Gene Fisch's freshman year was momentous, both on and off the court. The summer before, one of his dad’s co-workers at Autolite told Andrew about a medical procedure he'd read about called grafting, in which skin from a person’s thighs or buttocks was removed and grafted over disfiguring scars elsewhere. This worker told Andrew he should think about such a procedure for Gene, especially given that the kid was at an age when he’d be starting to notice girls, and they him. As a man who wanted only the best for his family, it wasn’t long before Andrew was, indeed, exploring getting his son one of those so-called skin grafts. Unfortunately, as he'd learn, the procedure was not only experimental, and therefore costly, it was also considered elective and, as a result, not covered by insurance.
Soon word was out that little Gene needed an operation, and that the Fisches needed help paying for it. Given the close-knit nature of the West End's Polish community and Gene’s growing status as a local phenom, it wasn’t long before the funding of his operation became a neighborhood-wide cause. Among the first to step forward were Moe Pichura and Cuz Rudy, the bartenders at the Old Port. Not only did they dip into their own pockets, but they also placed a large Hellmann’s mayonnaise jar behind the bar, and then actively solicited contributions from regulars and non-regulars alike. Soon the money started coming in, a few coins here and a dollar or so there. Still, Gene’s series of operations was going to cost tens of thousands, and trying to raise so much money in nickel and dime increments was going to take a while, especially in 1950’s currency.
Other social groups in the neighborhood gave as well. The Polish Falcon Club. The Polish American Club. The St. Louis Club. The Polish Legion of American Veterans. And the Happy Hearts, a group of World War II Poles who had managed to return home to the West Side from the war alive, and who'd spend the rest of their lives giving to worthy causes and those in need in the parish, which they did quietly and often anonymously as a tribute to their brothers who'd fought beside them and who'd not been nearly so fortunate.
One day, however, something unexpected happened. Bernice went to the front door and found her son walking up the front walk. Dominik, her older boy, had left home immediately after high school. The young man for whom the English language had always been a challenge, and who'd resisted American culture more so than any of his siblings, had grown sullen, even reclusive, upon his initial arrival in Syracuse. Maybe it was because he was the oldest and, given the circumstances, had been deprived of any semblance of a normal childhood. Maybe it was because he was a teenager when he first immigrated and was more embarrassed by the out-of-fashion clothes he was forced to wear, or the fact that his family’s nightly fare consisted, not of fried chicken, pot roast or meat loaf, like the other kids, but salt pork and potatoes. Whatever the reason, this much seemed apparent: none of the Fisch kids wore the label of DP with any deeper resentment. And throughout his teenage years, Dominik remained very much as he had been that first year at Central High, a quiet young man with few friends and little in the way of outside interests.
Upon graduation, Dominik had decided that, rather than going to college or trying to find a job, he'd leave Syracuse and join the Army. So one day while still a teenager, he kissed his mother goodbye and left for basic training. Eventually, he found himself on active duty in Korea, where he served four years. After two stints in Korea, he left the Army, returned stateside and, now freed from the anger that once held him hostage, met and married a beautiful Irish girl from Tipperary Hill. He also got a job at Solvay Process, bought a small farm in the country, and eventually began to carve out a wonderful life for himself and his new family.
As she watched Dominik walk up the front steps, Bernice found herself both surprised and delighted since, like most mothers, she didn’t get to see her son nearly enough to suit her. When he walked in the door, she smiled and gave him a big hug and kissed him on the cheek. Dominik told his mother he couldn’t stay and was on his way to meet someone, but he had something he wanted to give her. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded slip of paper, which he handed to her. “What’s this?” she asked, opening the small rectangular piece of safety paper. It was a check. And as soon as she began reading it Bernice gasped ever so slightly as she realized what Dominik was doing. The check was for more money than she had ever seen, and it was made payable to Gene. After a moment, he told his mother that for four years in the Army he'd put aside a little out of each paycheck for something special; he just wasn’t sure what. But when she'd told Dominik about Gene’s need for an operation, he figured there probably wasn’t going to be anything more special in the foreseeable future than something that would help get rid of the ugly scars on his kid brother’s face.
