RKE Athletic wins the 2024 Art Stock’s Royal Rumble

By Walter J. O’Neill, Jr.

The 1st Annual Art Stock’s Royal Rumble winners of the Jersey Shore Basketball League are RKE Athletic who beat Sterns Trailer 120-88

For the 56th season of the Jersey Shore Basketball League the board of governors decided to honor one of the leagues legends by naming a mid-season tournament after him.

Art Stock was widely known as the king of New Jersey nightclubs for over a decade. He owned a string of clubs along the Jersey Shore from the 1970’s to the 1980’s. Stock was also very passionate about basketball. He coached at several local high schools and in 1977 he purchased Hazleton Bullets, a semi-pro team located in Pennsylvania. When Stock took over the team they relocated to the Jersey shore and played at Neptune High School as the Shore Bullets.In 1978 the team played their home games at Red Bank Regional High School and took on the new name of Jersey Shore Bullets. The third and final season of the team was played in 1978 at Convention Hall in Asbury Park.

“I was coaching the team for Art back then,” said Greg Kapalko. In his current position, Kapalko is the chairman of the JSBL board of governors. “Back then I was at some township event and for entertainment they had a wrestling bear. It was midweek and I asked the trainer how much it would cost to have him hang around until our game of the week. The cost was a couple hundred bucks and we agreed that some players that would wrestle the bear at halftime.”

Fly Williams was a big name in basketball during the 70’s and was a member of the Jersey Shore Bullets. “We told him that he was going to wrestle the bear at halftime, and Fly was like okay,” Kapalko said. The trainer told Williams that the bear would play with him, but once he used his arms to push, Williams was to drop to the ground and the bear would pin him. Everything went smoothly and the crowd loved it. “As we were heading into the halftime break, Art told me he had one more guy to wrestle the bear.”

That guy was known as the Bayonne Bleeder, Chuck Wepner, who was a professional boxer. “Chuck came out with his hands taped up and the trainer told him that whatever you do, when the bear pushes your shoulders, you drop to the floor, but Chuck really didn’t care,” Kapalko said. Wepner was a big man standing 6’6” tall and the bear was just about the same height when he stood up. “The bear was pushing on Chuck, who should have dropped to the floor, but he decided to push back. Well, one thing led to another and it was getting very physical. That’s when Chuck hauled off and punched the bear right in the face. The bear was wearing a muzzle which spun around on his head. He got pissed and chased Wepner all over the floor.”

The crowd in the Convention Center loved the act. “Stock was so thrilled with how Wepner and bear acted, he hired both of them to perform in his night clubs,” added Kapalko.

After the Bullets folded in 1978, Stock would win three championships as head coach of the Royal Manor and four more as the sponsor of both the Royal Manor and Birch Hill in the Jersey Shore Basketball League. “His teams are considered among the greatest in the leagues 56-year history.”

The summer of 1976, the JSBL didn’t have a home site for its games. Stock rescued the league by building an outdoor court and stadium at the Headliner, which he owned. The summer of 1988, the JSBL ran into another issue of not having a place to play. The league was close to folding, but Stock came to the rescue again and built another court with stands at the Birch Hill Swim Club. “We knew that we needed to honor him, so we created the mid-season tournament in his name,” Kapalko said.

The summer of 2024 has eight teams competing in the JSBL, which now plays all their games at Manasquan High School on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. Kapalko and his son Eddie, who is the social media and webmaster of the JSBL, came up with a unique tournament format. Instead of playing four quarters of 10 minutes, they played two halves of 15 minutes. With four minutes left to play, they turn off the game clock and set a target score. At the four-minute mark if a team was up 50-48, the JSBL set a target score of 58, whichever team reached that mark first won.

The quarterfinals Results

REK Athletic beating WCT Warriors 107-72.

Ortho-NJ beat Sea View Jeep 80-79

ACI/Robin’s Nest beat Larson Ford 78-63

Sterns Trailer beat Intern Helpers 90-66

Semifinals Results

RKE Athletic beat Ortho-NJ 87-78

Sterns Trailer beat ACI/Robin’s Nest 73-52

That win by Sterns Trailer, who are back-to-back JSBL champions, was their 20th consecutive win dating back to 2022. The finals had RKE Athletic facing Sterns Trailer who were heavy favorites to win. However, many of the Sterns Players were unable to make the finals of the Art Stock Royal Rumble. Sterns had only five players for the game against RKE, who had nine ready to go.

The finals had a regular game format of four quarters. In the first, RKE took a 28-20 lead. They outscored Sterns Trailer 29-18 in the second taking a 47-38 lead into the halftime break. Sterns Trailer had their best quarter to start the second half besting RKE 38-30. But those five Sterns Trailer players just ran out of gas in the fourth quarter. With four minutes to play RKE had 112 points, so the JSBL set the target winning score at 120. RKE easily made that and won the game 120-88.

Kyle Cardaci had 29 points and seven rebounds for RKE and Ithiel Horton finished with 20 points and three rebounds.

Sterns Trailer had four of their five players score in double figures. Kevin Mateo had 23 points, Rob Ukawuba scored 22 and had six rebounds, Gene Campbell had 21 points and Kevin Pikiell finished with 15 points. Jerome Frink had only seven points, but pulled down 13 rebounds.

Regular season picks up on July 16, with ACI/Robin’s Nest facing Sea View Jeep at 7:00 p.m. and Intern Helpers against Ortho-NJ at 8:30.

Info on the JSBL please visit: https://jsbl.leaguerepublic.com/index.html

JSBL all 55-Team: https://anyflip.com/mhqp/qxbo/

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