home or go to the phone booth. There was a phone inside the gym that my dad would use. It was all word of mouth.

Kelser: Sometimes it was standing-room only, depending on who was in town.

Meet the Iceman

Gervin, now 68, starred at St. Cecilia’s from his days as a 1970 graduate of Martin Luther King Jr. High in Detroit, his time at Eastern Michigan, through his ABA career and well into his tenure in the NBA, where he was a four-time scoring champion.

Gervin:  That was my place, man. Sam used to charge a dollar to get in — $2 when I played. When I showed up, people filled the place up. I remember one time I was down and we were playing, and just before we were getting dressed, and they (were saying), “Gervin playing tonight.” And man, they started coming through the windows. I remember a guy, because, man, you know, it was the inner city, so the hustlers and the players used to come. I remember a guy came through the window. He had a white suit on. He got through there and didn’t have no dirt on it.

Kelser: Somehow, if George Gervin was in town and was going to play at St. Cecilia’s at 4 p.m., you couldn’t get a parking space. All of the parking spots for four blocks were filled because word got out that George Gervin was coming to play. For some folks, it was the only opportunity to see him play. He was still playing in the ABA at the time. It was incredible how that worked.

Vitale: First time I went there, my buddy took me there. He said you’ve got to get really acclimated to St. Cecilia’s; he said it’s where a lot of great players go. I go there and it’s like shirts and skins. I’m watching this skinny guy, he’s shooting jumper after jumper. And they had told me at the time, “Wait until you see this kid from Pontiac, Campy Russell.” And I’m watching and I said, ‘Well yeah, he’s good, but who is that skinny kid? Look at him. Jumpers all over the place.” And it was the Iceman, George Gervin.

Gervin: You remember Campy Russell? So Campy played at Pontiac Central. Campy would get all the props, he was this and he was that. And then you had George Gervin. So we played against each other at The Saint. It was all riled up and the gym was packed. I got 60 (points). So we beat him like a drum. Man, we wore them out.

Russell: He probably did it (laughter). That’s not unusual, but I am not sure who won the game, though. He may have had 60, yeah. George is who he is. That was one of those games that people talk about to this day. Even if you talk to Magic Johnson, he talks about that game. If you weren’t there early, you did not get in. Even though a lot of people talk about it like they were there, like they used to say about the “Miracle of Richfield.” There were a lot of people there, but it can only hold, probably, I don’t believe it can hold 1,000 people. But it was a spectacular game. I kinda think that we won the game, though.

Washington Jr.: There were two teams in the Open League warming up. The gym was packed on a Saturday, like it always was. My dad got a phone call, I was standing right next to him, and it was one of George Gervin’s teammates on the other end of the call. He said to my dad, “George Gervin and his team are all here. We want to play the next game.”He brought his own crew. It was his friends from Detroit and some players from Eastern. My dad went up to one of the coaches of the two teams warming up and said, “George Gervin, he’s in the parking lot and wants to get on. You guys can’t play this game.” I was looking for some rebuttal. The coach said back, “Oh, man! The Iceman is coming? He can take our spot because I want to watch.”

Thomas, who played at St. Cecilia’s every summer during his 13-year NBA career, all with the Pistons: You could’ve brought anyone in the gym and no one ever would’ve packed it like George Gervin. What he was to the community and to the neighborhood. So the Pistons would show up, and we were local pros and we were making our way through the league in terms of championships and all of that, but when George Gervin came home and he walked into the gym, there was nothing like it. Nothing. You’re talking about shooting the basketball and the things he could do with a basketball in terms of banking it, shooting it straight in, off the glass, it was like — it’s like George Gervin was Minnesota Fats on the pool table. That’s how much control he had over the basketball. Nobody was better than George Gervin. Nobody. I saw him make 14 straight bank shots and the crowd was counting.

Rose: I got a chance to see the Iceman finger roll. And he ain’t miss. I saw him work on it, sitting on the baseline. Iceman, finger roll, made like 20 in a row, 10 with each hand. I saw Gerv up close and personal, and then I got the Iceman posters with the ice cubes up on the wall. Oh it was over. Iceman.  

Gervin: I ain’t gonna say I was the man, but I knew I was one of them.