He stood there for a moment and just looked at his mother in her apron and housedress, her hands shaking and her eyes welling with tears. As he watched her stare down at the check, Dominik smiled softly and said “Love you.” He then hugged her and left, closing the door behind him.
The series of skin grafts proved to be something of a mixed bag for Gene. They did slowly remove all traces of the burns he'd suffered in the Nazi death camp, but they also caused his skin to discolor horribly. Often, he would look at the mirror to find the left side of his face turning some strange shade of purple or yellow, particularly around the stitches the surgeon used to attach the new skin. Such a physical anomaly would be difficult at any age, but to a young man entering puberty and just discovering the wonders of the opposite sex, it bordered on torture.
For the first time in his life, Gene became unsure of himself. The boy, who for so long believed there was nothing he couldn’t do, suddenly began avoiding eye contact with people, especially girls. He started spending more and more time alone. And when someone asked what happened to his face, he’d never answer except to mumble something about an accident. It wasn’t long before Gene’s unease grew into full-blown insecurity. Soon, he began wearing a large gauze bandage everywhere he went to hide the surgical marks and discoloration. By the middle of eighth grade and throughout the summer of his freshman year, Gene had become as well known in the neighborhood and on the courts of Frazer Park for the white bandage on his face as for his shock of curly hair and deadly line-drive shot.
His anxiety over the fallout from his skin grafts was only exacerbated when he was approached one day by Cathy Brieaddy, a pretty little half-Polish/half-Irish girl from Skunk City on the city’s southwest side. Gene had always thought Cathy pretty and very nice. As it turned out, and much to his delight, she didn’t seem bothered by his bandage or the discoloration of his skin. Still, it gnawed at him. Cathy was easy to talk to and, soon, she and Gene were spending a good deal of time together. He regularly took her to movies at the RKO Keith, Paramount and Loews theaters downtown. Gene didn’t drive, of course, but the two would take the bus together, then stop in the Mr. Peanut Shop for a small bag of penny candy or some warm, salted cashews, which they'd sneak into the movie.
Gene soon discovered that even when he wasn’t with Cathy he was thinking about her. The only problem was, that damn scar of his and the nasty bandage he found himself compelled to wear everyday. One day, believing it was time, Gene did the bravest thing he’d ever done in his life. He stood in front of the mirror and slowly removed the bandage from his face. He then looked at the young man he saw staring back at him, face disfigured and discolored. It was a face that certainly looked better as a result of the grafts, but still a long way from presentable, at least from where Gene stood.
Still, something about his feelings for Cathy told him this was the right thing to do. Standing there in the harsh light of the bathroom, he removed the bandage and tossed it in the wastebasket. He then took one last look at himself, exhaled, and shut off the light.
The next thing Gene knew he was standing on the Brieaddy family’s front porch, his stomach in knots, palms clammy. Hating himself for what he was about to do, Gene reached out and rang the bell, part of him hoping no one would answer.
As luck would have it, not only was someone home, it was Cathy. The girl he was crazy about smiled at him through the screen door, which she then swung open. She offered an even broader smile. Gene didn’t smile back, though. He was too nervous. He just stood there, trying to read any trace of horror in her eyes, figuring it was only a matter of time before she betrayed herself and revealed just how ugly she thought he was. But Cathy didn’t betray a thing. She just stood there continuing to smile while Gene, the stupid idiot, kept standing there in the doorway, not saying a word. Finally, she arched an eyebrow, gently furled her brow and said sweetly, “Well...are you going to come in?”
Nothing was ever said between them about his scar or discoloration after that. In the days ahead Gene Fisch would have many more skin grafts before his scars, like the gruesome memories of the DP camps, would eventually fade to nothingness. That moment in his bathroom would be the last time he'd ever wear his bandage again.
During his freshman year, Gene served as a reserve on the varsity squad. Coach Markowski told him on more than one occasion he'd love to start him and play him more, but he was just so small he was worried he’d wear down over the course of a game. As a result, he used Gene strategically and put him in games only at key times, often late, when ball handling and foul shooting were at a premium. But whenever Markowski did, anyone watching could sense the energy it infused into his teammates, if not the crowd. The Hearts faithful would always roar with delight whenever Gene rose from the bench to report in. And when he eventually connected on one of his patented line-drive shots, or split defenders off the dribble to hit a teammate with a precise, no-look pass, the roars turned deafening.
