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Post by DiMarz on Nov 30, 2020 13:53:25 GMT -5
I heard from a friend, Jack the Shot Foley passed away.....Prayers to his family..
He died Saturday night..
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Post by rgs318 on Nov 30, 2020 14:06:22 GMT -5
May his soul rest in peace, and his loved ones find comfort. He is secure as one of the great figures in Holy Cross history and legend.
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Post by hchoops on Nov 30, 2020 14:56:44 GMT -5
Wow The first great hoops Crusader I watched in person in his great NITs in 1961 and 62. Jack scored 69 in the two ‘62 NIT games. The HC student section was raucous both years. Feed the Weed Requiescat in pace.
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Post by timholycross on Nov 30, 2020 15:01:39 GMT -5
2020 just keeps sucking, doesn't it?
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Post by Tom on Nov 30, 2020 15:05:09 GMT -5
When HC retired his number, he was not healthy then. As I recall, the two Perry's had to help him walk
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Post by timholycross on Nov 30, 2020 15:15:26 GMT -5
When HC retired his number, he was not healthy then. As I recall, the two Perry's had to help him walk Yes, he's been in poor health for quite a while.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Nov 30, 2020 15:26:32 GMT -5
Rest in Peace Jack The Shot. I really wish I had seen him play-love the stories from those who did
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Post by A Clock Tower Purple on Nov 30, 2020 15:46:15 GMT -5
R. I. P. Jack.
Got to know him a bit as he occasionally joined us for pick-up games in Worc in the early 80's, and later was a neighbor when I lived in Barre where he was a gentleman farmer a part-time cop. I remember when I first saw him in mass 15 years ago, said hi and chatted briefly, and told my wife after you just met one of the 10 best CBB players in the country in 1962. Her jaw dropped. He was a real good guy who opened his home to many foster children over the years.
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Post by hchoops on Nov 30, 2020 16:08:24 GMT -5
Unquestionably the best scorer in HC hoops history. career 28.4 ppg 2nd RP jr 23.2
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ge
Climbing Mt. St. James
Posts: 71
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Post by ge on Nov 30, 2020 16:12:56 GMT -5
My favorite HC player ever in any sport. First saw Jack The Shot during the 1960 NIT against St.Bonaventure. I was at the game in the old Garden when he scored 39 against NYU although the Cross fell short 84-80 in a wild comeback..
Perhaps the 'Saders can also wear his number on a uniorm patch, as well as Tommy Heinsohn's.
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Post by hchoops on Nov 30, 2020 16:27:50 GMT -5
My favorite HC player ever in any sport. First saw Jack The Shot during the 1960 NIT against St.Bonaventure. I was at the game in the old Garden when he scored 39 against NYU although the Cross fell short 84-80 in a wild comeback.. Perhaps the 'Saders can also wear his number on a uniorm patch, as well as Tommy Heinsohn's. The 1960 NIT loss was to the #9 Bonnies with All American .Tom Stith. The loss was to NYU with All Americans Barry Kramer and Happy Hairston.
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Post by trimster on Nov 30, 2020 17:27:20 GMT -5
R. I. P. Jack. Got to know him a bit as he occasionally joined us for pick-up games in Worc in the early 80's, and later was a neighbor when I lived in Barre where he was a gentleman farmer a part-time cop. I remember when I first saw him in mass 15 years ago, said hi and chatted briefly, and told my wife after you just met one of the 10 best CBB players in the country in 1962. Her jaw dropped. He was a real good guy who opened his home to many foster children over the years. I believe Jack taught social studies for many years at South High in Worcester.
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Post by A Clock Tower Purple on Nov 30, 2020 17:33:30 GMT -5
Yes he did.
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Post by hc87 on Nov 30, 2020 17:41:39 GMT -5
He was my cousin's varsity basketball coach at Quabbin HS in the early/mid 1980s.
RIP Jack
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Post by ndgradbuthcfan on Nov 30, 2020 18:58:17 GMT -5
A Worcester legend. Assumption Prep and then Holy Cross. Wow, I loved watching him play.
