A picture of disgrace

IT WAS A STUNNING fall from grace for one of the most celebrated figures in New York hoops history. Nearly one year ago — April 4, 2011 — Bob Oliva admitted in a Boston courtroom that he had raped a family friend named Jimmy Carlino during a trip to Massachusetts in 1976. Carlino was just a 14-year-old kid then. Oliva had turned Christ the King Regional High School into a national basketball power. He won hundreds of games and several titles during his 27 years as the Royals’ basketball coach. But for many Christ the King alumni, the disgraced Oliva’s legacy now boils down to one word: pedophile.

Bernard Helldorfer, the l egal counsel for the Queens Catholic school’s board of trustees, says he understands the anger. Carlino and the other men who say they were abused by Oliva aren’t his only victims. Oliva also abused the trust Christ the King placed in him.

“You could say we are a victim as well,” Helldorfer says.

So why is there a picture of Oliva in the school’s lobby? Why honor a man who brought shame to the institution?

“The fact that a photo of this convicted child rapist hangs in a place of honor where it can be seen by anyone on their way into the gym is just one more example of how the CK administration and board of trustees have failed completely in their response to the Bob Oliva scandal,” a Christ the King graduate said in an email sent to school president Michael Michel and the Daily News last week.

Oliva’s image, Helldorfer says, is part of a display honoring Father John Savage, the athletic director who died in 1996. Oliva, for better or for worse, was one of several coaches who led Christ the King sports teams during Savage’s tenure, the lawyer says.

It strikes me as an odd explanation. Most people, I think, would prefer to keep an admitted child molester out of a celebration of their life’s work. But Helldorfer’s reasoning is even more confusing because photos of two former Christ the King athletes who spoke out against Oliva have been removed. Allen Watson was a baseball star who later pitched for the Mets and Yankees. Ray Paprocky was a basketball standout who later served as Oliva’s assistant coach. Why erase Watson and Paprocky like they were members of the Soviet Politburo who fell out of favor while keeping the registered sex offender?

Maybe school officials believe if they remove Oliva’s photo from the lobby, it would be a tacit acknowledgment, as the graduate says, that they botched things after Carlino accused Oliva of abuse in 2008. Perhaps they fear that by removing the photo, they would be acknowledging that they didn’t do their homework when they allowed Oliva to talk to students that year about serving as a medic in Vietnam. Oliva did serve in the Army during the Vietnam War era, according to records, but he served near San Antonio, not Saigon.

Maybe they are afraid of admitting that they allowed Oliva to hang around their students for months after they learned about the abuse allegations. Maybe they don’t want to explain why they allowed Oliva to hold his basketball camp at CK that summer, giving him access to kids as young as 7 years old.

Michel and current hoops coach Joe Arbitello would have to explain why they sat on their hands after Paprocky told them that Oliva had admitted abusing a former player. Tom Ognibene, the former city councilman who serves as a school trustee, would have to apologize for dismissing Carlino as a shakedown artist.

Maybe school officials fear if they remove Oliva’s photo from their lobby, they are confirming that they were more interested in protecting a successful basketball coach than comforting his victims.

Is this the way Christ the King — the deity, not the school — would act?