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When Houston Rockets guard Sam Cassell swished a 3-point shot with 32 seconds left in Sunday night’s NBA Finals contest in New York, giving his team the lead for good in what became a 93-89 win over the Knicks, Tom Cianchette let out a whoop in his living room in Pittsfield.
Bonnie Cianchette missed the big shot. She was in the kitchen, too nervous to stay in front of the TV in the closing moments.
A couple of overzealous Houston fans? Nah. A couple of very big Sam Cassell fans.
“Sam was a great kid. I’ve had a lot of host kids, and Sam is one of my favorites,” said Bonnie Cianchette, referring to Cassell’s days as a postgraduate student and basketball player at Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield.
Cassell, who came to MCI in 1988 after a rough childhood and adolesence growing up in the projects of Baltimore, spent a lot of his year with the Cianchette family that took part in the school’s host family program.
“He didn’t know his father, and his mother was 13 when she had him, so he didn’t really have a family,” recalled Courtney Cianchette, who was 12 when Cassell came into her life through her parents’ participation in the MCI program. “He was here a lot. He was really close to us.”
Naturally, the Cianchettes are following Cassell’s rookie season in the NBA with great interest. And Cassell hasn’t forgotten them.
“We’ve stayed in touch,” said Bonnie Cianchette. “My kids have Sam Cassell rookie cards signed by Sam Cassell.”
When the Rockets came to Boston last winter for a game, the Cianchettes were at Boston Garden. Cassell went to dinner with them.
Bonnie Cianchette said she was not surprised that Cassell came through in the clutch Sunday night, scoring Houston’s final seven points on his way to 15 for the game even though he had a bad outing in Game 2, which Houston lost.
“He performs well under pressure. He always has,” said Cianchette. “I flashed back to a lot of games he played for MCI when we’d tell him to win the game. He’d just smile.”
After his year at MCI, the 6-foot-3 Cassell went on to San Jacinto Junior College in Texas for two years, averaging 22 points a game. He then went two years to Florida State, averaging 18.3 points. He was selected 24th in the first round by the Rockets in the ’93 draft and has averaged 9.1 points and 4.9 assists per game this season.
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