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Post by thecrossisback on Nov 30, 2020 19:08:58 GMT -5
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Post by hchoops on Nov 30, 2020 20:03:17 GMT -5
As seen in 2 of the photos above, at the end of the release of the “Shot” both elbows are locked, so the force was all from the right wrist. It was the highest possible release. Combined with his jumping ability, the “Shot” was near impossible to block. I had never seen this before or since. So he may have been skinny, but he could jump and had wrists of iron.
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Post by rgs318 on Nov 30, 2020 20:16:20 GMT -5
Thanks hoops. I saw him play years ago but never noticed gthat.
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Post by DiMarz on Nov 30, 2020 20:25:55 GMT -5
Holy Cross legend Jack 'The Shot' Foley dies at 81 Jennifer Toland Telegram & Gazette
Jack "The Shot" Foley at Holy Cross in 1961. Holy Cross great Togo Palazzi was a fifth-year pro and playing for the Syracuse Nationals in 1958, but when he was back in Worcester he was always at a local park, looking for competition, looking for action.
One day, at Holland Rink Playground off Lincoln Street, Palazzi met up with Jack “The Shot” Foley, who, at the time, was a “skinny, freckle-faced kid,” Palazzi said, and also a superstar high school player at Assumption Prep, and the two went at it, one-on-one.
“He ran 33 straight baskets on me and beat me three games in a row,” Palazzi recalled. “I found out then and there that there wasn’t a guy who could shoot the ball quite like Jack ‘The Shot.’ ”
Holy Cross legends (from left) Ronnie Perry, Jack Foley and Ron Perry Sr. stand with then-athletic director Dick Regan during a ceremony at the Hart Center in 2011. Foley, who averaged 42 points per game his senior year of high school, went on to have an All-American career at Holy Cross, and was a well-known educator in Worcester, passed away Sunday at his home in Barre. He was 81.
Foley had Parkinson’s disease, which was advancing, his wife of 28 years, Gail, said Monday, and he suffered a fall about a month ago.
Foley had five children.
“He was a special guy,” Palazzi said. “We’re going to miss him.”
Foley played for coach Charlie Bibaud at Assumption Prep and scored 920 points in 22 games his senior season. In an interview with the T&G in 2011, when his No. 32 jersey was being retired by Holy Cross, Foley recollected about the night he got his oh-so apt nickname.
In a game against Holyoke Catholic, Foley made seven straight jumpers. The seventh hit off the side of the backboard, but still went in. The astonished player guarding Foley asked him how he did that.
“I told him I do that all the time,” Foley said.
In the newspaper account of the game the next day, a local reporter dubbed Foley “The Shot.”
St. John’s High coach Bob Foley was a junior at St. Peter’s High when Foley was a senior at Assumption Prep.
“During a game about three-quarters through the season, we played a box-and-one on him to stop him,” Bob Foley said. “We ‘held’ him to 39 points.
“He was the greatest shooter I’ve ever seen,” Bob Foley said. “I’ve seen a lot of basketball and he was the greatest.
“Jackie was just a great guy,” Bob Foley added, “one of the nicest guys you ever met.”
The Foleys (no relation) went on to become Holy Cross teammates and road trip roommates.
At Holy Cross, where Foley starred from 1959-62, he was the first player in school history to average more than 20 points per game for a season three times. His 56-point effort against Connecticut in 1962 and a 55-point performance against Colgate in 1960 still stand as the two highest single-game scoring outputs in HC history.
"He had a unique sense of humor, great intellect and he was the best shooter that I’ve ever seen," said Foley's Holy Cross teammate Pete O'Connor. "He had great determination and discipline playing and practicing and practicing. He basically taught himself to be great, and he was great."
Foley owns the Holy Cross career scoring average record (28.4 ppg). He graduated in 1962 as the program’s all-time leading scorer with 2,185 points (in three seasons), which now ranks third behind Ronnie Perry and Rob Feaster.
“The first two words I always use when describing Jack are ‘fierce competitor,’” said former Holy Cross coach George Blaney, who was a two-year HC teammate of Foley. “He didn’t want to lose and he didn’t lose. He always figured out a way to win.”