At the time, Gene stood maybe 5’4” and weighed 130 pounds. Despite his small stature, of all the Hearts players, none stood taller than Gene, or was more willing to take the big shot in a pressure-packed situation.
That season the Hearts, in only their second year of varsity competition, made the playoffs and gave Assumption all they could handle in the league finals before succumbing in a double overtime thriller at Nottingham High School. In the first overtime, the rail-thin freshman made two key steals with his team trailing and desperate to get the ball back. He also tallied five points, the last two of which sent the game into a second overtime. It was not enough, however, and Gene was devastated. In fact, the loss haunted him. After being so close to a championship, only to have it slip away, he found himself sitting at his desk at school for long stretches after the season, pondering what went wrong. He desperately wanted to determine what things had to happen for Hearts to win it all the following year.
What Gene finally realized after all his analysis, was that the Hearts would only go as far as their best player, Richie Pospiech, would take them. Pospiech, a senior-to-be who’d been the club’s sixth man the previous year, was a silky smooth lefty with a soft touch, quick feet and an almost savant-like court awareness. He was the ultimate team player and a fierce defender.
Under Markowski, who stressed, at all times, that the individual was subservient to the collective, the Hearts had gone from a rag-tag collection of underclassmen to the Parochial League title game in just two years. Markowski’s teams were built on defense and ball movement. In his system, a team of five skilled “pass-first” shooters like Pospiech would be virtually unbeatable. Unfortunately, he didn’t have five Rich Pospieches. He had one. He also only had one Gene Fisch. And Gene, for all his self-confidence, remained keenly aware of this.
Gene also knew that whatever chance the Hearts had to win the league the next season would ride squarely on his left-handed teammate's ability to take his game to a higher level. Fortunately, that summer, Rich Pospiech came to the same realization. He was finally going to be a starter for Adam Markowski and he needed to take his game to the next level.
As much as Pospiech longed to become a better player, if not a great one, he also wanted to enjoy the fruits of his senior year. He'd just turned eighteen, after all, and was standing on the precipice of adulthood. And like a lot of teenage boys on the West Side of Syracuse, he liked to hang out nights at the park, drink a little beer, laugh, and talk sports, girls, music, hopes, dreams or whatever. In Richie’s mind, getting up bright and early every day to sweat on a hot basketball court, doing drills and running sprints like that crazy Gene Fisch, always took a back seat to a few more hours of shuteye.
When young Richie did finally drag himself out of bed each morning that summer, the routine would always be the same; brush teeth, lace 'em up, eat a quick bowl of Corn Flakes or Sugar Smacks, and then, ball in hand, dribble up, down or over to any one of four courts near his home – Burnet Park, Lewis Park or (when it rained) the indoor courts at either St. Pat’s or St. Brigid’s.
Rich Pospiech would play for hours on end, shooting and practicing his dribbling, especially with his off-hand. Unlike Fisch, Pospiech wasn’t a workout freak. He wasn't a young man given to endless hours of mind-numbing drills. But no one loved basketball more than Rich Pospiech. He would play for hours against anyone and everyone, sometimes even in the rain if he and his buddies couldn’t get into the gym at St. Pat’s or St. Brigid’s. But every day, no matter what – until his stomach told him it was time to head home for dinner.
A big part of what moved Pospiech to maximize his gift was the deep sense of pride his mother took in her son having emerged as an important player on Adam Markowski’s first-ever Sacred Heart varsity team. Given that tuition to the all-new Sacred Heart High was some $50 per student per year – money Charlotte Pospiech could ill-afford – she’d taken a job in the school cafeteria, where a small part of her lunch-lady salary was held back each week by Monsignor Piejda to help pay down the balance of her son’s tuition.
Once, when a fourteen-year old Richie indicated to his mother that he hoped to go to Central the following year because the school had a football team, she said, “Fine,” before adding, “But don’t you think about coming home ever again. Because if you go to Central, I promise you, you will no longer have a home.”
