Circa 1964, during the time period of The Basketball Diaries, Jim Carroll received a scholarship to attend the ultra elite Trinity School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, NYC:
It’s my first day at the ultra-rich private school that I got a scholarship to come to. I had a hard time trying to figure out what I was doing there, and I got funny looks from everyone and thought how funny it was all those Jewish kids singing away those old Christian tunes like that at the chapel service in the morning. Some teacher in back of me kept poking on my shoulder to get me to sing but I just sat there with a bored look on my face. . . . I feel like farting and blowing up the 257 years of fine tradition of this place.
The Basketball Diaries (Penguin Editions p. 65)
In 1968 Carroll was a senior at Trinity School, and thanks to Wilson Smith, a Trinity School alum who generously lent me his 1968 Trinity School yearbook, we get a unique peek into what Carroll’s world looked like at Trinity School. The Basketball Diaries includes a cast of characters from Trinity School, and while Carroll is careful to use aliases, the yearbook allows us to speculate who the real people may have been as well as to visualize what the narrator and protagonist of The Basketball Diaries looked like at the time (probably not what you thought, right?).
James Dennis Carroll
In the memories of most Jim will loom as the lithe basketball player who gave Trinity four consecutive winning seasons and remained an annual ‘All-Ivy’ choice. But Jim has other talents besides agility which he values just as highly. A surprise friendship with ‘Beat’ poet Allen Ginsberg is the key to Jim’s other life as a creative writer. The first of the class of ’68 to be published, he will gladly sell you a copy of his slim volume of verse , together with a set of notes for the esoteric subject matter. Service to the Muse has not prevented him from laboring for the S.V.S.O. or from slavery to an attractive young actress. A most unusual canvass preserves Jim’s likeness for posterity, but as yet it is private showings only.
Varsity Basketball
The Varsity Basketball team had a successful winning season, but at times it was an erratic and disappointing one. With spirited optimism and justified hopes for the first Ivy League title since 1959, Mr. Maxim’s [T]igers won their first four games. Following initial setbacks to Hackley, Riverdale, and Horace Mann, the Varsity bounced back to defeat every team in the Ivy League, except the championship Riverdale squad. In compiling a 7-5 Ivy League record the Tigers relied heavily on three seniors, Bob Antin, Marc Blane, and Jim Carroll. “All Ivy” Bob Antin and Marc Blane were consistent shooters and performers and both averaged over 27 points per game. “All Ivy” Carroll added occasional spectacular performances and averaged 17 points, while Craig Walker, a Junior, gained experience and scored frequently, and Robert Catennacio added defensive rebounding strength.
Varsity Basketball
Front: Schack (Mgr.), Munger (Mgr.), Rose (Mgr.). Back: Mr. Maxim, Baumgold, S. Harris, Antin, Catenaccio, Carroll, Walker, Blane, Roth, Mr. Munger.
The Varsity Basketball team had a successful winning season, but at times it was an erratic and disappointing one. With spirited optimism and justified hopes for the first Ivy League title since 1959, Mr. Maxim’s [T]igers won their first four games. Following initial setbacks to Hackley, Riverdale, and Horace Mann, the Varsity bounced back to defeat every team in the Ivy League, except the championship Riverdale squad. In compiling a 7-5 Ivy League record the Tigers relied heavily on three seniors, Bob Antin, Marc Blane, and Jim Carroll. “All Ivy” Bob Antin and Marc Blane were consistent shooters and performers and both averaged over 27 points per game. “All Ivy” Carroll added occasional spectacular performances and averaged 17 points, while Craig Walker, a Junior, gained experience and scored frequently, and Robert Catennacio added defensive rebounding strength.
In compiling a 13-6 overall record, the Tigers were defeated only by Cathedral Prep in non-league games, and lost only to Riverdale on their court. As Bob Antin accurately described the Varsity after they were eliminated from the Ivy League race, “It’s never what we did, it’s what we should have done.”
Brent’s arrival in 1964 as the first card-carrying Trotskyite in Trinity’s history, caused tremors of panic in certain conservative circles. Their fears did not subside when, as a freshman, he organized the only active branch of S.N.C.C. in the private school world of America. Somewhere disenchantment with the party line seems to have set in, for recently Brent has become as decadent in thought as the current Kremlin circle. We suspect it is all due to Mao’s little red book. But whatever his sentiments, he has never allowed politics to make him a bore or a bigot. His piercing wit has sustained the class through its darkest days and his naturally generous character has won him friends at all levels. Trinity’s loss in colorful leadership will be Chicago’s gain.
“My friend from school, that die-hard Marxist Bunty Gargen, fixed me up on an afternoon blind date with a friend of his big titted girlfriend to see some old Bogart movies down on Bleeker St. Bogart, by the way, went to our school for three years but got the boot for bad grades.. . .”
Brent’s arrival in 1964 as the first card-carrying Trotskyite in Trinity’s history, caused tremors of panic in certain conservative circles. Their fears did not subside when, as a freshman, he organized the only active branch of S.N.C.C. in the private school world of America. Somewhere disenchantment with the party line seems to have set in, for recently Brent has become as decadent in thought as the current Kremlin circle. We suspect it is all due to Mao’s little red book. But whatever his sentiments, he has never allowed politics to make him a bore or a bigot. His piercing wit has sustained the class through its darkest days and his naturally generous character has won him friends at all levels. Trinity’s loss in colorful leadership will be Chicago’s gain.
“My friend from school, that die-hard Marxist Bunty Gargen, fixed me up on an afternoon blind date with a friend of his big titted girlfriend to see some old Bogart movies down on Bleeker St. Bogart, by the way, went to our school for three years but got the boot for bad grades.. . .”