It was around Christmas time when Bob Hurley knew that the end was near, that Sister Mary Alan Barszczewski, affectionately known simply as Sister Alan, was nearing the end of her long six-year battle with cancer.
“Since she slid really badly and was suffering, we had been praying since Christmas that God would take her,” Hurley said Monday after learning that St. Anthony High School’s most prominent figure for the last 30 years had finally passed away at the age of 62. “She really suffered for the last couple of months and I’m just happy that the woman I knew is at peace now.”
There’s no question that Sister Alan was more than just the athletic director at St. Anthony. In fact, she was everything.
“Because she wore so many hats, I really never knew what her title was,” said former St. Anthony standout Rashon Burno, now a boys’ basketball coach at Marmion Academy in Illinois. “She was more than just the athletic director. She was everything.”
In her tenure at the school, Sister Alan was indeed that. At some point, she held the official titles of athletic director, principal and interim president. Most of the time, she was the stern taskmaster as athletic director, the perfect compliment to the nation’s most respected high school basketball coach.
But while Hurley was compiling win after win and state title after state title, he was never a full-time figure at the school. Sure, Hurley was always larger than life, but he was merely a part-time coach and arrived from his full-time job, first as a Hudson County probation officer and later as the director of Jersey City Recreation, in time for practices and games.
During the day, the job of running the school’s athletes and keeping everyone in line fell directly on the shoulders of the diminutive woman in a brown habit. She might have given off the aura of being a sweet and loving nun, but in reality, she was as tough as nails.
“She really meant a lot to all of us,” said Burno, who went from the Duncan Avenue projects to St. Anthony and was the MVP of the NJSIAA Tournament of Champions in 1996. “She was the presence in the building. Above basketball, she understood what it meant to be a student/athlete. Because of where I came from, she meant a lot to me personally. She understood so many of the problems that we had as kids and that building became like a sanctuary to us. She made us feel at ease to go to her with our problems. She truly cared about each and every one of us as individuals. She made us all feel so very special. She was everything to me and I know everyone felt the same way.”
Willie Banks, who went from St. Anthony High School in 1987 eventually to the major leagues, pitching for several teams, recalled Sister Alan’s role in his life.
“I would always tell her that she was like the white Mom I never had,” Banks said. “She always looked out for me. She was just a sweetheart.”
Banks recalled one instance when he insisted on playing basketball, even though his future was obviously in baseball.
“She told me, ‘Willie, bite the bullet and just concentrate on baseball,’ ” Banks said. “But I knew I wanted to play basketball and that I could get hurt doing anything. She was so supportive of me in everything I did. She was genuine through and through. And don’t let that habit fool you, because she could get in your face very easily. Everyone else would treat me like a god, but she never did. When I needed a few strong words, she was there with them. I really feel like I’ve lost a mother. She’s one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met.”
Darren Savino was a member of the great St. Anthony basketball team in 1989 that won the national championship. He now serves as an assistant coach at Rutgers University.
“I still had a relationship with her to the very end,” Savino said. “Even though it’s 20 years since I graduated from there, whenever I needed something, she would be right there for me. On the surface, you see this innocent, soft spoken nun and that’s the image you have. But she could be tough. She was a strict disciplinarian. She could love you one minute and put her arm around you and then chastise you the next if you needed it. She was motherly and then she was tough. It was like a totally different personality.”
Added Savino, “It makes you look at your life differently. Here’s a woman who stayed at St. Anthony for so long and all the different lives she touched over the years. She inspires me now to want to do better. She was definitely inspirational.”
Savino was the one who had to tell current Rutgers standout and former Friar All-American Mike Rosario that Sister Alan had passed.
“Mike had a soft spot in his heart for her,” Savino said. “He took it real bad. He ran out of the room very upset.”
Donald Copeland went from St. Anthony to Seton Hall, where he had a fine career and is currently a professional basketball player in Poland.
“She was very important to all of us,” Copeland said. “She made sure that we all did what was right, especially in school. If you weren’t keeping up with the grades, you’d hear it from her. I think what we learned carried over into our real lives, off the court. She was always upbeat and pushed me to excel. And no question, she’d let you know if you did something wrong. She was always so supportive of us. I’m really hurt learning the news.”
Danny Hurley had a different perspective than most, being the son of the school’s larger-than-life coach. But Hurley has also gone on from St. Anthony to Seton Hall and is now the highly successful coach at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark.
“Sister Alan is St. Anthony,” Danny Hurley said. “Sure, my Dad is a great part, but Sister Alan was one-half of a great combination and team. She was the institution and most of my memories in that place include her. She got me through the tough losses, the tough times in my life, the tough days. And she was a real buffer between us and my father. She also had a sixth sense, like she knew when we were heading into a bad place. I have so much respect for her. She was motherly. She was big-sisterly. She was really easy to talk to and she had a great way to listen. I don’t think I ever really appreciated it fully until I became a coach.
Added Hurley, “In high school, kids have so many mood swings and they’re tough to deal with, both male and female students. She gave me a better perspective of it all.”
The coach knew that he had a friend and comrade from the moment she arrived at the school in the late 1970s.
“I think we complimented each other well,” the elder Hurley said. “We always had the school’s best interests in heart. She really had the good cop/bad cop role. Whatever was going on with the kids, she would discuss it with my wife [Chris] and discuss it with the kid before it would ever get to me. I had a tendency to overreact to things, so she really kept some balance.”
Hurley was amazed with the vast diversity of the things Sister Alan did.
“She would be constantly working on kids’ transcripts to make sure that they could get the core requirements to get to college,” Hurley said. “She was also running the National Honor Society and the Ring Day ceremonies and the Christmas celebrations, while she was teaching classes. She was always there and did everything. You’d be hard pressed to find a thing she didn’t do.”
Added Hurley, “This is a loss that can’t be filled. St. Anthony will never be the same place again. It’s going to take a group of people to do some of the things she did. She was a very special person.”
From a personal standpoint, it’s safe to say that Sister Alan and I had our differences over the years, especially one memorable boiling point in 1987. But over the years, that relationship improved and we gained a better appreciation for each other.
So the close-knit community known as St. Anthony athletics has suffered another emotional loss. There were Marty Nielan and Richie Barrett and Doc Miller. There were Joanne Traina and Brian Doherty. There were former players like Mark Harris, Sydney Raeford and Jermaine Rivers. They all went before Sister Alan did this week.
But this is a loss that will be felt for quite some time, even though we all knew the end was inevitable. For people like Sister Alan’s comrade-in-arms Sister Felicia and Margie Calabrese, the pain won’t go away soon.
And the St. Anthony community will gather together at Immaculate Conception in Lodi Monday and Tuesday, to pay their last respects and final farewells to the little woman in the brown habit, who was truly an institution and will never be forgotten.
Funeral arrangements for Sr. Mary Alan Barszczewski, CSSF will be held at the Immaculate Conception Chapel on the campus of Felician College, 260 South Main St. in Lodi, with a service and viewing on Monday night beginning at 6 p.m. and the funeral mass Tuesday beginning at 11 a.m. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that donations be made to the Sr. Mary Alan Memorial Scholarship Fund at St. Anthony High School.
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