Jersey City Times: The Cavernous Cathedral of Jersey City Basketball

https://jcitytimes.com/the-cavernous-cathedral-of-jersey-city-basketball/

This is the 11th in a weekly series of essays on Jersey City’s illustrious sports history. It complements the Museum of Jersey City History’s current exhibit Legendary Arenas… and the Legends Who Performed There at the Apple Tree House (298 Academy Street). The exhibit is open to the public on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 1:00 to 5:00 pm. until October 15.

By Peter Begans September 19, 2025

On Saturday nights in the 1960s, it felt like the entire city had assembled to watch Pete O’Dea, Harry Laurie, Bobby Leckie, Elnardo Webster, Tom McMahon, Ken Grant, and Sam DePiano dismantle their scheduled opponents. (Courtesy of St. Peter’s University Archives)

Nothing could compare to walking through the Jordan Avenue entrance and beholding the Jersey City Armory. The cavernous  ceilings made the spectators look Lilliputian. The colorfully painted court, gleaming under high-intensity lights, contrasted with the otherwise drab surroundings. To local basketball fans accustomed to cramped gymnasiums and dim lighting, the Armory was a sacred cathedral where miracles might happen. 

The space could easily have held a professional basketball franchise, and one did attempt to play there. The Jersey City Atoms of the American Basketball League began as an industrial league team of the Kellex Corporation. During the war, Kellex, a division of the M.W. Kellogg Company on Rt. 440, conducted research into a gaseous diffusion process for separating uranium isotopes, part of the Manhattan Project. 

By 1946, the team had been accepted by the American Basketball League, and they competed against top teams like the Baltimore Bullets and the Philadelphia SPHAs (short for the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association, a dominant franchise in early basketball history). Moe Longo, a future Hudson County freeholder, played for the Atoms and served as a part owner and general manager. Bernie Fliegel, one of the greatest college players of the 1930s, became the team’s head coach.  Leading scorers were Roy Leenig, a future coach of St. Peter’s Prep and Holy Cross College, and George Babich, who went on to coach St. Peter’s College. 

“On the hardwood, the Atoms dazzled crowds with basketball’s earliest implementation of precise, scientifically-engineered offensive strategies revolving around circular motion, geometric spacing and the emerging concept of ‘shooting percentages’,” if you believe the web-site that markets the team’s retro gear. The Atoms’ organization would also create a women’s team called The Atom Flashes, who would play prior to some of the men’s games. Their first match was against the St. Simon Stock Girls on December 4, 1946, at the Jersey City Garden. The Flashes emerged victorious 29–17. The 1946–1947 Atoms compiled a 14–22 record and then lost two of three to the SPHAs in the first round of the playoffs. As with previous Jersey City pro-basketball teams, fan support faltered, and midway through the ’47–’48 season the Atoms became the Scranton Miners. 

The 1940s saw a growing basketball rivalry between St. Peter’s College and Seton Hall University, one of the nation’s top teams. The intensity demanded that the Jersey City game be moved from Collins gym, St. Peter’s home court, to the Armory. The schools would then regularly set New Jersey attendance records for games played there. It was a milestone when St. Peter’s defeated Seton Hall in 1958 before another record-setting crowd, on their way to a National Invitation Tournament post-season bid.

The Peacocks had found success after hiring respected NYC high school coach Don Kennedy in 1950. Under Kennedy, St. Peter’s would go 323–195 (.624) and appear in five NITs and two small-college post-season tournaments. St. Peter’s became known for its scintillating fast-break. “Offensively, Coach Kennedy was far ahead of his time,” said St. Anthony’s basketball coach Bob Hurley at Kennedy’s induction into the New York Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013. “The speed and precision of his team’s fast break just ran opponents into the ground.” 

Led by Pepper Dooley, Hank Morano and Tom Gaynor, Coach Don Kennedy’s Peacocks would receive two NIT bids in the late 1950s.  (Courtesy of St. Peter’s University Archives)

Great Peacock players of the 1950s included Pepper Dooley, Tom Gaynor, and Hank Morano. But Kennedy himself felt the greatest Peacock season was 1967–1968 when the team went 22–2 during the regular season. It felt like the entire city had assembled on Saturday nights to watch Pete O’Dea, Harry Laurie, Bobby Leckie, Elnardo Webster, Tom McMahon, Ken Grant, and Sam DePiano dismantle their scheduled opponents. 

Under the Armory’s cavernous ceiling and intense lights, the St. Peter’s Peacocks developed a scintillating fast break that opponents came to fear. (Courtesy of St. Peter’s University Archives)

The only home loss was to Niagara College when sophomore All-American Calvin Murphy put on the greatest individual offensive exhibition in the Armory’s history. Murphy’s 50 points shattered the armory scoring record of 49 that Nick Workman of Seton Hall had set a decade earlier. More than mere production, Murphy performed circus acrobatics to both entertain and torture the sell-out crowd. He sank 19 of 30 from the floor and 12 of 13 from the foul line. Almost all of his field goals came as long jump shots from as far away as 30 feet. 

Coach Kennedy’s favorite team was the 1967-68 Peacocks led by Pete O’Dea, Harry Laurie and Elnardo Webster. O’Dea and Webster would become consensus All-Americans, and Laurie gained the reputation as having “the world’s tallest fingers.” (Courtesy of St. Peter’s University Archives)

Despite that loss, the Peacocks would still earn an NIT berth at the brand-new Madison Square Garden across the river. In the thrilling first game, Webster scored 51 points as St. Peter’s defeated Marshall University in double overtime. In the next game, which became the most legendary in Peacock history, St. Peter’s trounced tournament favorite Duke 100 to 71, one of the worst defeats in Blue Devil history. The victory over No. 10 Duke shocked the nation, and the Peacocks became the darlings of the basketball world. The team was later nicknamed the “Run, Baby Run” team after the press found that phrase written on a blackboard inside the Peacock locker room.

At the brand-new Madison Square Garden in 1968, St. Peter’s not only defeated NIT favorite Duke, but they humiliated the mighty Blue Devils with their “Run, Baby, Run” attack. (Courtesy of St. Peter’s University Archives)

Demand for tickets to the NIT’s sold-out semi-finals was so high in 1968 that Saint Peter’s arranged for the game to be shown on closed-circuit television at the Stanley Theater. A capacity crowd watched the dream come to an end as the Peacocks fell to Kansas and All-American Jo Jo White. This would be the second of three consecutive NIT appearances for Saint Peter’s, truly a legendary time in the city’s sports history. 

Of course, the Jersey City Armory has been the site of innumerable high-drama basketball games over the years, from high school doubleheaders in the 1940s), to county championships in the 1960s and 1970s. Decades later, fans can still recall memorable performances by legends such as Jackie Gilloon and Dan Calandrillo. 

The Armory also became the home court for the St. Anthony’s boys basketball team during a portion of the school’s amazing run to 28 state championships under Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame coach Bob Hurley, Sr.  Hurley would be instrumental in bringing about the renewal of the Armory’s basketball court and indoor track in the mid-2000s.

Peter Begans

Peter Begans is the curator of MJCH’s Legendary Arenas… and the Legends Who Performed There. He was born and raised in Jersey City and has had a long career as a teacher, journalist, speechwriter and public affairs representative.