Bing, Walker, Rose

Remember, Bing brought Walker to St. Cecilia’s. They were extremely close. Walker, meanwhile, was Rose’s father. Walker and Rose never met, but Bing grew close to Rose through St. Cecilia’s, taking him under his wing and putting him to work at his factory. Rose learned who Jimmy Walker truly was from Washington at St. Cecilia’s, and Bing and Rose ended up together at a Kansas City funeral home for Walker’s funeral. You won’t believe what happened.

Gervin: Jimmy Walker, boy, Jimmy Walker, you say that name. People don’t know how good he was. They named a spin after him called the Jimmy Walker spin. Any time you as a player, you get a move named after you, you had to be something special. So they called it the “Jimmy Walker spin” — where he’s come up on you and spin and then go the other way.

Rose: Once I started going to St. Cecilia’s, even though I didn’t know my biological father, the elder statesmen took care of all of us and they really took care of me, without me even really knowing why — in most cases. Guys like David Bing, Derrick Coleman. And that could just be a wink or a nod. That could just be, “Hey, go run to the store for me,” and (they’d) give me a couple of dollars to run to the store. That could be letting me rebound between the games. So I was a gopher at St. Cecilia’s when I was a youngster.

Bing: By the time he got to school, everybody in this area knew that Jalen was Jimmy’s son. And so Jimmy did not want to meet Jalen, because Jalen was then becoming an outstanding high school player. By the time Jalen got to college, Jimmy just turned him off completely, because he said I don’t want my son to think that, No. 1, I never supported him. No. 2, I don’t want him to think with him being successful that I want something from him.

Rose: I started to do some research as I got older. One of the things that I researched is that (Walker) got traded to Houston in December, and I was born in January. That had nothing to do with his and my mother’s relationship. All the other neighborhood kids didn’t have fathers either. We never talked about him, I never missed him, I never realized we were poor, per se. And so I was in the (St. Cecilia’s) gym and, of course, I’m a kid, so there are times when I’m goofing off, and Sam Washington never called me Jalen. He’s like, “I’m gonna call you Rose.” He only called me Rose.

He’s like, “Until you start acting like you’re supposed to act.” Because he knew my potential. He never really told me why. And then one day he took me down to the basement. He had this projector. He’s blowing on it, it had real dust on it. He showed me some footage of my father doing a spin move. Jimmy Walker, Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, they’re the first people to do a spin dribble. Did you know that? You’ve got to take this serious.

Bing: I can remember upon Jimmy’s death, Jalen and I went to the funeral, the services out in Kansas City. Jalen thought he would at least see his dad in the casket. And that would have been the memory that he had. But neither one of us knew that Jimmy had been cremated. Long story short, neither one of us wanted to stay and go through the services. We flew back home. At the funeral, Jalen was by then an NBA star. And all of these kids knew who Jalen was. It was amazing to see all these kids gravitate to Jalen, hoping that they would get to know him. They had their hand out. They wanted something. I’ll never forget it.

If These Walls Could Talk

Cureton: Nobody filmed anything. It’s all based on memory. Guys will tell you stories, but cameras were nothing back then. It’s unfortunate.

Kelser, who was a teammate of Magic Johnson at Michigan State: The first time I met Earvin Johnson was on the steps of St. Cecilia’s. I was going in, he was going out. I had finished my senior year of high school and he was going into the 11th grade. That summer I was playing on the Detroit AAU team that was comprised of guys like myself who had just graduated high school. I knew his name, but that was it. We met and shook hands on the steps of St. Cecilia’s.

Washington Jr.: In one particular run, it was Magic Johnson, his agent, Dr. Charles Tucker, Greg Kelser, Earl Cureton, John Long, Terry Duerod, Walker T. Russell, Isaiah Thomas and this guy named Tico Brown, who played for my dad when they won the CBA championship with the Detroit Spirits. Oh, and Bob Lanier. We were all in the gym. It was invite only.

Once everyone showed up, I locked the gym. I wouldn’t let anyone else in. It was a heated run. Magic comes to mind because he hated to lose, even back then. He’d go to the basket, make a nice move and, maybe, miss the layup. He’d turn around and call foul. No one even touched him. If you argued, he’d turn around and say to me, “Don’t invite him next week.”