Two essential and ultimately fate-changing things came to pass that Summer of 1958, at least with respect to the Hearts’ upcoming season. One was that Rich Pospiech did, indeed, become better – in fact, much better. The non-stop shooting he’d done all summer had improved not just his accuracy, but his range. And in the process of taking thousands of jumpers, and playing so many games on so many courts over the course of so many hours, he developed what basketball aficionados would in time call a “scorer’s mentality.” Suddenly, the left-handed Pole from Schuyler Street in the heart of Irish country could flat-out score; anywhere, anytime, and from just about anywhere. But more than that, for the first time in his life he actually began looking to score.
The second thing that raised Sacred Hearts' prospects for the season ahead was that, over the course of so many pick-up games, three months’ worth of non-stop drilling, little Gene Fisch grew three inches and added nearly twenty pounds to his wiry frame. What’s more, during the early stages of the Fall, before basketball season officially kicked off, he added almost another inch and another five pounds. As a result, by the time the Parochial League season was just a week old, it had become readily apparent to everyone that, in the sublimely talented and physically gifted tandem of Rich Pospiech and Gene Fisch, Adam Markowski suddenly possessed the deadliest one-two scoring combination many longtime Parochial League observers had ever seen.
Gene’s sophomore year ended up being one of the most storied years in Syracuse high school history. Markowski, to his credit, recognized early on the otherworldly offensive talents of his two gifts-from-God and allowed them to shoot and control the ball more than his team-first philosophy might have otherwise permitted. With Gene as his trigger man, and Richie running the floor, filling the lanes and hitting shot after shot from the wings, Sacred Heart became a juggernaut, blitzing their league opponents in the regular season and playoffs, and finishing with a pristine 21-0 mark, only the second time in Parochial League history that a team went through an entire season without suffering even a single loss.
The highlight of the year was one particular Wednesday night contest in January at St. Lucy’s little wooden tinderbox in the heart of the Lower West Side. The St. Lucy’s coach that season was a young parishioner named Charlie Fricano, a devout Catholic, former altar boy and one-time St. Lucy’s All Star whose long association with the school began, like so many others, his first day of kindergarten. Fricano’s high-powered offense that season was fueled by a one-man/point-a-minute scoring machine named Chuck Bisesi, who just two weeks later would set the league’s single game scoring mark by putting up a staggering 63 against Rosary. By the time Hearts and Lucy’s met on the latter’s home court that season, both teams were not only undefeated, they were scoring at an unprecedented rate – over 80 points a game each (without, of course, the benefit of the three-point line or the shot clock).
Fan interest in the game was off-the-charts; so much so, in fact, there was talk of moving it to the Onondaga County War Memorial, the home court of the NBA’s Syracuse Nats, who happened to be on the road. Unfortunately, rather than checking with the War Memorial, it had been assumed by someone in the Diocese office that the facility’s court would need to be assembled by a county maintenance crew, which would cost money that the league did not wish to spend.
As it turned out, for some reason the War Memorial court had remained assembled after the Nats’ last game and, therefore, the 6,200-seat arena was ready and available and could have easily accommodated the Hearts/Lucy’s match-up and the thousands it would likely draw. But since no one bothered to actually check, the game had to be shoehorned into the little knothole that St. Lucy’s called its home gym where, according to reports, some seven hundred people were allowed in, but maybe three or four times that many were turned away.
The game itself not only lived up to its hype, it engulfed it. With Bisesi hitting from all over – often just a step or two inside the half-court stripe – and Fisch and Pospiech performing the two-man magic act they’d been preparing for all summer, the game turned into a heart-pounding, back-and-forth shootout, the likes of which had never been seen.
Unfortunately for Lucy’s and its fans, Bisesi picked up his third, and then fourth fouls early in the second half, one after another, and had to go to Fricano's bench. His teammates picked up the slack, however, staying within a handful of points the entire half.
With just seconds to go in regulation, and Adam Markowski’s team attempting to run out the clock, a Lucy’s player made a timely and most improbable steal off Fisch and drove the length of the court to tie things at 98-98, sending the sweaty, shoulder-to-shoulder crowd into delirium and the game into overtime. By then, not only had Bisesi fouled out, but two of his teammates had as well. Still, the game St. Lucy’s kids fought on and battled gallantly throughout the extra period. Ultimately, however, they had no answers for the scorching, white-hot Pospiech, who kept hitting basket after basket.
