City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)
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HERSHEY— Chris Roantree was in his first days as Father Judge coach three years ago when was he called away from the gym for a coach’s meeting with the athletic director. Five minutes in, he recalled, one of his assistants came rushing into the office telling him he had to come back to the gym because two of his players got into a fight.

By the time Roantree got back, the fracas was over.

Roantree and his staff encourage structured aggression with their team, though draw the line when it comes to fighting.

One of the players involved was a 5-foot nothing, barely-over-100-pound freshman with an attitude that he was not about to be pushed around by an upperclassman verbally or physically. The spaghetti-thin guard was willing to fight for a position. Both players were suspended for a week. The freshman came back. The upperclassman didn’t.

It was a scenario that could not have worked out better for Roantree and Father Judge.

The freshman happened to be Kevair Kennedy, the Crusaders’ future star point guard headed to Merrimack who recently led them to their first state championship on Saturday over Roman Catholic, 71-60, for the PIAA Class 6A title.

In the championship, Kennedy dropped a season-high 29 points, on 7-of-12 shooting from the field, 15-of-17 shooting from the foul line, along with five steals and five assists. The 6-foot-1, 170-pound guard was the maestro, calling the shots with an ease that belied the high tension of a state title game in Hershey’s raucous GIANT Center.

It was Kennedy’s best game of the season and it may stem back to an undersized kid who had a chip on his shoulder and was not about to be bullied.

Kennedy was a 5-6, 130-pound freshman looking to be one of Roantree’s foundational pieces in rebuilding the Judge program.

In his first scrimmage, Kennedy and a sophomore, who left the program, exchanged in some playful court banter. That escalated into more heated talk, and boiled over when the coaches had left the gym into fists being thrown after the scrimmage ended.

Kennedy does not recall who got the better of it.

He does recall he was not about to take anything from anyone—a stance he still proudly maintains.

“I don’t remember what started it, I do remember getting into a fist fight my first day of practice,” Kennedy said. “I’m not really a hot head. I just wasn’t about to let anyone get over on me. I suppose that came from being small my freshman year. I wanted to put my foot down and show anyone that I was not going to let anyone walk over me. I wanted to make that known early.”

Kennedy proceeded to grow seven inches and put on 40 pounds over the last three years, thanks to a rigorous weight-training program he put himself on the last two years.

“When I look back on what happened that day, and I know it was the first practice, I wouldn’t change anything,” Kennedy said. “That day made me who I am. If I let that kid, who I became friendly with, get over on me and took it, I wouldn’t be who I am as a player and a person. That little kid that was a freshman you can say is still inside me. Only, I’m more mature now. I know how to deal with situations more patiently.”

Roantree certainly does not condone fighting among his players, although he embraces fighters. It’s why he was instantly drawn to Kennedy. Roantree, a 1999 Judge graduate, inherited a team in 2021 that had gone 2-10 in the Philadelphia Catholic League and 4-12 overall.

He was looking for any morsel of fight he could get from his players.

In successive seasons since then, building around players like Kennedy, the Crusaders went 9-10 and 4-9 in the PCL in Roantree’s first year, 11-12 and 6-7 in his second, to 16-8 overall and 9-4 in the Catholic League his third season, reaching last year’s PCL semifinals, knocked out by eventual two-time defending Catholic League champion Roman, to a school-record 24-7 this season, going 10-3 in the Catholic League and winning their first Catholic League crown since 1998, when Roantree was a junior, and first state title.

Roantree laughs at the recollection of the Kennedy incident.

“I knew then I had a tough one,” Roantree said. “That told me Kev was a fighter. It’s a toughness thing. You have to be tough in the Catholic League, and he was taught never to back down. Kev took the consequences, and he probably still talks to the kid he got into with, but even then, it was hard to keep him off the floor.

“My assistant coaches kept telling me we have to get him on the floor, we have to get him on the floor, and eventually Kev started for us the tail end of his freshman year. I just remember being called out of a meeting over a fight, and by the time I got there, it was over. I also remember I didn’t want to freak out over it. That told me it was competitive, and you had two guys competing over a spot. They received the consequences, and we moved on. It never carried over. They shook hands and walked away.”

Kennedy celebrates during Father Judge's state championship win. (Photo; Mark Jordan/CoBL)

But it sent a message.

Kennedy took his junkyard dog mentality into each practice. He was knocked around as a freshman, though the respect he garnered caught the attention of the coaching staff and the team. By the time he was a sophomore, Kennedy was named a team captain. The summer between his sophomore and junior years, he began an arduous weight training program.

As he grew physically, his game progressed along with it.

Though, some colleges seemed to be late on the trail. He received tepid attention locally, getting Drexel to take a peek, before landing at Merrimack, where head coach Joe Gallo, who recently signed a 10-year extension, may have grabbed a steal in Kennedy. Gallo already has former West Catholic star Adam “Budd” Clark, who was named first-team, all-MAAC after leading the conference in scoring after averaging 20.2 points per game.

Roman coach Chris McNesby calls Kennedy “the best point guard in the state.” Roantree, who is obviously allowed to be biased, calls him the PIAA Class 6A Player of the Year.

“College recruiting today is so different with the transfer portal when it comes to high school kids, but Joey Gallo and his assistant were there Saturday night and they know they have a steal in Kevair,” Roantree said. “The nature is if he goes there and has success, and he will, there is a chance he moves on. Kev knows he has a chance to go there and play right away. Kev got the offer and Merrimack stepped in. He will turn a lot of heads in college. The one knock on him was if he could shoot with consistently. He did for us. Once he gets to college, a lot of people will say they missed on him and I will tell them I told you so.”

Never look past a fighter.

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Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on BlueSky here.