It’s a bunch of guys from New Jersey (and New York) - you think they’re afraid of anything?
You think they’re gonna be intimidated by March Madness? Not a chance.
You think they’re gonna be afraid of the blue-blood programs with high rankings? Guess again.
You think they’re afraid of daunting expectations and people counting them out? You don’t know Jersey.
Let me rephrase: you don’t know Jersey City.
This post isn’t going to be about the Saint Peter’s Men’s basketball program, or the players or the coach. This post isn’t going to be a deep-dive into their highly improbable March Madness run.
No, this post is going to be about Jersey City.
Let me rephrase: this post is going to be about a certain part of Jersey City, the part of JC far removed from the water-front condos overlooking Lower Manhattan, far from the hipsters deciding Hoboken is no longer cool.
No, this post is going to be about the Jersey City most folks choose not to see. This is about the part of Jersey City where things are a little more edgy, a little more impoverished and a lot more scrappy.
This post is about the neighborhood I had the profound privilege of living in a few years ago while I was cutting my teeth in a Manhattan finance firm, their Park Avenue offices far from Montgomery Street and McGinley Square.
I lived about four blocks away from Saint Peter’s University in Jersey City a few years ago. During my search for an apartment, I wanted a place I could afford on a receptionist’s salary while still being close to public transportation. I had no trepidation about the kind of neighborhood I’d live in; call it blissful ignorance or being naive. I’ve always been drawn to the places most people see as “gritty”, the white-people code word for “poor and full of minorities”.
To be fair, upon first glance it’s easy to dismiss the McGinley Square section of Jersey City as just another run-down section of town, full of half-decent three-family homes mixed in with abandoned buildings. It’s a place gentrification has not quite touched. It’s a place with few grassy areas and trash blowing across the road. But to dismiss it as “gritty” is to dismiss the families who work hard everyday to provide for their children and grandchildren. It dismisses the immigrants who are searching for a better life than the one they left behind. It dismisses the kids who grow up with an appreciation for the simple pleasures and a hard work ethic. There is something beautiful about the grit, about the lived-in dilapidation. Spaces occupied by people who are too busy working to be bothered with the luxuries afforded to the those in the suburbs.
I was one of the only white women living in my neighborhood, or at least one of the only white women who wasn’t an immigrant. I stuck out like a sore thumb as I trekked to the PATH station every morning, but I didn’t mind. People didn’t care and they didn’t look at me twice. There was never a moment where I felt afraid when I was walking alone - again, perhaps that was blissful ignorance. Or perhaps it was just me choosing to think the best of people instead making assumptions about those with whom I shared a neighborhood. The people in my neighborhood were good, they were hard-working, they were scrappy and they were clever.
The Saint Peter’s men’s basketball team embodies everything about Jersey City. They embody the “no one believes in us” attitude. They know they are the underdogs who have to work just a little bit harder than everyone else to survive and advance. No matter how long you stay in JC, it gets into your bones. The growth you experienced there stays with you, the work you had to do stays with you. The effort and the exhaustion of constantly trying to prove yourself stays with you. When you’re in the shadow of the Manhattan skyline, staring at the “haves” when you’re a “have not”, it puts a chip on your shoulder.
The whole state of New Jersey is rallying around the Cinderella Peacocks, and there is nothing more powerful than Jersey pride. But there is something special about the pride I feel having lived a few blocks away from the tiny commuter university in a run-down section of JC. I know these men embody the values and traits you develop in JC. They understand that being an underdog should be a point of pride. As they move onto the Elite 8, no matter what happens, the whole state will be so proud. We will love them and embrace them and thank them for reminding the country that New Jersey isn’t an armpit or the little brother of New York.
No, New Jersey is the scrappy state who could and there is nothing we love more than proving you wrong.
Go Peacocks. Go New Jersey.