Cathie Chasse: A Most Worthy Inductee
By Marvin Pave
Title IX, the federal anti-discrimination law enacted 50 years ago that jump-started the expansion of women’s sports, came too late for Cathie Chasse.
Although she excelled in basketball, St. Peter’s High of Worcester, from where she graduated in 1967, did not have a women’s team.
Neither did the College of Our Lady of the Elms where Chasse earned a degree in education.
But the teenage boys who included Chasse in pickup games at the St. Peter’s High outdoor courts, and the boys varsity at St. Joseph’s High in Pittsfield, who she joined at practices while teaching there, considered her an equal — or even more.
“Cathie may not have been given the opportunity to play on a varsity team,’’ recalled New England Basketball Hall of Fame founder Dan Doyle, a former New England Basketball Coach of the Year at Trinity (Ct.) College. “But what she did on those St. Peter’s courts, with equal measures of skill and grit, opened the eyes of those boys who played with and against her — me included — to future possibilities for girls like her.
“She made a difference. A big difference.’’
Which is why, although her name does not appear on a college roster or in any record books, Chasse will be inducted in the Player category to the New England Basketball Hall of Fame.
The ceremony is scheduled for July 23rd at 4 p.m. — fittingly at the St. Peter’s courts.
“Not being associated with a formal team, high school, or college, left me very surprised and very humble when I was told of the honor,’’ said Chasse, a retired teacher and educational administrator, and now a substitute teacher at Morningside Community School in Pittsfield, where she has resided since 1993.
Her older brother, the late John Chasse, is considered one of the finest basketball players in Central Massachusetts history. A point guard, he starred at Worcester South High, the former Leicester Junior College, and at Peru State College in Nebraska. His many honors include a 2009 induction to the New England Basketball Hall of Fame.
“It is hard to express what joining my brother in the Hall of Fame means to me,’’ said Chasse. “He was there for me every step of the way. Even when we were growing up, we used to take a wire coat hanger, open it up and tuck it under the door frame and played one on one using a pair of rolled up socks.’’
John Chasse coached several sports and was Social Studies head at Leicester High School, where he taught history for 37 years. A decorated Army veteran who served in Vietnam, he died in 2018.
“I loved his sense of humor, which was like our mother’s, and I was amazed how well he shot the basketball, the old set shot like Bob Cousy,’’ said Chasse. “So when people tell me they remind me of my brother, it’s the greatest compliment I could receive.’’
Her love of basketball ran so deep that as a young girl she would shovel snow off the St. Peter’s court where, despite the elements, Chasse fine-tuned her skills.
“I was on my own and I’d practice foul shooting, layups, and using and not using the backboard when I shot,’’ she said. “I wanted to know every part of the game and learn it well. I started playing pickup games with the boys when I was nine or ten and did it through high school.’’
After the competitive Chi Rho summer league for boys was established in Worcester by Cousy and Rev. Donald Gonyner of St. Peter’s parish, Chasse was asked by one team to join them when they were down to four players.
“I went in and had scored some points and had a few assists, but word got out,’’ she recalled, “Suddenly, the whistle blows, and I was ordered off the court.’’
According to her high school classmate, Tom Incutto, “Cathie wasn’t afraid to rough it up on the court in our pickup games. She wouldn’t take a back seat to anyone.
“And she had the look of a competitor the way she would stare at you. She made believers out of us,’’ said Incutto, a sports standout at St. Peter’s and Bridgewater State College.
“If she had been allowed to play in high school or college, she would have raised her game to an even higher level,’’ added Incutto, a retired Worcester Superior Court probation officer, who saw Chasse shine off the court.
“She played the lead in ‘The Unsinkable Molly Brown’ in our senior musical,’’ recalled Incutto who was also a cast member. “Like the real Molly Brown, who survived the sinking of the Titanic, she was never one to back down from a challenge and Cathie just belted out those songs with the same confidence she displayed on the basketball court.’’
Musically gifted, Chasse played the accordion and still strums on a guitar — a gift from her brother more than 50 years ago.
