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Staten Island Advance Editorial -October 2025

Check Brian talking about SIBL on silive.com 

Hi Neighbor,

You probably don’t know Craig Raucher. He’s a Great Kills guy who likes basketball. And community.

You probably do know the government of the United States of America is shut down. All because of a Congress so divided that compromise, heck – even discussion — is impossible.

We’re not here to talk about the shutdown. We are here to talk about why it happened . . . .a nation divided and someone – that would be Craig — trying to do something about it in his own little way, in his own little community.

Call it whatever you want. Republican and Democrat. Left and the Right. Conservative and Liberal. The Woke and Anti-Woke.

It’s probably deep-a-division as we have seen in our lifetimes. And I was a teen during Vietnam.

Craig gets it . . . we are nation where too many neighbors have disdain for each other. Often it’s political leanings. Religious beliefs. The color of our skin.

The Craig Rauchers of the world aren’t going to solve all that. They aren’t going to solve the dysfunction in Washington. They aren’t going to solve the hate-filled political rhetoric, the violence, both political and otherwise.

Still – and maybe it’s Pollyanna speaking — if enough Craig Rauchers around America do their thing to heal a little of the divide in their own communities, maybe we’ll see a difference in our nation.

Staten Island’s Craig Raucher’s thing is basketball. He founded the Staten Island Basketball League in 1980. Guys – yes, all guys — range in age from 25 to 71. They’ve played in PS 8 ever since the league started.

The Advance sports team has written about the league a lot over those years. But with all due respect to my very talented team, not everyone reads the sports pages.

So Craig reached out to me.

“We were hoping that our story may be of interest to you and to your editorial staff as it is less sports and more of the power of the human spirit,” Craig wrote.

That it is. Because it’s not all about sports.

“It is not about basketball but about the powerful magnetism of sports bringing people of different faiths, religions, ages, nationalities together to play a game they love,” Craig says.

“In a world that is full of strife, hate, violence, ill will, death, murder, our league throughout all of these years has been a beacon of sportsmanship at the highest level.”

You have to be a pretty good basketball player to get on the PS 8 court. And you have to respect the guys you’re playing with. No matter their politics. Their color. The God they worhsip, if they worship one at all.

That’s about it.

Craig is league commissioner, so he gets to decide who’s in and who’s out. You’re “in” if you can play basketball. You’re “out” if you talk smack.

“I run it like a dictator,” he says. “It’s not a democracy. I have three rules.”

1. No racism.

2. No politics.

3. No intentionally hurting anybody.

He doesn’t care who you are.

“It’s a mix of players – rich, poor, upper class, lower class, middle class. We’ve had ex-convicts, police captains, detectives, Fire Department lieutenants, Alcohol Anonymous attendees, former drug abusers and dealers, stockbrokers, surgeons . . . gay men and straight men, plumbers, carpenters, union and non-union . . . There were even some who were autistic . . . “

The list goes on. Around 400 have played the game.

“The longevity of the Staten Island Basketball League in terms of blending races, religions and diversity has been a testimonial to the power of competitive sports to bind all people together,” Craig notes.

A couple of years ago, he realized our kids needed the same kind of guidance and a chance to learn how to play the game like the big guys. He saw too many times parents thrusting kids with no skills into an established league.

“It becomes a very embarrassing and negative experience for the kids who haven’t yet learned the game.”

So he started a youth league, both boys and girls.

“On Staten Island, there is no place where you can send a young person to actually learn to play basketball,” Craig told us. “No place that will teach you how to dribble, how to shoot, how to pass or how to rebound.”

About 40 kids are involved. Craig thinks there about a thousand who could benefit.

There are a plethora of non-profit institutions on Staten Island.

Craig Raucher’s basketball league isn’t one of them.

For the past 45 years, Craig and his guys have kept the league alive and thriving. Because of their love of the game. Because of their love of our community.

It’s a Staten Island story not told enough.

Brian