Greg Marius lives on through Rucker Park
(Note: I wrote this for an investigative reporting course.)
New York — Two students from Countee Cullen School sit atop the Holcombe Rucker Park bleachers eating blue-raspberry-flavored ice pops. Rocking the Jordan brand, from sneakers to shirts plastered with the Jumpman logo, they are among the first to arrive for what’s to be a packed house.
Right behind them is a beat-up, life-sized cardboard cutout of Greg Marius, co-founder of the Entertainers Basketball Classic (EBC) and the reason politicians and celebrities from Mayor Bill de Blasio to hip-hop artist Remy Ma are on their way to the Harlem court.
Now an eight-week tournament over the summer with some of the most talented high school and adults in the tristate area, the EBC’s meager beginnings stand in sharp contrast to the talent that has since stepped onto the pavement.
NBA Hall of Famers, such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Julius “Dr. J” Erving, Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, and modern-day legends including Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and Kobe Bryant, have all played at the Rucker.
Greg, 59, died in late April from colon cancer, leaving a legacy large enough to draw hundreds of admirers to Rucker Park on a day honoring him.
The owner of the life-sized cutout is Lendell Richardson, 48, who goes by the moniker Brook Len Dell, and is a mainstay at the park and friend of Greg’s.
“I’m still grieving,” he said. “I bring that with me every day. There’s no way I can come to this park without him. I’ll always say, ‘Greg, let’s go. It’s time to go to the game.’”
With the cardboard cutout overlooking the pandemonium, on June 27, Mayor de Blasio ambles out of his jet-black automobile. Greeting Larry Johnson and Albert King of the NBA and Rucker Park lore, de Blasio is just one of many to grace the fenced-in court on West 155th Street.
Next to a playground and the Polo Grounds Towers, an NYC housing project, Rucker Park is a no-frills court that Greg’s persistence transformed into a basketball mecca.
The mayor’s first task is to make a shot.
His first heave is abysmal, missing everything. Laughter fills the park. The second bounces off the back rim, almost back to him. The third rattles around the rim, swoops through the white net and prompts de Blasio to give two thumbs-up to an ovation.
“Take a moment to recognize the magnitude of what this man did for all of us,” de Blasio says. “Greg Marius had a vision of something that could be great and it happened right here. Rucker Park itself wasn’t something that fancy, wasn’t renowned. Greg had a belief that something very special could happen here and he had the heart and the soul and the leadership to make it happen.”
The full name of the historical landmark will always be Holcombe Rucker Park, however with the mayor’s backing, the basketball surface will now be known as Greg Marius Court.
And every June 26 will be known as Greg Marius Day in the city.
The mayor’s declaration of these two facts opens the floodgates. Greg’s family erupts in hugs, tears and applause. Right behind the mayor, beaming, stands Cordell Marius, Greg’s nephew and the new head of the Entertainers Basketball Classic.
Rucker Park’s history began in the 1950s when Holcombe Rucker, a local teacher and playground director for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, created a basketball tournament to keep kids off the street. Since its inception, this little-park-that-could has become a rival to city basketball courts around the world in terms of star power and hoops.
Decades later, Greg and his idea of a basketball tournament, later dubbed the EBC, was a large part in its resurgence.
An amalgamation of hooping and entertainment, Rucker Park set the streetball trend, along with the infusion of hip-hop and fashion into basketball that is so predominant today.
“Entertainment street basketball actually has a lot of influence on the NBA, in terms of players like Kyrie Irving, Kemba Walker,” said Gus Wells, who co-founded the EBC with Greg. “They can do the bop-bop and the twist-em and shake-em and shoot-em and pullback and all that. People get tired of just seeing this organized basketball, this dry basketball. They want to see some action.”
Now, Greg’s title as the CEO of the EBC has been passed down to his nephew, the 28-year-old Cordell, who understands the magnitude of his position.
Along with Wells, Cordell wants to inject new blood into the tournament to keep it innovative while maintaining the history and resonance that has made the park’s reputation so pervasive.
