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This is supposed to be the time of the year to celebrate two landmark events: the Louisiana High School Athletic Association's division and class football championships, and the Catholic Youth Organization's 66th basketball classic.
But in the year of COVID-19, one won't happen and the other is in jeopardy of not being played in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Both traditional events have lost their title sponsor, the Allstate Sugar Bowl, a casualty of the pandemic.
The football championships are still scheduled to be played, but their location or, rather, locations may be determined by the extent of the pandemic by mid-December. Will they be under the Big Top or at outdoor locations on Dec. 26-28?
As for the CYO Classic, the longest-running boys' basketball tournament in Louisiana, there will be no games played for the first time since 1970 and for the second time since the classic's inception in 1951.
- The 2019 edition of the Allstate Sugar Bowl CYO Basketball Tournament was played December 4-7 at four locations in New Orleans. The tournament, which celebrated its 65th year of action in 2019, has hosted many of the all-time greats in New Orleans prep basketball history.
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Timmy McCaffery, director of the archdiocesan Youth and Young Adults ministry, confirmed that without a sponsor he has canceled the historic tournament with hopes of revitalizing it in the future.
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The All-State Sugar Bowl has sponsored the tournament since 2008 with a reported annual check for $5,000. But without the Sugar Bowl's financial help, which enables the CYO to fund much of its mission work, the historic hardwood event will be no more.
'The tournament is officially canceled for this year,' McCaffery said. 'I told the coaches we'll make a determination on the future of the tournament in the spring.'
But he added it doesn't look promising for the immediate future of the games.
'Allstate had to pull their sponsor dollars because they just don't have the dollars. Those are my words, not theirs,' McCaffery said. 'But they were hit pretty hard in January with double sponsorship of the Sugar Bowl and national championship game and didn't recoup the money they thought they would. And then the pandemic hits and they pulled sponsorships from a lot of small local events and ventures.'
McCaffery said he notified the coaches shortly after the Sugar Bowl ended its partnership to allow them to rearrange their early-season schedules. He noted that he did investigate some other potential sponsors, 'but this is a tough year to ask people for sponsorships. In the future, I think there are ways to pull together some sponsorship dollars for it. But the tournament has gotten to be more expensive to run.'
End of a tradition
Perhaps it is time for the 65-year-old CYO Tournament to fade into history. I just hate to see a tradition reach such a quiet demise.
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First conceived in 1943 as a Christmas season football game matching the New Orleans Catholic school champion versus a national Catholic school power, the CYO Classic became a more popular fundraiser than the annual Times-Picayune-sponsored Toy Bowl.
But when the annual football game proved to be less financially fruitful, the CYO morphed it into a modest basketball tournament matching the city's four Catholic schools – St. Aloysius, Jesuit, Holy Cross and Redemptorist.
In its heyday, the CYO tournament was as storied as the Catholic League itself. Because the Prep League was a mixed bag of four Catholic and four public schools, just one team could claim itself the city champion. Organizers decided to stage a four-team basketball tournament to determine the 'Catholic school champion' for bragging rights, if nothing else.
Little did the founders realize that the tournament would grow to become an institution as it expanded to a 16-team, weeklong classic for the next five decades.
The basketball tournament has been an annual affair since 1951. It's seen good and difficult years. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, attendance and profits from the games began to wane, and the CYO sought financial help to stage a tournament that would benefit the CYO's many youth and young adult programs.
Former Jesuit athletic director Frank Misuraca came to the rescue by securing sponsorship by the Allstate Sugar Bowl in 2008. And although the games did nothing to help the corporate partner achieve its mission of staging events that generate tourism, the Sugar Bowl had been a willing and enthusiastic title sponsor ever since by promoting and contributing tens of thousands of dollars to the ministry.
Its chief executive officer, Jeff Hundley noted that the Sugar Bowl Committee had taken great pride in its partnership with the CYO. 'It had given us a chance to support and honor a lot of deserving young student-athletes, and it always featured some exciting basketball,' he said.
St. Aloysius and De La Salle became the dominant teams between 1951 and 1963. With the additions of Archbishops Rummel and Shaw and St. Augustine to the Catholic League in the mid-1960s, the tournament continued to grow. Then St.
Aloysius and Cor Jesu consolidated into Brother Martin in 1969.
The tournament welcomed public schools to the field in 1971 and started a girls' division in the late 1990s. But with the proliferation of additional schools, the tournament lost its top billing with the local media. A short-lived run at the Alario Center in Westwego, and invitations from other in- and out-of-state tournaments caused two of the CYO's staples – St. Augustine and Brother Martin – to drop out. Ironically, both promised to return for the 2020 tournament.
But as costs continue to rise and attendance numbers diminish, the tournament became unsustainable. McCaffery said the cost of game officials has skyrocketed, and the uncertainty of setting a schedule against the LHSAA's football playoff dates has been a major hindrance.
'Last year's CYO games were great, but there was hardly anyone there because of the LHSAA's silly split of select and non-select playoff games in town,' McCaffery said. 'So we took a huge hit, and this is supposed to be a fundraiser. However, our financial state doesn't allow us to have negative fundraisers.'
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So, for now, another page of New Orleans history has been torn from the unwritten annals.
There will be no ruffles and flourishes for the state's longest-running basketball tournament. It appears to have reached a sorrowful end. But does anyone really care?
rbrocato@clarionherald.org
