Youth basketball league returns to Red Hook, by Nathan Weiser

Paul Giffone is bringing Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) basketball back to Red Hook for the first time since he last was in charge of it 12 years ago.  There were sign up practice sessions during three Saturdays in September at the Miccio Center.

“The way I choose the players is whoever wants to play and whoever is going to be dedicated, loyal and show up, they are on the team,” Giffone said at the Miccio Center. That is what it is about. It is not about looking for super stars. If you want to show up, you are on the team.”

For kids who don’t have much experience, the longtime youth coach said they will improve with practice.

“We do drills and learn how to play,” Giffone said. “Once we have the team then we go over situations like out of bounds plays and how to break a press. We want to teach them how to play. The goal is when they get old enough they will be on their high school team.”

In his first sign up session, three kids showed up. The second Saturday that number increased to seven. His goal was to double that the third Saturday.

Back in the early 1990s when he started coaching CYO in Red Hook, he had teams of fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth graders and sometimes high school.  Every Sunday there were games at the Miccio with lots of fans.

The season will go from November 3 through February and then there are playoffs until March. The playoffs combine the Brooklyn and Queens teams in an NCAA tournament style bracket to determine a champion.

He ran the CYO program in Red Hook from 1990 through 2011 but then stopped since he had family issues that made it so he did not have time to run the program anymore.

Since 2011, he has coached CYO in other parts of Brooklyn and has done AAU coaching since the pandemic. In 2018, he said he was fortunate to coach a CYO team at Immaculate Heart of Mary on Fort Hamilton Parkway that made it all the way to the championship. One of the kids on his team was the son of Nets coach Jacque Vaughn, who had recently come to be the assistant coach with the Nets after previously coaching in Florida.

“I would rather have guys that show up all the time than a kid that shows up when he feels like it or is a prima donna,” Giffone said. “I don’t want kids to say I can’t make it today because another team asked me to play. I have no agenda. The only thing I am promising is I am going to teach you how to play.”

Giffone was the director of New York Funeral Service on Van Brunt Street, which he founded in 1987. He said he came when nobody wanted to come to Red Hook.

“Since I had a funeral home I was looking for something to get involved in in the neighborhood so I could get known,” Giffone said. “I wanted to join something I liked. I was a CYO basketball player. I was an All-Star player in sixth, seventh and eighth grade. ”

In the summer of 1990 someone who was running the Visitation Hawks reached out to him because he wanted money to take kids to a summer tournament. He gave the money and this led to his coaching.

“I said, “I will sponsor, I will buy the uniforms. Let me coach one of the teams.’ They said ‘no problem we need coaches. He now has two reliable coaches who he has worked with in the past. He wants to bring back organized basketball to Red Hook since he said it has been missing the last 10 years.

“I would love to come back and restart the organized basketball and get the kids nice uniforms and organized activities,” Giffone said. “I have two guys who are very good coaches and are good people with no agenda. We have no agenda other than teaching the kids and giving them something nice to do.”

There was only one kid who lives in Red Hook at the sign up practice session on Saturday the 23. The coach said that he wants more kids who are from Red Hook on the team.

Flyers were hung up at the Miccio, information was put on social media and flyers were put around the neighborhood to try and get kids to come.

Nathan Weiser