When the final horn sounded, and the last shot had ripped through the tiny gym’s now-frayed nets, the Hearts had managed to keep their record perfect. They’d edged St. Lucy’s, 110-104 – and most in attendance would later contend the game was far closer than the score. The barnburner was, and would forever remain, the highest scoring affair in the history of the Parochial League, with Bisesi ringing up 38, despite sitting for two long stretches, while Pospiech and Gene combined for 73 – tallying 41 and 32, respectively.
Gene would go on to earn first-team All Parochial honors that year; something he would do the two subsequent seasons as well, making him, along with former St. Vincent’s legend, Billy Jenkins, the only two players in Parochial League history to earn first team honors three consecutive years.
The legend of Gene Fisch would continue to grow over the subsequent two seasons, to the point that, following his senior year, during which he earned a full scholarship to NYU, he would win five major awards for athletic excellence from various civic groups and social clubs in Syracuse, like the Kiwanis, the Optimists and the Italian American Club. The only local award Gene would not win would be the most prestigious of them all, the Syracuse Sportswriters Athlete of the Year Award. That award was bestowed annually on the Salt City’s most outstanding athlete, with the winner determined by a vote of the local sports media, including the beat reporters on the sports desks of the two major dailies, the Post-Standard and the Herald Journal. That year, in what both papers described as a “close vote,” Gene was nosed out for Athlete of the Year by Syracuse University running back, Ernie Davis. Of course, by then Davis was accustomed to close votes. A few weeks earlier, he'd been honored as the best college football player in the nation by the narrowest margin of victory in the history of the Heisman Trophy.
* * * * *
As was mentioned, for years Bernice Fisch had no idea how great a player her son had become, nor did she understand the significance of his ability to pass, dribble and shoot a large round inflated ball. She simply went about the business of keeping her home clean and her family fed, and never once did she consider going to watch Gene play – that is until halfway through his sophomore year, a season in which he and Richie Pospiech spent week after week carving up Parochial League opponents en route to what would become their undefeated record.
After the wild St. Lucy’s game, word of just how great Adam Markowski’s basketball team was had started spreading throughout the neighborhood; and not just in the local bars and taverns, and places like Marty’s Barber Shop around the block from the school, but in bridge clubs, laundromats, bakeries, and the checkout lines of the A&P and Victory Markets. After one Sunday mass a woman came up to Bernice and waxed on and on about how great a player her son was, and how proud she must be of him. Bernice smiled, slightly taken aback by how fervent the woman was in her praise.
At home that night over dinner, Bernice asked Gene when his next game was. Friday night, he told her, against St. Patrick’s, seven o’clock. He explained that the game had been scheduled for VO, but had been moved to Nottingham High, on the other side of town.
That Friday, in the jam-packed and smoke-filled Nottingham gym, just minutes before game time, there suddenly descended over the crowd, a murmur, followed by a hush that bordered on reverence. There in the doorway, in a woolen coat and pillbox hat, stood Bernice Fisch. Most of the Hearts fans there knew the story of the Fisch family’s time in the death camps and on the death train – not the specifics, of course, but enough to get the point. And certainly enough so that most of them held the family matriarch in the highest regard. But what struck them most that particular night was that no one in the gym could ever remember seeing Bernice Fisch at a game before.
As their star player’s mother moved slowly toward one sideline, then turned in the direction of center court, the hush became even more pronounced. A few of the Hearts faithful even rose as she passed. Perhaps it was out of respect for all her family had been through. Maybe it was a sign of just how much they loved her son. Or, maybe, it was a touch of both. Whatever the reason, despite the fact that the bleachers were overflowing and the best seats in the house – those down low at center court – had been filled for hours, when Bernice Fisch reached mid-court the throng of Hearts fans crammed into the front row made room for her.
