Mary Nagle CYO Tournament Continues To Grow In Seventh Year

Starting tonight is the seventh annual Mary Nagle Charitable Foundation CYO Basketball Tournament, and it will be the biggest one yet.

The tournament is named after Mary Nagle, who was murdered in her New City home in 2005, and is survived by two children and her husband.

This year’s tournament will have 105 teams and more than 1,400 players, the most in its seven year history. The previous high number of teams was 95, set in the tournament’s first year, according to Frank Fallon, Nagle’s brother-in-law. Proceeds from the tournament go to the Mary Nagle Foundation, which was set up shortly after her death and go to provide assistance to local charitable causes and education needs within community.

Fallon didn’t know how much the tournament raised last year, but said it was into the thousands, a figure which has grown as the tournament has gotten bigger.

The tournament starts Friday night and continues on Saturday and Sunday, with games taking place at Clarkstown High School North, Clarkstown High School South, Nanuet Middle School, Felix Festa Middle School and St. Augustine’s in New City.

The teams come mostly from Rockland County, but in recent years teams have started to come from Orange County and norther Bergen County. The players range from third to eighth grade. The tournament in total has 159 games, as each team plays three.

“One of the nice things about the tournament is it’s usually the last games of the team for the season for many teams,” Fallon said. “Although it’s competitive — we have referees, we keep scores — we don’t have champions. Frequently, a lot of the teams use this tournament to give more playing time to kids who might not have gotten much playing time earlier in the year. The kids get to finish the season feeling good.”

Fallon said the referees are paid, but many donate all or part of their pay back to the tournament. He also said the tournament has more than 100 volunteers for the tournament to help with selling refreshments, keep score and more. The volunteers are family, friends, as well as local students and retired citizens.

This year the tournament has also added local businesses as sponsors, and Fallon said they are helping with the costs of t-shirts.

“It means a lot because when our family was going through its time of crisis when Mary was murdered, the community really reached out and supported us in so many ways,” Fallon said. “To be able to bring the community together in honor of Mary and then help the community with this charitable fund is ultimately the reason for this tournament.”