Meet Me At The Court

The North Providence Summer Basketball League

Meet Me At The Court tells the untold story of the North Providence Summer Basketball League, which, during its thirty year run, grew from pick-up games among neighborhood friends in the early 1960’s to one of the best places in the country to watch outdoor summer league basketball.

The documentary recalls how teenage friends petitioned the local government for lights to accommodate night games, solicited sponsors and then outfitted and scheduled team play, independent of adult or parents’ efforts. As a result, the Swenson/Ruggerio Court at the humble and nondescript Evans Field became the place where future politicians, civic leaders, local legends and more than twenty future NBA players, coaches and eventual draft lottery picks showed what they had. As told through the memories of those friends, it becomes a story not just of basketball but of race and class, small town politics, and the capturing of a hidden history before it’s lost to time.

In the league’s early days, coaches from all over the East Coast came to scout the games, mainly because of local hero and walk-on PC Friar Dave Turbidy and his PC All- Star buddy Jimmy Walker, who became NCAA Player of the Year and first round NBA draft pick in 1967. Later, neighborhood kid Ernie DiGregorio and his friend Marvin Barnes, both All Americans at PC and first round NBA picks in 1973, raised the level of play even higher. Eventually players from as far as Boston and all over New England came to the court on Smith Street. In addition to those who went on to basketball glory, a number of influential Rhode Islanders, including a former state Attorney General and others in politics, business, finance and the arts recall the formative effect of playing in the league. The documentary touches on the way PC Friars basketball transfixed RI, and how the war in Viet Nam and, for some, the perils of drugs and alcohol, along with the two tragic deaths of contemporaries, shaped the lives of five kids, now men, who tell the story. But by 1994, at the height of its popularity, the Summer League grew to be too big for the town, as crowds exceeding 1000 fans showed up for playoff games. The documentary follows how a change in local politics, reflecting the change in attitude in the country as a whole, contributed to the League’s demise as the optimism of the Sixties faded into the malaise of the Eighties.

Meet Me At The Court is produced and directed by Evan Villari, a documentarian and Director of Johnson & Wales University Center for Media Production.and written by John Taraborelli, writer and Director of Communication and Public Relations for Rhode Island College. In association with the Rhode Island Historical Society and with the support of the Rhode Island Council on the Humanities, Meet Me At The Court is a project of Providence Inner City Arts, Inc. which, since 1976, has been producing programming from outdoor festivals to cultural events that bring diverse groups of people together to provoke thought and inspire hope. Executive Producers of the documentary, and the above referenced kids from North Providence, are Len Cabral, Ali Cabral, Jim Cuddy, Lou Viola and Glen DeValerio.