CENTAUR SEASONS: "…An Amazing Man" — entry #18 from "A history of the events of the Allentown College’s 1972-1973 B-ball season …

… AS CHRONICLED BY, AND WITH THE PERSONAL MEMOIRS + OCCASSIONAL PHILOSOPHIZING OF THE AUTHOR, ONE STEPHEN J. McKEE”

This CENTAUR SEASONS post was written January 30, 1973 — 40 years ago today.

PREVIOUS GAME: Centaurs 56, Philadelphia Pharmacy 71, six days ago

NEXT GAME: at Spring Garden College, tonight

CENTAUR SEASON: 2-6

Pregame, on the bus to Spring Garden College in Philadelphia.

We just received our traditional going-away pep talk from Coach Compardo. John Compardo. He’s the athletic director. The subject of his talk was on the will to win:

“It’s 90 percent of the game, that will to win. Anything is possible if you want it.”

It’s a shame – the written word leaves out so much. It can’t capture the raspy, individualistic way that coach talks.

(“… An Amazing Man” continues below)

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WELCOME TO CENTAUR SEASONS. “… An Amazing Man” here on HoopsU.Com appears also on CENTAUR SEASONS, a “memory blog” of the half-good, half-bad, all-new Allentown College of St. Francis de Sales Centaurs in Center Valley, Pennsylvana. Forty years ago Steve kept a diary of his junior-year season. A blog before its time then, “A History of the Events …” is now an e-diary at CENTAUR SEASONS and here on HoopsU.com.

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Coach Compardo is an amazing man. He’s fifty years old. He’s just received his doctorate in Phys. Ed. from Lehigh. He runs three miles a day (and because of it he’s probably in better shape than some of the guys on the team!). He is always getting abused by everybody. He wears a toupee. He’s hard of hearing. He has a tendency to be long-winded, and he sometimes gets overly wrapped up in the sport he is teaching in his classes.

Allentown College owes what sports program it has to him. He worked to uplift the athletic program at the school. Thanks to him we play a good schedule. All of the teams are unknown, or at least little-well-known, but the competition is just as fun as it is on the major college level.

Looking back on what I just wrote, I realize that I didn’t paint a very good picture of him. That, however, is not all that important anyway.

He will never be forgotten.

We owe Coach Compardo a great deal of thanx.

“Yo, Coach. I broke my ankle and leg in three places.”

“Now watch … Take a whirlpool … Feel that blood bringing back the energy. Then go run two-and-a-half miles. You got to do violence to your body to get results!”

JANUARY 30, 2013: COACH IS IN HIS NINETIES NOW AND STILL WITH US — ALL THOSE YEARS OF RUNNING AND IRRASCIBILITY CLEARLY HAVING HELD HIM IN FINE STEAD! ALAS, JUST YESTERDAY ON THE CENTAUR GRAPEVINE CAME WORD THAT MRS. COMPARDO — MARY JANE — DIED ON SUNDAY. COACH AND “MRS. C” WERE MARRIED FOR 60+ YEARS. TOMORROW’S CENTAUR SEASON POST WILL BE DEDICATED TO THE BOTH OF THEM.

Spring Garden College, away: Coach Sabota has said that this is one of the five remaining nine games we have to play that he expects us to win. We better. We gotta. P.J. Brennan is very optimistic. He said that he thinks we are on the verge of putting it all together. As he said: “It is unfortunate that Spring Garden has scheduled us for January 30, 1973.”

Bob Heoffner didn’t come with us tonight. He was sick two nights ago + didn’t practice. But he did practice last night. Obviously he shouldn’t have. He didn’t get out of bed. All day.

Dave Glielmi has a pulled muscle in his back. It’s his own d—n fault. He was wrestling with T.B. last night and banged his back into the wall. Way to go, Dave. Last year, three days before the second York College game, Dave, because he was pledging a fraternity, had to do 120 sit-ups. He pulled all the muscles in his stomach. Way to go, Dave.

I feel like s—t, too. Went to bed at 11 last night, didn’t get to sleep until 3 a.m. Went to the nurse today, got a whole mess of pills and some cough medicine. Slept all afternoon. Still feel terrible, really weak, a worn-out feeling. But I intend to play tonight, nonetheless. Have to see how it goes when I get in. Just my luck. I really believe that I am just on the verge of getting my blue shirt back!

Enough. We’re almost there.

I hope that P.J.’s premonition is true.

PREVIOUS GAME: Centaurs 56, Philadelphia Pharmacy 71, six days ago

NEXT GAME: Spring Garden College, tonight

1972-73 CENTAUR SEASON Schedule and Results:

12/1 — at Lehigh CCC — W/81-71 — 1-0

12-4 — at Northampton CCC — W/87-50 — 2-0

12-6 — EASTERN BAPTIST — L/73-75 — 2-1

12-12 — SPRING GARDEN — L/54-66 — 2-2

12-16 — PHILLY BIBLE — L/72-79 — 2-3

1-18 — at Baptist Bible — L/82-84 — 2-4

1-19 — WILMINGTON — L/56-71 — 2-5

1-25 — at Philly Pharmacy — L/56-71 — 2-6

1-30 — at Spring Garden

2-3 — at Messiah College

2-6 — at Wilmington

2-13 — RUTGERS, S. JERSEY

2-16 — LEHIGH CCC

2-20 — MESSIAH

2-22 — NORTHAMPTON CCC

2-24 — PHILLY PHARMACY

2-27 — BAPTIST BIBLE

About
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Steve McKee

Steve McKee is the author of CENTAUR SEASONS, a memory blog about his basketball-playing days at Allentown (Pa.) College of St. Francis de Sales in the early 1970s (a good excuse for using his college yearbook picture -- though there's NO excuse for that mustache and hair!).

CENTAUR SEASONS can also be found at www.centaurseasons.com. The centerpiece will be the posting in "real time" of the diary that Steve kept of his 1972-1973 junior-year season, beginning on November 30. Prior to that (and after), Steve will be posting regularly about his freshman, sophomore and senior seasons, as well as about what it was like to be there at the beginning to help get a struggling college basketball program off the ground.

Steve was the original writer of The Wall Street Journal's popular sports blog, "The Daily Fix" in 2001-2002, and was even dubbed "The Unwitting Father of the Sports Blog" by Gelf Magazine, the online publication of the "Varsity Letters Reading Series. Steve was the Journal's sports editor for its original Weekend sport section and was involved in all of the Journal's Olympics coverage, Winter and Summer, from 1996 through 2008.

He is the author of three books, most recently "My Father's Heart: A Son's Reckoning With the Legacy of Heart Disease," which he is adapting as a one-man show. For his first book, "The Call of the Game," Steve traveled the country in search of sports events -- including the famous N.C. State Wolfpack victory over "Phi Slamma Jamma" of the University of Houston. For his second book, COACH, among the 150+ coaches Steve interviewed are/were college basketball coaches John Wooden (UCLA), Pat Summitt (Tennessee), Frank Layden (Niagara), Bobby Cremins (Georgia Tech), P.J. Carlesimo (Seton Hall), Bill Guthridge (North Carolina), Abe Lemons (Texas), Stan Morrison (USC), Kathy Rush (Immaculata), Jim Satalin (Duquesne), Charlie Thomas (San Francisco State), Butch Van Bredda Koff (Princeton), Bill Whitmore (Vermont) and LaDonna Wilson (Austin Peay).

For more, you can click on www.steve-mckee.com, where you can find a TODAY show appearance and an NPR interview.