Thomas: Our whole (Pistons) championship team played down there. Joe Dumars and I were NBA Finals MVP, back-to back MVPs, and we were playing at St. Cecilia.

Dumars, who played all 14 of his NBA seasons for the Pistons: A guy named Terry Duerod, he might’ve played a year or so in the league. Just one of those guys, man, I think he’s over 50, maybe 60, and still playing in some pickup league in Detroit. He has never stopped playing. Here’s a guy that wasn’t in the NBA at the time but everybody knew him …

Thomas: Duerod was one of the greatest shooters ever, that nobody ever really talks about. But Duerod — and if you ask any of the old Boston Celtics players, Duerod played with them, he was also a star at the University of Detroit — literally would get hot at St. Cecilia’s. You talk about people now coming across halfcourt, stopping and shooting with range and dropping it … Duerod was dropping like eight, nine, 10 shots in a row, and it was special.

Cuerton: I brought Daryl Dawkins up to St. Cecilia’s. They wouldn’t let Daryl play, though. Washington Jr.: (Laughs) I remember that. Dawkins walked in with Earl — they were teammates in Philly — and was trying to get in on a run. My dad pulled him aside and said, “I don’t have any other backboards. I can’t let you play.”

Rose: The highest scoring game I ever achieved happened at St. Cecilia’s. It was our team, a Southwestern team, I was in high school or I was at Michigan. Maybe it was after my freshman year. Steve Smith, I’ll never forget, I got a chance to ride in the back of his car. His father, rest in peace, was driving up to Lansing. Steve let me ride with them. I was in the backseat. We stopped at the gas station. I was looking to see what he’d buy, how he was gonna eat before the game. Steve and Iceman, like, those two guys had moves that I always tried to emulate, but I couldn’t. I can’t finger roll, and I can’t do Steve’s hesitation move, so, to me, it’s like, “All right, you’ve got work to do.”

So, I’m playing against Steve, you know he went to Michigan State, but, still, we’re on the court so we’re going to compete. I’m not exaggerating, I had high 60s, at least. And I was just shooting 3s like crazy. Against his whole team. It’s kind of like when people say Kobe scored 81 on me, like, Steve is the most famous person you would know on the team. Of course, Steve was getting his, I ain’t going to act like he had zero, but I’m just telling you how much I had.

Bing: I don’t have the list in front of me, but we have had over 107 guys play at St. Cecilia’s who also played in the NBA.

Vitale: I used to practically sleep there. I’d go there in the morning.

Washington Jr.: NCAA rules were a lot looser then. At that time, there were no rules with recruiting days and stuff like that. College coaches could come whenever they wanted, post up and recruit.

True story. Earl (Cuerton) was a late bloomer. He was only like 6-foot-4 coming out of high school. He ended up being a hell of a player because he was small and got a growth spurt, but him being small at the beginning, he was able to handle the ball. He kept that as he grew.

Anyways, I graduated from Brother Rice High School in 1974 and we were state champs in Class A. I was one of the best basketball players in the state. However, I got sick my senior year and wasn’t supposed to play, but I begged my dad and coaches to let me play. Prior to that, I had all kinds of offers to go to different schools. When they found out I was sick — I almost passed away because I had a bad sinus infection — the majority of the offers I had were taken away because they were afraid.

A coach from Robert Morris saw me play at St. Cecilia’s. At that time, they were one of the best JUCO schools in the country and were interested in me. They wanted me real bad, but my dad said, “OK, if you want my son, Sam, you have to take Earl Cureton.” They did. St. Cecilia’s got me and Earl to Robert Morris.

Dumars: You wanted to put on a show for that crowd just as much as you did at The Palace (of Auburn Hills), man. You were there, and I’m sure if you speak to Isiah he would say the same thing. … If it was a small group of people, if it was young kids, if it was older guys, we played, man. We didn’t cheat it and we enjoyed that. We really enjoyed being out there and playing in the summertime. If it was kids or older people, we always played. And that was the crowd. It was either young kids or older guys, and a lot of times maybe people who couldn’t afford tickets at The Palace, and this was the only time they’re going to see you in person like this. 

The Athletic July 2020