CENTAUR SEASONS: ‘EXAMS AT 1 & 5, GAME AT 7" — entry #10 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 post combines “memoirs” from December 13, 14, 15 & 16, 1972.

PREVIOUS GAME: Centaurs 54, Spring Garden 66, two days ago

NEXT GAME: Philadelphia Bible College, tonight

CENTAUR SEASON: 2-2

Spring Garden jumped to a quick 17-4 lead. Coach put in me, P.J. Brennan & Dave Glielmi. Halftime score, 29-26. I started the second half with Joey Thomson, Dennis Ramella, Bobby Stormes and John Cooper. They jumped to a 13-point lead. Coach put in Bob Hoeffner and Dave. We battled (?) back to five, with about six to go. Touch and go for a while. Fouls put them up to stay.

Our offense is not working at all. It’s slow, sluggish, with no movement except by the man involved. It’s become stagnant. If we are to win we must become alive.

(“Exam at 1 & 5, Game at 7” continues below)

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WELCOME TO CENTAUR SEASONS. “Exam at 1 & 5, Game at 7” 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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Dennis had 25. He played tough. But he drove the middle a lot. He’s only 5-8. … P.J. blew his cool a couple of times; I don’t think this will be a game he wants to remember. … My ankle hurts, a lot. I got in (again) before Chris Cashman, still glued to the bench with that ankle he wrecked the first day of practice. Cash, who never stopped encouraging ME after I double-sprained my ankle last week against Eastern. “Ya gotta learn to live with the pain, Steve,” Cash told me – as he has had to do. Cash: Thank you for making me 100%. Even if I don’t think I was 100%.

Yesterday after Spring Garden it seemed that around the school a lot of people sympathized with us. Lots of “Tough game, Steve,” “Nice try,” and all that. Felt good.

Over the summer I read a Sports Illustrated article on the new football stadium for the Dallas Cowboys. I was repulsed as they described the two tiers of $50,000 “boxes” and the general appearance of the stadium itself. They showed one picture of a party in one of the boxes as a game was played outside. Disgusting. Roman gladiators reincarnated. Then & there I decided that the only people an athlete has the obligation to perform for is himself, his teammates, and his coach. Everybody else, all the people in the partying boxes in the middle of the stadium, who take pleasure in occasionally watching those sweaty beasts locked in mortal combat, they can get screwed. By the time I’d finished the article, I decided that fans are of no consequence to the athlete. An athlete is not an entertainer. He should be dedicated only to the achievement of his own personal goals.

But right now I am praying fans come to our game tonight.

[FORTY YEARS LATER, AN ESSAY ACCOMPANYING THE SI PICTORIAL ABOUT BRAND-NEW TEXAS STADIUM READS WITH REMARKABLE INNOCENCE.]

I’m writing this sitting in The Atrium. Now would be as good as any: To be concise: The hypocrisy of colleges who push their athletes through in order that they may produce for them on the basketball court repulses me.

Today Allentown College started exams. Tonight, we have a game, against Philly Bible. Dave and Joey have Natural Science at 3. P.J.’s got an exam from 5 to 7, the game at 7. I’ve taken one so far, have another at 5 to 7. (I admit it’s rather ironic that I’ll probably flunk my French exam at 5. But I can still graduate if I go to summer school. That’s what’s important – graduating in four years.)

And Bobby Stormes is going from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. — exams at 1, 3 & 5; game at 7. Mental and physical. If he can’t hack the mental, he won’t be here next semester to hack the physical. And so it goes.

[IN ENTRY #9: “IT WAS LIKE MY WHOLE LIFE WAS TAKEND AWAY FROM ME,” BOBBY STORMES REVEALS WHY PLAYING BASKETBALL FOR THE CENTAURS WAS SO IMPORTANT.]

Coach made a tactical move at practice two nights ago. Whenever we go anywhere, we run. Run into line. Run out of line. Run through the line. Run, tun, run. Sounds like a first-grade reader. He also made this move. The starting five will be determined by the performances of the players in the practices prior to the game. And he said tonight against Philly Bible we will use the towel all the time. When he is holding the towel we are in a man-to-man defense. When he doesn’t have the towel we are in a 1-2-2 zone press. Against Spring Garden we became really stagnant on defense, too.

We know nothing of this Philly Bible team. But as Chris Cashman said: We must go into Christmas on the winning side. He is right. We must.

[THE CRITICAL MATTER OF WHOM WE CENTAURS HAD ON OUR SCHEDULE.]

I’m tired – mentally – but not really worried about things. I’ve found that that when you need it – it comes. During games the strength is usually there. But we is gonna be quite the exhausted team at 11 tonight.

My mind won’t be on that French exam at all. We gotta win. We gotta be on the winning side of the chart for Christmas.

Final score prediction: Centaurs, 84 – Philly Bible, 67.

PREVIOUS GAME: Centaurs 54, Spring Garden 66

NEXT GAME: Philadelphia Bible 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

1-18 — at Baptist Bible

1-19 — WILMINGTON

1-25 — at Philly Pharmacy

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.