US ‘madness’ comes to Ireland
College basketball thrillfest destined to be a massive draw in Dublin
THERE’S probably not a more aptly-named sports tournament in the world than March Madness. For three weeks every spring, America is captivated by its national college basketball championship where the 65 best teams in the country compete in a spectacular single-elimination play-off.
‘I might be biased but there is nothing like it,’ says Zach Light, whose was part of the Colgate team in the Patriot League who qualified for the tournament the past two seasons.
‘It is such an unique style of tournament to crown the champions, and that is why it captures the imagination of everyone.’
It’s American football and basketball that drive the multi-billion dollar industry that is college sport in the US. And next weekend in the National Basketball Arena, Irish fans can get a taste of what sends America mad every March as eight different college teams, four men’s and four women’s, will take the floor in the first MAAC/ASUN Dublin Challenge.
To illustrate the hold that the sport has in the States, the games are being broadcast live by ESPN, meaning they will be going into 60 million households in the USA.
‘It is huge,’ says Light, who is currently playing for Moycullen in the Superleague while doing a masters in NUI Galway under the Sport Changes Life programme, which is helping to run the Dublin Challenge. ‘It is hard to convey how big it is, but a couple of days ago, there were 120 college basketball games going on in the States at the one time. That’s what you are talking about.’
The Dublin Challenge is the brainchild of Gareth Maguire, a former Irish international player who won two Superleague titles with Star of the Sea in the 1990s. Along with his wife Deirdre Brennan, also a former basketball international, they founded Sport Changes Life charity more than a decade ago.
‘It is about using the language of sport to show people that they can aspire to something else in life,’ Brennan explains. ‘Basketball is our passion, so we decided to use that as the basis for our programme.’
Brennan says that her husband’s background was the inspiration for the programme. Maguire grew up in West Belfast in the 1970s and 1980s and it was basketball, and some of his coaches, that stopped him from going down a different path.
‘They were role models who were coaching him basketball, who inspired him to go down a different road,’ she explains. ‘And when I started teaching in the Ardoyne in North Belfast, I wasn’t prepared for it. I grew up in rural Monaghan, not far from the border, and thought I knew about the troubles. But it was a completely different experience for those who grew up in the middle of it.
‘I started to do extracurricular stuff with the students and I chose basketball, because it was the sport I knew and loved. For many of them at the time, it was a case of just go to school and go home. But we started going around the city to play other schools, and around the north. It was often their first experience of meeting students from the other tradition. We brought down to Dungarvan for the basketball camp, things like that, and you could see them change just by playing sport.
‘I know it can sound clichéd that sport has the power to change lives, but it does and that is where the foundation came from – it is about giving young people the opportunity to aspire to something else. ‘ Since the inception of the foundation, almost 200 student basketball players from the States have studied in Ireland on a victory scholarship. This year’s scholars include Light and Naomi Ganpo, who are both doing a masters in NUI Galway, while playing for Moycullen and the Mystics respectively in the Superleague. And they are also coaching under-age teams in the west, as one of the prerequisites for the scholarships is that they do some coaching work in the community.
Ganpo is from Toronto but went to the NCAA Division one college Lafayette, where Irish international CJ Fulton is on a scholarship with the men’s team.
DOING a masters in human resources at NUI Galway while playing Superleague, she is also coaching Moycullen under-15s. ‘I’m coaching between 24 to 30 kids at Moycullen every week. And it is great to transmit the knowledge that I got from five years playing college basketball. It is something I wanted to do and this is a great opportunity to do that.’
Coming from a student athlete background in the States to studying in Ireland is a little different.
‘Just a small bit different,’ Ganpo chuckles. ‘Lafayette is a Division one team in the Patriot League, but when you are a student athlete in the States, you are basically a professional athlete except that you are expected to study too.
‘You are on the court every day, sometimes twice a day. In the gym. Everything centres around the sport. Here, we are training three times a week, we have our weights sessions and there are games at the weekend, but it is definitely a different experience.’
Light was part of the NUI Galway team who won their second senior men’s game earlier this week in UL. His team-mates are interested in how the standard in Ireland compares with Division 1 NCAA basketball.
‘It is a question I keep getting asked, and I would say that the Superleague is near the same standard of the Division I was playing in the States,’ Light reckons.
‘Just from talking to players, it is clear that the standard has improved in the Superleague over the past couple of seasons. It is a little different, though, because there are a lot of seasoned veterans in the league, who know the game inside-out while in college, the teams are all 19,20 or 21, just setting out.’
Light, who is a native New Yorker who is happy these days with the way that the Jets are performing in the NFL, is coaching the fresher’s team in NUI Galway while also taking the Connacht academy under-16 side, which is a side that has attempted to gather the most talented under-age players in the
west. He says that he is impressed by the talent he has seen in Ireland.
Nate Schaffer was so taken by the victory scholarship programme he did last year that he returned this year to work for the foundation. ‘I was originally supposed to come over in the fall of 2020 but, with the way the world was at the time, everything was thrown up in the air,’ says Schaffer, who grew up in Virginia, just outside Washington DC.
‘We arrived over and within a couple of days, the basketball season was cancelled. But through Sports Changes Life, I got enrolled in the fall of 2021, studied a masters in business at Carlow IT, and did a lot of coaching at secondary schools in Carlow.
‘It was a wonderful experience but very different to being a student athlete in the States. Everything is different, School is different, the basketball is different. I came from Swathmore College in Pennsylvania and, from playing with them, I played with the college team in Carlow IT, where it was more of a recreational activity.
‘We would train maybe three or four times a month, play a game a month, there would be no spectators. Coming from America where the college team is everything, full arenas, and you end up supporting your college team for the rest of your life.
‘And of course, basketball is one of the biggest sports in America. Everyone has a favourite NBA team as well as supporting their college team. You come over here, and basketball is very much a second-class citizen in a sports world dominated by the GAA, soccer and rugby.
‘But going to the gym and training with guys who are dedicated to being the best that they could be on the court, that is what basketball has always been about for me
‘You are playing with guys here, who are just coming in from their job, or they have kids at home, they have other responsibilities.
‘As a student athlete in the States, it is all about the team. That is all you have to worry about, so it was great seeing that different perspective,’ Schaffer says.
There will be eight college teams competing in Tallaght next weekend and they are doing their utmost to spread the basketball gospel around Dublin as each team will go to a different primary school in the city. And some of those pupils will come to the arena to cheer them on. ‘Having these teams in the arena is a golden opportunity,’ Maguire says. ‘Even watching these games on the television doesn’t really give you the sense of the athleticism and physicality of these players. It is only when you are there, watching them first hand that you appreciate what they can do.’ In the broader sense, they hope that these college basketball teams can be an inspiration to some of the young people who see them next week. But next weekend will also be about top-class sport, a small glimpse into why America goes crazy for March Madness every year.