“I caught flack about starting a girls’
league, but I was determined to have a
girls’ league here,” the 90-year-old bas-
ketball icon remembers. “The guys told
me, Mr. Couch, you’re wasting your time.
They would not help. And I said to them,
I don’t care. [...] The girls should have an
equal opportunity as the boys.’”
Despite plenty of pushback while look-
ing for permits and sponsors, Moorer and
Couch managed to launch the Uptown
Challenge. Now in its 17th season, the
summer tournament is widely regarded
as NYC’s premier girls’ basketball league.
Played outdoors at 130th Street and
5th Ave in the Bronx, the tournament
has a reputation for creating some of the
toughest hoopers in the game.
“AAU coaches say they want to bring
their girls to us before the travel season
because if they can dive on that concrete,
play out in that hot sun under all kinds of
conditions, they’re prepared for the travel
season,” Moorer says. “They’ve come
through the storm.”
The list of players who have developed
their game at the Uptown Challenge
and gone on to have prominent college
careers is staggering. To name a few:
Mercedes Dukes (St. John’s), Renee
Taylor (Miami), Renneika Razor (Mary-
land), Tahirah Williams (UConn), Anjalé
Barrett (Maryland) and Chanell Williams
(Providence).
“i caught
flack about
starting
a girls’
league,
but i was
determined
to have a
girls’ league
here.”
—couch
im Couch has
been one of the
most trusted and
respected figures
in New York City
basketball since
the 1960s. And yet,when Couch and former
All-City forward Marian
Moorer set out to start an
NYC summer league for
girls in 2002, they faced
mostly rejection and
doubt.
Other alumna like Kia Vaughn, Saniya
Chong and Shannon Bobbitt have gone on
to play in the WNBA.
The talent level only continues to
grow, recently featuring the likes of 2019
guard Teisha Hyman and 2022 PG Skye
Owen. Hyman, a Class B All-State First
Team selection, will hoop at Syracuse
next season. Owen, one of New York’s
fastest rising talents, played up in the
College Division last summer as a rising
ninth grader.
No matter where their careers take
them, the players always find their way
back to the park during the summertime.
“Some of our players say, ‘If it wasn’t
for the tournament, I’d be in trouble,’”
says Moorer, who commissions the
Uptown Challenge. “Once the girls go
through the High School Division, they
always go through the College Division.
They come back. They come back as
coaches. One of them said, ‘Mr. Couch, I’ll
be your DJ, anything you need.’”
In a sense, Moorer is one of those play-
ers. Couch introduced her to basketball in
the early ’80s and she fell in love with the
game while hooping at Dyckman Park.
She would go on to be named all-city
while at John F. Kennedy and then star at
the University of Delaware. Moorer would