By Judith Stiles
When young Phoebe De Vincenzi heard that girls in the early l960s had to play basketball in pleated skirts with the infamous “three-dribble rule” she was simply flabbergasted. “WHAT? SKIRTS? You really had to pass after three bounces? You couldn’t dribble down the court?”
Drenched in sweat after her own game at the Greenwich Village Girls Basketball League, Phoebe spread the tale amongst her teammates who were reeling from a red-hot game that went into double-overtime between Team Gourmet Garage and Team Ob-Gyn.
One Gourmet Garagette was sure Phoebe was pulling her leg, “Only three dribbles, not possible,” she muttered, probably wondering if Phoebe’s team could have tied up the game with those arcane rules when they had been behind 15 points at halftime.
Phoebe is famous for driving down the court right past her opponents (definitely more than three bounces). Girls basketball has come a long way since the ’60s, especially in Greenwich Village. Hats off to Harry Malakoff, commissioner of G.V. Girls Basketball League, who made it all happen for our local girls by starting the first all-girls league in l993.
Malakoff’s daughter, Michelle Malakoff, had been playing in a coed league at the Carmine Recreation Center with her dad as the coach. This all-girls team loved basketball, but since it was their first year with the sport, they lost every single game, competing against boys teams that had been playing for several years. They got hammered. The boys were more aggressive, more physical and much more experienced.
But that didn’t stop the girls. Coach Malakoff approached John Pettinato, executive director of the Greenwich Village Youth Council, asking to form an all-girls league under the council’s umbrella. Pettinato gave the new league his full support, and the games were launched with over 40 girls ages 10 to 14 years old. Today the league has double the number of teams.
G.V. Girls Basketball is also proud to have 19 highly qualified perennial coaches who volunteer their time because they love this league. Several coaches played Division I college basketball, such as Jennifer Carpenter and Meredith Loffredo, who is a graduate of nearby Columbia University.
Lucky for team Ob-Gyn, Coach Loffredo and Coach Carpenter used their college smarts to dig the team out of a 15-point differential in the third quarter of the big battle against Team Gourmet Garage.
Samantha Fleischmann snatched almost every rebound and Madi Lindauer, Demetra Tsiamis and “Driv’n Phoebe D” brought Team Ob-Gyn’s score up to 33, just 1 point behind Gourmet Garage.
With eight seconds to go in the fourth quarter, Jane O’Hara took a very deep breath and then made a foul shot that tied the game 34-34. Then with seven seconds to go in a dizzying overtime, Liz Janoff tied the game for Gourmet Garage 38-38, resulting in another overtime of three minutes.
At moments like this coaches pray for good referees and that is what they got with an impeccable job done by Rose Banks and Charlotte Francis. “I love reffing girls, I played in college,” said Francis during a short break in the action. “But I don’t tolerate negative comments from anyone.”
The refs’ serious nature and strict calls gained respect from every player and every spectator, creating a hush on the floor in the remaining minutes. Again with eight seconds left on the clock, O’Hara made another clutch basket bringing Ob-Gyn within 2 points of equalizing the score. But in the end, the underdogs could not quite catch favored Team Gourmet Garage who won the game 44-42.
Surprisingly, afterwards there were no tears and no laments, because Harry Malakoff has created an aura, better yet an attitude, within the league that is not about playing just to win. When asked about reffing highly competitive games like this, Francis said, “Play to win? Heh. They will get plenty of that later in life. At this stage it should be about teamwork, learning, discipline and fun! That’s what Greenwich Village Girls Basketball League is all about.”
