One of the nation's finest basketball schools,
St. Patrick (Elizabeth, N.J.), will close its doors at the end of the current school year, former assistant basketball coach Ray Miller told MaxPreps Saturday night.
"That's the word we got today," Miller said. "The archdiocese is going to close the school at the end of the school year. They informed the school Thursday or Friday. They told the basketball team today. It's a similar thing to what happened to Paterson Catholic (Paterson, N.J.) two years ago."
File photo by Todd Shurtleff
Michael Kidd Gilchrist as a junior
at St. Patrick.
Miller was a long-time assistant to ultra-successful coach Kevin Boyle, who left last year for
Montverde Academy (Montverde, Fla.), and he admits to it being a great personal loss.
"When I got the news today, I felt like someone hit me in the stomach with a brick," he confessed. "I was an assistant coach there for 18 or 19 years. The building has been around since the 1800s. (The feeling) is not comfortable at all. It's strange and painful. It's a major loss and it's going to be awhile before that feeling passes."
St. Patrick was no ordinary school. Miller credits high school All-Americans Shaheen Holloway and Al Harrington for putting the school on the national basketball map. Holloway was a 5-10 guard who later starred at Seton Hall University and now serves as its associate head coach. The 6-8 Harrington was USA Today's National Player of the Year and still plays for the Denver Nuggets in the NBA.
Following them were such standouts as Sam Dalembert, Corey Fisher, Dexter Strickland, Kyrie Irving and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.
The Celtics are being coached this year by former long-time JV coach Christopher Chavannes.
Miller revealed that next weekend he will be headed for Florida to rejoin Kevin Boyle at Montverde Academy.
"I'm actually going back home," he noted. "I grew up in Winter Haven, which is about 45 minutes from Montverde."