A lot of Gary Evans’ love for sports comes from embracing the challenge.

“Some people, you got to push it out of them,” Evans said. “Can you get these guys playing pretty good and compete and be a good team?”

Evans is a volunteer coach with the Catholic Youth Organization. He leads four of the basketball teams at St. Mary’s Winfield.

“I enjoy the kids,” he said. “I enjoy the challenge. So that’s really the main thing. It’s been in me since I was younger and it hasn’t stopped.”

Evans’ time with the CYO stretches back decades. He started there as a young athlete, playing basketball and baseball.

“The guys I used to hang out with, we were a little bit wild, so I said ‘Oh I think I’ll go practice basketball,’ because I saw trouble coming,” he said.

Evans set the bar high for himself.

“If I could score one, I could score two,” he said, remembering his drive. “So my next game was to score two. The next game I’m scoring three until I could do it good a lot.”

A couple of years later, he started coaching baseball and basketball teams.

“Even though they were close to my age, I didn’t let them mess with me,” he said. Over the decades, Evans has coached thousands of young athletes for free. His players say he’s left a lasting impression.

“I think Gary also teaches kids about life and how to be on time and how to be accountable,” Nick Melito, who played for and with Evans, said. Pat Murray also had Evans as a coach and as a teammate.

“It’s all about working for something and you get what you work for,” Murray said.

And his current athletes can feel themselves improving practice after practice.

“It’s really helped me, like, spacing out the flood and, like, it’s helped my game better as a team player,” Ali Drir, who plays on the seventh grade team, said.

Evans’ impact was so profound, he was inducted into the CYO Hall of Fame. 

“Back then, it was more about me,” he said. “Now they get older. I realize all these years, it’s better because it’s more about others."

For rising to the challenge for young athletes, Gary Evans is our New Yorker of the Week.