Bernice didn’t know how extraordinary it was to find a seat at center court of a Sacred Heart game, of course, particularly at tip-off. How could she? This was, after all, her very first game. She simply accepted her good fortune as part of the experience, nodded, and smiled to those who'd moved to accommodate her. Then she took a seat, shifted slightly, and settled in to watch her boy play this crazy game everyone in the parish kept telling her he played so well.
The game turned out to be yet another titanic struggle between Hearts and Pat's. St. Patrick’s, behind a slashing, sharp-shooter named Mickey Flynn, who topped the league that year with a 29 point-per-game average, took the Hearts into one overtime period, then a second, and finally a third. After that, as dictated by the rules of high school basketball, the game became a sudden-death affair, with the first team scoring any point whatsoever declared the winner.
Early in the sudden death, Gene put up a long jumper that, to the moans of the Hearts faithful, caromed high off the rim and into the waiting arms of a St. Pat’s player, who dribbled up the court with a chance to win the game.
On one side of the Nottingham gym, the Pats' fans exploded, suddenly tasting victory, especially with Mickey Flynn locked and loaded in one corner. On the other, the Hearts fans let their collective groan linger. Many leaned forward and balled their fists, sensing that the game and their unbeaten streak were perilously close to ending.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Gene sprinted up behind an unsuspecting St. Pat’s player and swiped the ball away. He then ran it down deep in his opponent’s backcourt, spun, and in an instant threw a full-court bullet to lumbering Paul Januszka, a few feet from his own basket. Januszka’s uncontested layup not only gave the Hearts a stunning two-point victory, it kept alive their undefeated season.
That was the first game of her son’s that Bernice Fisch ever saw. It would not be the last. In fact, for the next two and a half seasons she never missed a home game – and she watched them all from her seat directly on the floor, dead center court.
* * * * *
Gene Fisch’s career at Sacred Heart High School would run from 1957 to 1961. During that time he'd lead Sacred Heart to two Parochial League championships and score more than 1,200 career points. He would go on to New York University and, as a member of the freshman team (who at that time were ineligible for varsity play), would shatter the school’s first-year scoring records. Gene’s name would be mentioned prominently that first year in the New York papers alongside another young phenom, a Princeton sharpshooter named Bill Bradley, as the two freshmen to watch in the New York Metro area.
His varsity career at NYU, however, would ultimately prove unfulfilled. Gene started all three years on varsity, and once logged considerable minutes in an NCAA regional semi-final. But he also battled through injuries, particularly to his shoulder and ankle. He was benched for a time, which he later admitted caused him to sulk and play poorly. And, much to the delight of his parents, he ended up working harder in the classroom than he ever had, which impacted the amount of time he had available to work at basketball.
Gene eventually graduated from NYU and became a successful executive, tapping into the same discipline and passion for excellence that made him a great basketball player. He also became an outspoken advocate of Polish causes and worked to help safeguard and preserve many aspects of Polish culture in America.
Later in life, Gene would spend years writing, editing, and trying to get published a sprawling account of his parents’ life-long love affair and their time together in the Nazi death camps.
But in the end, Gene’s career was never about statistics, or wins and losses. It was never about the numbers. It was always about something deeper and more meaningful. To the Poles of Sacred Heart, especially the first and second-generation immigrants among them, Gene Fisch was not just a basketball player, he was a symbol. When they looked at his skinny body, his shock of curly hair and his ability to lead his team to one victory after another, on what often appeared to be desire alone, they found affirmation in something they always wanted to believe about America – and if not for themselves, then for their children. Gene Fisch made them believe that this country truly was the land of opportunity and a place where, with hard work, anything was possible.
That was Gene Fisch’s legacy and gift to the tight-knit Polish community of his youth, a community that adopted him as a boy and raised him as its own. And it was one of the reasons why, long after he'd left town, and long after he'd hit his last line-drive shot for the Maroon and White, he remained a touchstone.
That's also was why, a full generation later you could be watching a basketball game on Syracuse's West End – anything from a bruising Sacred Heart scrimmage to a casual pickup game at Burnet Park – and see a young player, perhaps no more than eleven or twelve, make a fancy move or throw a crisp, no-look pass to a teammate, and as that player headed back down court, hear someone shout from the sidelines, “C’mon, who do you think you are, Gene Fisch?”
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