Four years ago, the middle school basketball team at G. Harold Antrim School in Point Pleasant Beach made an electrifying run to the Monmouth County Athletic League championship game. Scrappy and hard working, the boys from Antrim played a dominant team from Brielle down to the wire, losing by only a few points.
The disappointment didn’t last long; soon the eighth graders would be playing together at Point Pleasant Beach High School, where they would have a chance to win a title on a much larger stage.
Or so they thought.
Today, not a single eighth grader from that Antrim team is on the roster at Point Beach.
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Parents of the former players, other Point Beach parents and even the town’s mayor say there’s a simple reason: Point Beach head coach Nick Catania has added so many impact transfers and players from other districts who pay tuition to attend the school that homegrown kids no longer have a fair shot at playing time.
“You don’t (even) go and see games,” Mayor Stephen Reid says. “The whole town is absolutely frustrated by it.”
They must be missing quite a show. The Garnet Gulls recently have captured a Group 1 state championship, two sectional titles and their first Shore Conference tournament crown. Along the way, they’ve sent recruits to Notre Dame, Iowa, Florida Atlantic and Rhode Island.
In almost any other instance, Point Beach’s astounding basketball success would make for a feel-good story. The little town that could has just 4,640 residents and 404 students in the high school. But Reid and others say the town is divided over the triumphs of a program some don’t recognize as their own.
“It’s nice to see winners, but it’s not the same when you’re cheering for some kid you don’t even know,” Reid says. “It’s not your Point Beach High you grew up with. It’s not the kids who grew up in town. It’s some other kids from other towns.”
This year's Point Beach team, which is off to a slow start with a 10-7 record, features prominent transfers from Middletown South, Red Bank Regional, Spotswood and St. Anthony, one of whom pays tuition. (Point Beach is among a growing number of public districts in New Jersey that welcomes out-of-district students who pay a tuition rate that varies district to district.)
Catania and his supporters say the coach is simply playing by the rules and that he never recruits. He has followed a tried-and-true model that fits almost any sport at New Jersey’s legendary programs: Build it and they will come.
As for the transfers, Catania calls it “an epidemic that goes on everywhere.”
“Parents are going to do what they have to do to get their kids the best opportunity and situation,” Catania says. “It snowballs. Any successful program is getting transfers. How many public schools have had kids go to Notre Dame, Iowa, Rhode Island, Florida Atlantic? The only thing I want to do is get in the gym every day and work hard.”
Of Catania’s big-time recruits, only one — Matt Farrell, now at Notre Dame — had roots in Point Beach. Meanwhile, Dom Uhl (Iowa) and Jarelle Reischel (Rhode Island/Eastern Kentucky) transferred from Germany, and Jesse Hill (Florida Atlantic) came from Jackson Memorial as a senior.
The leading scorer on this year's team, senior forward Alex Mrusek, transferred this season from Middletown South, and the team's best shooter (Michael Rice, the son of former Rutgers men's basketball coach Mike Rice) and most versatile player (Jimmy Panzini) joined as juniors last year.
“All these kids aren’t from town,” says Nick Allegretta, whose son played on the Antrim team and quit basketball after his sophomore year at Point Beach. “This is the town I grew up in. I coached Little League for 14 years. I coached basketball. I know all the kids in town. There’s none of them playing. There’s none of them left.”
'PARENTS HAVE THAT CHOICE'
Now in his 11th season at Point Beach, Catania has transformed the Garnet Gulls from a non-factor in hoops to one of New Jersey's top public school programs. The high-water mark came during the 2013-14 season, when Point Beach stretched its divisional winning streak to 28 games.
“Nick Catania took over a team that couldn’t even put on a pair of shorts,” says Frank Kineavy, whose son, P.J., played for Catania as a tuition-paid student from Sea Girt. “If they lost, they lost by 60 points a game. … He turned my son into a winner and a man. I’ll never be able to repay Nick Catania for what he did for my son.”
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But as Point Beach basketball rolled, some in town began to question the success. In particular, the team thrived with the additions — seemingly out of nowhere — of Uhl (6-foot-9), Hill (6-8) and Reischel (6-7).
“Then the kids coming up know they’re never going to see the court,” Reid says. “Not because they’re not good; because they’re not 6-foot-7.”
Catania maintains all his players past and present have met eligibility requirements — either moving into Point Beach’s sending district or paying tuition.
“The majority of people that come in actually bought homes,” Catania says. “Parents make that move, and as a parent, they have that choice.”
Some of Catania's critics say Point Beach accepts tuition-paid students to legally bring gifted players into the program, pushing out the homegrown kids. Tuition schools are similar to private schools, where out-of-district students can apply for enrollment at a cost to the family. At Point Beach, the district charges $7,747 to attend the high school. The state does not collect data on tuition-paid students, so there is no indication how many schools accept them, according to Richard Vespucci, a media coordinator from the department of education.
Of the 28 players in the Point Beach boy basketball program this season, four are tuition-paid students, according to Ellen Magliaro, the school’s athletic director. The entire high school has 85 tuition students, she added.
Renae LaPrete, the Point Beach interim superintendent since July, says she’s had numerous conversations with parents “who are very frustrated” by the amount of new athletes at the high school. Spurred by allegations that many are not paying tuition or using fake addresses at some of the cheap offseason rentals in town, LaPrete began investigating this fall.
She says she found no evidence of wrongdoing with athletes this school year.
“I took our attendance officer, we did a spot check not only on athletics, but students that were not living in the Beach,” LaPrete says. “The attendance officer has been doing visuals daily for a period of time and we’re comfortable with the findings.”
LaPrete says she understands the frustrations of parents “who have been taxpayers here forever and somebody comes in and may knock somebody from a starting position.”
“But what do you do when kids do enter the school, when they’re paying tuition?” she says. “So they’re a football player and they move in? What am I supposed to do? Say, ‘You’re not allowed’? That’s discrimination in the highest form. I understand the emotional end of it. But there’s nothing illegal that we’re doing.”
'PEOPLE ARE GOING TO COMPLAIN'
This season, the final eighth grader from the Antrim team — Ryan Sheehan — decided to stop playing basketball after three years at Point Beach. His father, Pat Sheehan, says his son was coming back from an injury and was told by Catania he would be the last man on the bench even as a senior.
Pat Sheehan says his son’s situation had more to do with all the new players at Point Beach.
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“High school sports are supposed to be fun and to play with the same group of kids for 10 years,” Pat Sheehan says. “To have that taken away, it just sucks. I know that’s the way high school works now. But in a Group 1 school, it’s (not good).”
Catania says “it would be great to have Ryan.” The coach maintains Ryan Sheehan missed practice time because of the injury, so he was told he would have to earn his way back into the lineup like any other player.
Meanwhile, allegations that he’s taking opportunities from homegrown kids “don’t bother me because it’s not true,” Catania says.
“If you come to our gym, there are a lot of people from town,” he says. “Our games are packed. It’s a few people that maybe don’t have the same thought process or maybe want something to be handed to them.”
What does the future of Point Beach hoops look like? One parent of a current middle school basketball player says he’s worried that if he sends his son to Point Beach, a better player will transfer in and take his spot.
Catania says the players who work hard will always get a fair shot.
“The people that are disgruntled are going to complain,” Catania says. “But we have a lot of supporters and we have a lot of people that are thankful for the things that we’ve done.”
Matthew Stanmyre may be reached at mstanmyre@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattStanmyre. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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