Patricia Hannan-Smith, Chasse’s cousin, grew up with her when their families resided in a double decker home on Benefit Terrace in Worcester.
“Like her brother, who helped refine her game, Cathie was a terrific, gifted, athlete who was better than most of the boys,’’ said Hannan-Smith, a former speech therapist in four Western Massachusetts school systems — Warren, West Warren, West Brookfield and New Braintree. She currently runs a gift shop in Maine.
“We lived on a dead-end street and in the winter, my father set up an ice rink for us. Cathie loved being outside and we could play into the night under the streetlights.
“Had Title IX come to us earlier,’’ Hannan-Smith said, “her name would be well known.’’
Chasse entered the convent of the sisters of St. Joseph in Holyoke in 1968.
“From ninth grade through high school, the sisters educated me, stood by me, and made me appreciate the life that they had,’’ she said. “They were outgoing and knew how to have fun and knew how to listen. I used to have races with Sister Imelda Maria along the second-floor corridors while she held her long beads.’’
In 1976, she joined the faculty at St. Joseph’s High where she taught religion and physical education.
And played a little basketball.
“Cathie scrimmaged with my boys’ varsity team and she was better than all my players,’’ recalled Paul Procopio, whose 24 years as the school’s head coach included a 381–150 record, 13 league titles, six Western Mass. titles and a state championship.
“She was a terrific ball handler, a very good passer, and had a good shot,’’ said Procopio, who arranged a faculty tournament from among area high schools at the Pittsfield Boys Club.
The tournament MVP?
Cathie Chasse!
Procopio fondly remembers Chasse’s kindness to one of his players, Tyrone Gadson, whom she took under her wing and tutored. It was one of her many acts of kindness over the years.
She left the religious life in 1982 and her endeavors have included teaching at the Hillcrest Educational Center in Lenox and in a therapeutic classroom in the Pittsfield school system before becoming an administrator at Morningside Community School.
Her friendship with her future wife, Gerry McQuoid, started on the basketball court as teenagers, and blossomed into longtime companionship and then marriage, in 2011.
According to Cathie and Gerry, they met through Cathie’s brother John, who told McQuoid that “I’d like you to meet my sister. She’s the only one I know that plays like a boy besides you.’’
“She was a dead eye shot,’’ said Chasse of McQuoid, a nursing educator for Berkshire Health System who played women’s basketball at Leicester High, averaging 21 points per game as a playmaking four-year starting point guard. She is enshrined in the Leicester High Athletic Hall of Fame.
She was also starting point guard and captain for two seasons (1972–74) on the first women’s team at Anna Maria College in Paxton. McQuoid was later a member of the semi-pro All-American Chicks based out of Providence, R.I.
“I always admired Cathie’s kindness to everyone, regardless of the circumstances,’’ said McQuoid, “and also her tenacity, especially when playing against the boys.’’
The couple fostered, then adopted, Thomas McQuoid, a student at Taconic High, who shares Gerry’s love of horses and has won medals in equestrian competition.
“I met Thomas at Morningside Community when he was five and just witnessing his growth in so many ways has been rewarding,’’ said Chasse. “I was the recipient of such kindness from the boys I played basketball with and the sisters who mentored me and I try to reciprocate to this day.
“When kids at school come to you and wrap their arms around you, it means you’re doing a good job.’’
Athletics and competition, Chasse said, helped her build positive relationships.
“I was competitive, but never a sore loser. It was a game to me, and it was meant to be fun. As you go through life the friendships you make shape you as a person,’’ she said, “and when those memories keep flooding back, it’s like going home again.’’
One vivid memory still brings a smile to her face.
“It only happened once, but my team had possession and I dribbled to the top of the key, put the ball between a defender’s legs, picked it up and went in for the layup,’’ said Chasse.
“It was a one in a million play and I got an ‘oh boy!’ response, but the real significance of that moment,’’ she noted, “was it was never about me. It was about helping my team win.’’
— end —
