Upper School Basketball Program Shoots to Score

Despite being a small school, Kew-Forest has a big basketball program. In the last two years, K-F has gone from being without a junior varsity basketball team to having the JV team in first place with only three conference games remaining before the playoffs. Kew-Forest’s junior varsity team has a 15-2 record, 8-0 in their conference. Additionally, the JV team won the 2015 Jim Dilg Classic Basketball Tournament this year.
 
While interest in basketball had waned in recent years, there is now overwhelming demand for basketball at K-F. The demand is part of a targeted plan to restructure the basketball program at Kew-Forest, led by athletic director Mr. Scott Gordon-Somers and basketball Coach John Della Marco, who took over the program last year.
 
Prior to coming to K-F in 2014, Coach Della Marco coached boys’ varsity baseball, boys’ varsity basketball, junior varsity girls’ basketball and varsity boys’ soccer teams at Martin Luther School. At Martin Luther, his teams won two PSAA Varsity Baseball Championships, runner-up in the 2012 PSAA Junior Varsity basketball finals, runner-up in the 2011 PSAA Varsity soccer finals, four division titles, and five tournament titles. In addition, Coach Della Marco was named New York Newsday’s 1993 Coach of the Year for private high schools.  
 
Last season, many older students had graduated, leaving younger students to prove their worth on the court. At present, there are 71 students playing basketball at Kew-Forest, a vast difference from the time when there wasn’t enough interest to offer a junior varsity team. While the program’s size has grown significantly this year and last, so has the game schedule. This year, the JV team will play 25 games, and varsity will play up to 30, almost double what they have played in past years.
 
This season, Coach Della Marco has established an instructional program for 1^st-3^rd grades, and next year plans to start a girls’ middle school team, as well as a boys’ freshman team, as part of the restructuring of the basketball program. The middle school team is now unofficially involved in the Private Schools Athletic Association (PSAA) as they await associate member approval for the Long Island Athletic Association.
 
The program is designed to be instructional in basketball while also providing an atmosphere of pure fun and enjoyment that can both challenge the more advanced skilled student athletes and involve and help the skill level of the younger children. 
 
In November, Kew-Forest held a pep rally for the basketball team in the school gym, which drew more than 200 people—a sure sign of the interest in the developing program.
 
Coach Della Marco hopes that the program will continue to grow, and that as it develops, the students’ skills will increase as well. “For the program we obviously want to compete at the highest level and eventually go independent and play Division 1 Basketball,” Coach Della Marco says. “We already established a strong basketball schedule and added a few school for non-league games that are Division 1.”
 
The philosophy at Kew-Forest is that basketball is more than just playing a game; it’s about learning life skills. “Going forward, we want to continue to establish our school as competitive,” Coach Della Marco says. “We are no longer a pushover when we play other schools, but we do it with much effort in the qualities of good behavior, integrity and effort. We are teaching more than basketball; we’re teaching life lessons.”