Last year marked a historic moment for Marist women’s basketball; for the first time, the daughter of a former player joined the program.
Sophomore forward Ciara Croker is following in the footsteps of her mother Tara, who was known as Tara Walsh during her playing days in the 1990s. Both Tara and Ciara took a distinctively different path in their basketball careers, yet each ended up in the same place, playing the same position for the same school.
“I get emotional. I’m really proud of [Ciara],” said Tara Croker while fighting back tears. “We talk every day after practice, she runs me through what they worked on and how she’s feeling, which is really fun that we can share that… We can share what that schedule is like, what the grind is like.”
During Ciara’s childhood, Tara coached some of her youth teams and frequently brought her teams to Marist games at Iona, which is near their family’s home in New Rochelle, N.Y. After being raised by a Marist basketball player and eventually becoming one herself, Ciara expressed gratitude for the role her mother played in her upbringing.
“I loved my mom growing up, I still do,” said Ciara Croker. “She’s always there for us and she takes her love of basketball and competitiveness and translates it into real life, and has always taught us to do the same. The lessons you learn on the court are still life lessons.”
Before coming to Marist, Tara Croker had a decorated high school basketball career as a four-year varsity forward at St. Joseph Hill. She won the Jaques Award, given to Staten Island’s most outstanding girl’s basketball player, in 1991 and 1992, becoming the first player to win the award more than once. In 2020, she won a SILive.com poll of nearly 20,000 respondents that asked readers to vote for the best Hill basketball player of all time.
“I loved high school basketball in Staten Island. It was incredible. Electric. Every game was standing room only in these gyms, every team had two or three division one players on it,” said Tara Croker.
St. Joseph Hill was not a powerhouse when Tara arrived, but during her four-year stint, they became a top-flight team behind her offensive prowess. Tara became accustomed to taking on a leading offensive role and ultimately eclipsed 1,600 points during her time with the Koalas.
Tara was a finesse player who could run the floor from the three and four positions, and she specialized in making fadeaway baseline shots. At the same time, her aggressive tendencies often got her into foul trouble and played a role in a devastating injury she sustained.
While playing in the Boo Williams AAU tournament during March of her junior year in high school, Tara’s team ran a full-court press against their opponent. An opposing player tried to force her way through the airtight space between Tara and the sideline, leaving her with a significant knee injury.
“I took the charge, and she took my knee with her,” said Tara Croker.
Tara initially received the diagnosis of a minor knee injury, but a week later, she learned that she had indeed torn her ACL. The initial prognosis was a career-ending injury that could keep her off the court forever. Yet with her parents’ support, she worked to make a full recovery, undergoing arthroscopic surgery that left her unable to walk for 14 weeks.
After an intense rehab period, Tara improbably returned to the floor in time for her senior year and went on to earn her second Jaques award. The injury did however complicate her recruitment process. With most top-notch players needing to commit during the fall of senior year, some of the larger schools she had been in touch with would have to take a chance on her being fully recovered from the knee injury.
Tara initially committed to a Big East school, but after some hesitancy, she gave a persistent Marist program a chance to win her over. She quickly fell in love with the Marist campus, with its sweeping views of the Hudson River, along with the group of Red Foxes already on the team; shortly thereafter, she decided to attend the College.
“It was a young program… it hadn’t been around super super long,” said Tara Croker.
Marist was not yet a member of the MAAC conference when Tara joined the team, as they instead competed in the NEC conference. While legendary head coach Brian Giorgis was coaching in Poughkeepsie, it was not yet for Marist, as he was the head coach at Our Lady of Lourdes High School during Tara Croker’s playing days. Instead, Tara played under head coach Ken Babineau, who spent 12 years total at Marist and won just over 40% of his games with the program.
Having previously played for storied women’s basketball coaches such as Vincent Cannizzaro before Marist, Tara at times experienced frustration since Babineau lacked a similar level of experience within women’s basketball. Nevertheless, she considered Babineau to be a father figure and believed that her entire team felt supported by their head coach, whom they still keep in touch with to this day.
Flash forward a few decades, and suddenly Tara was raising three basketball players of her own.
“All three of my kids, I feel very blessed, fell in love with the game of basketball, so it has been a part of our life and our family,” said Tara Croker.
While her middle child Ciara demonstrated a love for basketball, it was by no means a guarantee that she would go on to pursue the sport in college, as her primary sport growing up was lacrosse. Ciara was a standout in the sport and initially had her sights set on playing lacrosse for Dartmouth where her father had attended school, even traveling up to the College’s New Hampshire campus during the summer to participate in camps.
“I had to decide whether I wanted to play and pursue basketball in college or lacrosse in college,” said Ciara Croker. “And I was definitely better at lacrosse because it came more natural to me… In basketball, I don’t wanna say I was bad, but I wasn’t good.”
Things changed during the COVID-19 pandemic; with Ciara juggling both lacrosse and basketball at the high school level, she began to feel more of a connection to the latter sport and decided to stop playing the former. She improved her game and began to receive interest from Marist, first speaking with current head coach Erin Doughty as she commenced her junior year of high school.
“When Ciara reached out, she said ‘My mom loved Marist, I would love to be someone you considered,’ so we went and watched her play and I think that connection helped us a lot, but we obviously liked her as a player too,” said Doughty.
With both Doughty and Giorgis leading the program during Ciara’s recruitment period, Giorgis later placed a phone call to the Croker family that shifted Ciara’s focus squarely to Marist.
“My mom was like, ‘I’m so excited you guys called her,’ and he was like, ‘I’m so glad she got good enough for us to call her,’ and I’ll always remember that,” said Ciara Croker. “My mom cried that day. It was just them acknowledging me and them pointing me out was all we wanted because I always thought Marist women’s basketball was the greatest thing ever since my mom did it.”
When Marist made the first offer of any school to Ciara, more tears ensued, and like her mother, she ultimately chose to come to Poughkeepsie. After playing sparingly during her freshman year, Ciara has carved out a niche on this year’s team, averaging nearly 20 minutes per game off the bench.
Tara and Ciara each paint a similar picture of Ciara’s game: she is a natural three/four player who specializes in doing the little things that do not always appear in the box score, including setting screens, guarding the opponent’s most potent threats and diving for loose balls. Yet she also possesses enough versatility to play center, a position that forces her to use sound fundamentals to make up for her lack of size.
“I’m always happy with doing whatever it is my team needs,” said Ciara Croker. “I’ll do all the dirty work and that’s what matters to me. I like being like a spark off the bench.”
“She’s had games where she’s hit open jumpers and stretched the defense for us,” Doughty added. “She’s had to play extended minutes when we go up against more mobile teams.”
While Ciara has truly begun to acclimate on the court at Marist, one of her most notable moments occurred off the court in late January when the MAAC recognized her as the Female Student-Athlete of the Week. Ciara mentioned the heavy emphasis her family and team place on succeeding academically amid a rigorous schedule, making the achievement extra rewarding for Ciara. With her daughter thriving in the classroom, Tara sees the recognition as something that can open doors for her in the future.
“I was so proud of her. That’s a huge resume builder, and it’s nice to know that people see [her] for everything [she’s] doing both on and off the court,” said Tara Croker.
With her daughter now fully ingrained in the Marist basketball program, Tara has also taken on a more active role in becoming involved with the Red Fox Booster Club’s efforts to promote Marist athletics. Whether it’s on or off the court, Marist women’s basketball seems primed to continue benefiting from the presence of the first legacy family in program history.
Edited by Danny Destler, Marley Pope and Josh Crysler
Graphic by Cara Lacey; Photos from Tara Croker and Marist Athletics
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