The 6-foot-3 Foley was a great jumper with a signature shot.
“It was an unorthodox shot,” Blaney said, “in that he jumped straight up in the air and extended his arms straight up in the air and just released the ball with a wrist cock. It was very flat, but it just went in all the time. He didn’t have a lot of offensive moves, he didn’t dribble by you, but he could jump out of the gym. If he had the ball, he didn’t need to make a move to go by you. He would just jump over you and line drive it into the basket. He was a phenomenal shooter.”
George Reidy, who grew up in Worcester, was a high school rival of Foley at St. John’s, but they were Holy Cross teammates and pals and remained very close friends through the years.
“He was the greatest shooter I ever saw, especially with three guys on him,” Reidy said from his home in Florida. “He just went straight up. His arms were straight up over his head and he just flipped it. It was impossible to block his shot. I never saw a shooter like him, especially with guys on him.”
Foley was inducted to the Holy Cross Varsity Club Hall of Fame in 1971.
He played briefly with the Celtics and Knicks before becoming a teacher, coach and part-time policeman in Barre.
Jack Foley leads Holy Cross during a 1960 game at the Worcester Auditorium. Palazzi ranks Foley as the best shooter he’s ever seen.
“His shot,” Palazzi said, “was precise. It never changed. When he was coaching at Worcester Boys Trade, his players blindfolded him, and as long as he knew how far away he was from the basket, he didn’t miss. Blindfolded!”
Foley, whose special interests included photography, nature and especially snakes, his wife said, also coached the girls’ basketball team at South High, where he taught history and law.
“There were kids that would go home if he wasn’t in school that day,” Gail Foley said. “He was an Irish storyteller, so he turned history into drama, into a story.”
Worcester Public Schools Superintendent Maureen Binienda was on the faculty with Jack Foley at South.
“He had a strong voice,” said Binienda, who later served as assistant principal and principal at South, “and we had open classrooms at South High, so everybody learned history.
“He was a great teacher,” Binienda said. “One of the stories I remember is that he wanted to show the Battle of Bunker Hill, so he made a hill out of all the desks and chairs in the classroom. Then, all the desks and chairs crashed, the whole building shook, and it was the ‘Battle of Bunker Hill.’
“He taught history through stories,” Binienda said, “and that was very effective for kids. He was mesmerizing by how he taught. He was such a caring person for every student."
O'Connor, who lives in New Jersey, also remained close to Foley over the years and visited him any time he was in the Worcester area.
"He was more than a teammate," O'Connor said. "He was a real good friend after all these years. A lot of people didn't know him very well outside of basketball. He was much more than basketball, whether it was his interest in nature, animals, his trips to state parks and also his wonderful relationship with Gail."
—Contact Jennifer Toland at jennifer.toland@telegram.com. Follow her on Twitter @jentandg.
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Post by Crosser on Nov 30, 2020 20:36:08 GMT -5
I wonder if Jen will get forced out at the T&G along with the other veteran reporters.
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Post by hchoops on Nov 30, 2020 20:55:01 GMT -5
For Togo not only to lose 3 straight 11-0 games, but admit it, is truly shocking.
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Post by hchoops on Nov 30, 2020 20:55:52 GMT -5
I wonder if Jen will get forced out at the T&G along with the other veteran reporters. Is the T&G cutting staff ?
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Post by thecrossisback on Nov 30, 2020 20:58:30 GMT -5
For Togo not only to lose 3 straight 11-0 games, and admit it, is truly shocking. Haha I know!!!!
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Post by Crosser on Nov 30, 2020 21:03:28 GMT -5
I wonder if Jen will get forced out at the T&G along with the other veteran reporters. Is the T&G cutting staff ? Yes, at least three veteran reporters wrote that they were taking “buy-outs” effective tomorrow. They each signed off with touching farewell columns.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Nov 30, 2020 21:22:10 GMT -5
It’s sad to witness these death throes of a once great industry
Great article by Jen Toland
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