WRITTEN ORIGINALLY ON DECEMBER 1, 1972, at 3 p.m.
First game tonight: Lehigh C. C.C. Five hours till game time. Five hours. Five long hours, 300 hundred minutes.
This is the first time I ever attempted to write a diary. After I wrote yesterday’s entry and started to think about it, I realized this is going to be harder than I thought.
(“Five Hours to Game Time” continues below)
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WELCOME TO CENTAUR SEASONS. “Five Hours to Game Time” 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 electronic diary at CENTAUR SEASONS and here on HoopsU.com.
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I forgot to mention last night’s practice. Well – it was terrible. At least I was, wasn’t rebounding or hustling, just shooting. Seems like I do a lot of that now. Hope my hand stays hot. Hope so.
Last night I felt as though I was about to be over practiced. Chris Cashman told me it was in my head. Hope so. I think so too, now. I’m getting jacked up pretty high for tonight. I wonder how everybody else is? I’m nervous, really nervous.
John Cooper said he wasn’t. Funny thing about him. He never seems to really become involved with the game, at least not outwardly. He never involves himself with the typical clap-your-hands, go-team-go, one-for-the-Gipper, rah-rah stuff. Seems as though he doesn’t care, but he must. He’s got to. He wouldn’t put up with all this bulls— if he didn’t. Last year he played the entire season with a bad set of legs, shin splints. It must mean something to him. It must.
He sure is good. I’ve often wondered how he reacts to me. For all practical purposes he plays behind me. Second string, scrub, and all that stuff. I have to play him in practice all the time. Am I that much better than he is? I doubt it. At practice we rarely talk, just technicalities, if anything. I’m always shouting encouragement to him when he’s in and I’m not. But he never does the same for me. Does he resent me?
But: I remember last year, after the York College game. We won, 75-68, and the same situation prevailed, me playing, him on the bench, mostly. I had 11 points and 13 rebounds. Bunch of us were in his room and he was lying in bed with a big grin on his face and he said, “Remember, I made you what you were tonight. Just remember that!” Took a big man to say that.
Joe Thompson’s birthday is today. I know of no better present than beating L.C.C.C. tonight.
I want this game, bad.
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PREVIOUS CENTAUR SEASONS “HISTORY” — ENTRY #1
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Dennis Ramella was in my philosophy class today, and he was getting on me for being nervous. But he was nervous too. He must have been.
I wonder how Coach is? He’s probably nervous, too. He’s funny when he’s nervous. Before the game he stutters and stammers, rings his hands and paces. During the game he all but cries and, to quote him, AI-YI-YI-YI-YI! Or something to that effect. But: (once again, but:) he has never really yelled at any of us for anything. And never, but never, has he talked above a conversational tone during a game. He remains cool in his demeanor. He keeps it all inside him, which may be bad. He says he’s getting ulcers.
That’s about it. Tonight, 4½ hours from now, L.C.C.C., the first of 17 games. The first of 17 victories!
PREVIOUS GAME: None
NEXT GAME: 12/1, tonight, Lehigh County Community College, season opener
1972-73 CENTAUR SEASON Schedule and Results:
DATE OPPONENT RESULT RECORD
12/1 at Lehigh CCC
12-4 at N’hampton CCC
12-6 EASTERN BPTST
12-13 SPRING GARDEN
12-16 PHILA. BIBLE
1-18 at Baptist Bible
1-19 WILMINGTON
1-25 at Phila. Pharmacy
1-30 at Spring Garden
2-3 at Messiah College
2-6 at Wilmington
2-13 RUTGERS, So. Jrsy
2-16 LEHIGH CCC
2-20 MESSIAH
2-22 N’HAMPTON CCC
2-24 PHILA. PHARM.
2-27 BAPTIST BIBLE
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.
- CENTAUR SEASONS: A new Inductee to the DeSales University Hall of Fame recognizes the contributions of the school’s orginal athletes … - September 18, 2013
- CENTAUR (OFF) SEASONS: A dozen ways to read the 97 posts in the scorebook thus far — until a new roster begins taking the floor in the fall - June 13, 2013
- CENTAUR SEASONS: In a ‘Carnival of Opportunity,’ One of Our Own Shines in an All-Star Game - May 14, 2013
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