For the two coaches in the Pennsville-Penns Grove basketball game, tomorrow they can be friends, today they fight
THURSDAY’S BOYS GAMES
Glassboro 55, Woodstown 47
Overbrook 58, Schalick 31
Penns Grove 75, Pennsville 65
Pitman def. Salem Tech
Salem 90, Clayton 52
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
PENNS GROVE – For everybody else at the Paul W. Carleton School it was just another day at school, but for two of the teachers there it was a day a little different than all others.
For 363 days of the year, Damian Ware and Joe Mecholsky are teachers in the same school. One, Ware, teaches the fifth graders in an upstairs classroom. The other, Mecholsky, has the fourth graders downstairs.
They wave familiarly when they pass in the halls. They have the same planning period and often sit together talking basketball, comparing notes on common opponents.
But Thursday, while the conversation may be cordial and more poor mouth than trash talk, this day is different.
Every other day of the year they’re Carleton School teachers through and through, but when this school day ended Thursday they were trying to beat each other’s brains in as the coaches of the Penns Grove and Pennsville basketball teams that also, by the way, happen to be their high school alma maters.
“Oh, we’ll talk,” Ware said. “We don’t trade secrets or anything, but we’ll have general conversations about hoops and stuff like that.
“It’s actually a lot of fun. We have fun with each other. Neither one of us take anything personally. It’s all fun. It’s all about the kids. It’s a competitive, fun thing, basically.”
Everybody in the school gets caught up in it. Teachers and students are always asking when they’re going to play. The students get a kick out of watching their Mr. M coach the opposition.
Their teams have met nine times in the previous six years they’ve been head coaches at their alma maters and Ware has had the best of it, winning eight of them. Mecholsky finally broke through in the first meeting last season – in the Hyper-Baric Chamber that is Penns Grove’s gym – but the Red Devils got them back in Pennsville in the rematch.
(UPDATE: Ware made it nine out of 10 against his buddy Thursday night as the Red Devils won 75-65.)
There have been some memorable games though.
“We aren’t friendly while coaching against each other because every chance that son of a gun has had a chance to put 100 on my head he does it,” Mecholsky said. “He doesn’t try to hold back his team. He doesn’t try to be nice. No-o-o-o.
“One year (2018), they scored 100 on us and had a foul called so they took the 100 off the board. The next possession instead of just dribbling out the clock, with the crowd going ‘one hundred, one hundred,’ he scored again, so the crowd got to celebrate twice.
“And then the next morning we had breakfast together at the Deepwater Diner as if nothing happened.”
The game has no name, like the Wildman Willey Boot the teams play for in football, and strangely there have been no special wagers between the coaches like mayors and governors sometime do during football bowl games. Those things aren’t needed here. They’re playing for something more. Much more.
“We bet the one thing that can’t be bought with money – pride,” Mecholsky said. “When I see him in the hall the next day and I look at him, yea-h-h-h, I’m able to say I got you. And if he gets me, he’ll give me the same thing. We get on each other, but it’s brotherly love.”
When Friday morning comes things will return to normal for everyone at the Carleton School, unless, of course, school gets canceled or delayed by the impending snowstorm. Ware will make his way upstairs to teach his fifth graders and Mecholsky will head to downstairs to be with his fourth graders.
They’ll pass each other in the halls and get together during their planning period and talk ball as if nothing had happened. Only this time one will have a little extra pep in their step that’s not likely to subside until they play again the last day of the regular season.
“During the game we’re rivals and want to beat each other, Pennsville-Penns Grove,” Mecholsky said, “but right after the game it’s a handshake, it’s a hug and we’re back to work tomorrow.”
Who knows, they might even have breakfast at the Deepwater Diner together again.
Riverview Sports News 