The gym at the Alan J. Horwitz Center in North Philadelphia came alive as College Achieve Asbury Park’s dazzling new boys basketball team took the floor in early December. With a roster filled with near-7-footers and coveted Division 1 recruits, the team dished out fancy passes and drained deep 3-pointers, sprinting to a thrilling, buzzer-beater victory over Westtown (Pa.) High.
But aside from the name on the front of the jersey, there was little familiar about this team.
Eight months ago, the Knights, led by legendary former Roselle Catholic coach Dave Boff, won a Group 1 state championship in their first year of existence. In doing so, the publicly funded charter school ignited a firestorm, drawing the ire of coaches, the state athletic association and even state lawmakers, who criticized the school for fielding a team stocked with transfers from all over New Jersey.
