Gloucester Catholic High School has had no shortage of superstar athletes through its nearly 100 years of existence. But the school admitted, up until recently, there had been a lack of recognition for them.
The Rams decided to honor its incredible athletes of the past with a pair of new banquets in 2023, in addition to continuing to honor its current group of scholastic athletes with its annual end-of-the-school-year celebration.
The inaugural Gloucester Catholic High School Hall of Fame took place this May, as well as “From Bert Nolan and Beyond: A Celebration of Women’s Basketball at Gloucester Catholic,” which spotlighted some of the Rams’ state championship-winning teams in the 1970s and 80s as well as the lady hoopsters of recent years.
Women trailblazers
The women’s basketball event drew about 100 attendees and was held in the school’s gymnasium. It was a night of reminiscing about the great female players who wore maroon and gold on the hardwood.
“Ultimately, there were some ladies who graduated in the mid-70s that played on some really great teams under [coach] Bert Nolan,” said Ryan Murphy, Gloucester Catholic interim athletic director. “Personally, I feel like our baseball team gets a lot of the publicity, but I don’t think people realize how successful our girls basketball team was. We had some dominant teams back then.”
Before girls basketball was broken into groups based on enrollment numbers by the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association for the 1975-76 season, Gloucester Catholic had already captured multiple all-group state titles. Once the change occurred, the Rams continued their success by winning six of the next seven Group 1 championships from 1976 to 1982. The Rams also won the first Non-Public B state championship in 1983.
“The banquet was about a year in the making,” said Pat Murphy, former Gloucester Catholic athletic director, who now helps fundraise at the school. “With last year being the 50th anniversary of Title IX, people just started talking about how that had such a positive impact on women’s sports. We started thinking about our girls’ basketball program and how they were trailblazers back in the day.”
Nolan, who passed away in 2007, guided the Rams through its early years as a program. Currently, Lisa Gedaka has been at the helm for 34 years and now has the most high school girls basketball coaching wins in South Jersey history. Both greats were recognized for their accomplishments.
“We had decorated the gym with memorabilia of old newspaper articles,” Pat Murphy said. “We had people from different eras get up and give testimony about their time here. It was such a great day of fellowship. It was great to hear people reminisce about their time as players here at Gloucester Catholic.”
Hall of Famers
The girls basketball program received even more accolades during the inaugural Hall of Fame: Nolan, Gedaka and the 1974 state championship team were all inductees.
Nolan was actually inducted in the Arts/Academics/Educators as a teacher along with Dr. Anthony Silvestri, Dr. Patrick Harker and Dr. James Gross. Athletics inductees included Dennis Barth (baseball), Gedaka, Ray Ford (boys basketball) and Ralph Saquella (boys basketball). Gloucester Catholic also inducted the Dominican Sisters, Msgr. Maurice Bric and Msgr. Edward Lucitt.
Much of the planning and legwork on compiling the list and background information for the inductees was done by 1982 graduate Bill Dougherty.
Will it become an annual occurrence?
“At least in the early going, it’s going to be a yearly thing,” Ryan Murphy said. “They’re already talking about next year and things that we can do to make it even better.”
The 2022-23 school year concluded with the school’s annual end-of-year banquet for its scholastic athletes toward the end of May. The Rams honored their athletes and team accomplishments at Masso’s in Glassboro and handed out special awards. The only thing they weren’t able to celebrate was a baseball state championship, only because it hadn’t happened yet. The Rams won their 20th baseball state championship in school history June 9, bringing even more pride to the school and alumni.
“There were good people back in the 60s and 70s, and there are still good people there today,” Ryan Murphy said. “It’s a great family atmosphere.”
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