“Greg groomed me the best way he can, which meant that he would provide information here and there, but truthfully he was a man that kept a lot in his head,” Cordell said. “Grooming consisted of having conversations. If you ever spoke to Greg, everything that he did was a lesson. We lived in the same house in Harlem, so I got the opportunity to see him and speak to him often about certain things, key lessons in life. He was pretty much my father figure growing up.”
Playing basketball at the park and growing up at the Rucker, Cordell feels that his entire life has led to this moment. His business administration degree from Bay State College in Boston will be put to work, a tool that Cordell wasn’t sure he would ever be able to fully use.
A behavior specialist at The Renaissance Charter High School for Innovation on East 100th Street, Cordell will now spend his summers running the tournament and working throughout the school year accruing sponsorship deals and building the league’s brand.
Some of the sponsors include Nike, Red Bull, Verizon and Adidas.
Along with maintaining upkeep, working on booking advertisements for future summers and ensuring that the best talent finds its way to the park, Cordell is dead-set on building the league.
“Now what’s changing is the media, the multimedia, the Internet, that’s where Cordell is going to thrive,” said Wells. “He has new ideas, new concepts to get us to the next level. Because, in time, everything changes. And we need changes. So, as far as us working together as partners, it’s going to be a good thing.”
Social media is key, which Wells admitted was tough for him and Greg to build. Over this summer, the EBC tweeted reminders about big games and events, while its Instagram feed featured highlights and unbelievable plays from the day’s action.
Reaching out to ballplayers and entertainers, Cordell wants to push the league into modern times. One of the teams every summer is owned by rap artist Fat Joe. Cordell’s fundamental question is, why can’t there be more?
Cordell won’t be at it alone: He’ll have Wells.
While Greg became the face and brain of the league, Wells worked as the bad guy, running kids off if they were being a nuisance, employing security and ensuring that the “rowdy environment” never went overboard.
From Holcombe Rucker’s formation of the park through Greg Marius building the EBC there, the backbone of the court has always been about teaching children life lessons and keeping them off the streets, away from trouble.
Wells and Cordell believe the court’s legacy gives children in the community something free to do while allowing parents to not worry about where their children are.
“If I didn’t have Greg as a part of my life, then I definitely wouldn’t be here today,” recollects Richardson, the owner of the Marius cardboard cut-out. “I was going down the wrong path, looking up to the pimps and the hustlers. They were the people that had stuff. Greg was one of the first people that had stuff and had the respect of the community legally.”
Richardson strongly believes in Cordell’s ability to take over where his uncle left off, claiming that he’ll do a “phenomenal” job and that he has the support of the community.
But no matter what, Richardson strongly says, there will never be another Greg.
Hours before Mayor de Blasio comes to Rucker, NBA hopeful Jesse Daniels is there.
Scouted for commercials with Nike, Daniels has described his relationship with the company as a “dream wrapped in a blessing,” displaying his likeness on apparel next to NBA greats such as Kevin Durant and LeBron James.
Before the games of the day begin or the baskets are even put up with their brand-new Nike insignia, Daniels and a few others sit in the comfortable recliners facing the scoreboard.
On center court facing the assembly is a sign hidden by a green covering. Just a few hours from now, the mayor will expose the sign renaming the space “Greg Marius Court.”
Suddenly, as if out of a movie, a gust of wind blows the drapery over just enough to show what the plaque will read. The right side still covered, all anyone can make out is “Greg Ma Cour,” however that’s enough to illicit a few hoots and hollers. One of de Blasio’s representatives runs over and covers the commemoration once more, but Daniels and friends know what they’ve seen.
“To see his name on a plaque and the mayor to be out here, that’s legendary, you know,” the 26-year-old Daniels says, still grinning. “It just goes to show you, how are you going to be remembered? What type of work are you going to put in, so everyone will remember you? That’s going to be here 100 years from now, 200 years from now. They’re going to know he existed.”
Reporting by Greg Gottfried
Photos by Greg Gottfried
