Collver keeps high caliber basketball league vibrant
SPARTA — There’s a man named Charlie Collver who lives in Sparta. If you play basketball or frequent the deli in White Deer Plaza for breakfast you know who he is. He’s the fit grandpa with the bulging calves who greate the regulars as they enter Bologna Café and knows all the waitresses by name.
If you have any interest in basketball, ask him about his summer basketball league. Besides his grandchildren, the league is his baby, and he can rattle off the names and stats of any player who’s hit the prestigious 1,000 point mark at any Sussex County high school over the past couple of decades, and if they aren’t in the league yet, he’s eager to recruit.
Basketball wasn’t Collver’s go-to sport: football was. He was the leading rusher at West Orange High School in 1965. He went on to enlist in the Marine Corps in 1966, and went to Vietnam in 1969. When he got out of the service, he went to Essex County College and then completed his bachelor’s degree in physical education at William Patterson College.
Collver laughs describing his career path. “I had a lot of jobs,” he said. From working at the post office, to teaching, to owning several businesses, he finally landed at his main career, and the one that led him to the summer basketball league — owning the Prudential Office in Sparta.
As Collver got older, football wasn’t such a wise go-to sport anymore.
He’d loved and coached baseball, but it was basketball that he settled into for exercise and camaraderie. Through his business at Prudential, he met a lot of parents of high-caliber high school basketball players. And then he met a guy named Matt McCann, a Sparta High School basketball phenom who went on to play at Drew University. McCann had moved back to Sparta and in 2005 started the Ungerman Basketball Classic, or UBC, a summer basketball league.
This coincided with Collver’s retirement. He loved the concept and started helping out with recruiting.
The league thrived, and included players ranging in age from high school to middle aged adults. Then, one day about four years ago, McCann had landed a job in New York City and moved there. It was time to cut ties with the league.
Collver rose to the occasion. He’s been in charge for the past four years, and loves every minute of it. His pride and joy is the trophy on display at Homer’s Restaurant.
“Each year, the team that wins the end-of-season championship gets its name added,” Collver said.
This season, the league included players like Zach Fritch and Jake Melville, both 2013 grads headed to college to play basketball and football, respectively. “They’re the young ones in the league,” Collver said.
The rest of the guys are either currently playing in college or college graduates, including Jack DeVries — a former Vernon High then Kean College hoops stand-out — who‘s in his mid 40s and still loves slamming and jamming every summer out at the courts at Ungerman Field.
The league runs during June and July each summer, but the ground work extends year round. “I’m constantly looking to recruit more players and teams,” Collver said. The way it works is a player who wants to join the league deputizes himself as a captain then approaches Collver to join the league. There’s a nominal fee to join that covers the referees and other expenses including use of other facilities when the league’s home at Ungerman field is otherwise occupied.
For more information, 973-729-1150 or 973-349-8922.