… AS CHRONICLED BY, AND WITH THE PERSONAL MEMOIRS + OCCASSIONAL PHILOSOPHIZING OF THE AUTHOR, ONE STEPHEN J. McKEE”
This CENTAUR SEASONS post was written on December 17, 1972.
PREVIOUS GAME: Centaurs 72, Philly Bible 79, yesterday
NEXT GAME: at Baptist Bible, January 18, 1973
CENTAUR SEASON: 2-3
I doubt I have ever been so disappointed, disgusted, embarrassed and frustrated as I was last night.
Needless to say, we lost, 79-72. They were not a good team. Making us a worse team. So much for my 84-67 victory prediction yesterday. We should have blown them out the door and down the street. But we didn’t. We blew, instead. So much for going into Christmas break with a winning record.
(“Lonely and Dejected” continues below)
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WELCOME TO CENTAUR SEASONS. “Lonely and Dejected” 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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The only person who played a good game, and he played exceptionally, was Bobby Stormes. He played in a daze all night. Coach always says the game is 80% reaction and 20% thinking. Well, Bobby used up all his thinking in his three exams in the afternoon and had to rely completely on reaction. And react he did. He was all over the court. He’d score a layup on a fast break, then block a shot on a fast break at the other end on the very next play. After the game Bobby said he was mentally and physically dead.
[IN ENTRY #9, BOBBY STORMES REVEALS WHY PLAYING FOR THE CENTAURS WAS SO IMPORTANT TO HIM.]
Gary Cacciatore, a sophomore who’s played very little, got about 17 minutes. Long enough to collect five fouls. But he played a tough ball game. Pound for pound & inch for inch Gary is probably the most durable and rugged player on the team. He’d go head-to-head with Muhammad Ali if that’s what it took.
I didn’t play good, or long. I can’t figure out why I didn’t play more, though. Didn’t start, which didn’t bother me. But I only played about eight minutes of the first half. Played half of that in the second half. Their big boy was 6-foot-8 and big around. He had lots of pounds on me. In the first half I got pushed all over the place. Coach told me to get him off my back, so I did – first time down in the second half (when I was in) I knocked him over. The ref told me to take it easy. Next time, I boxed him out, and did a damn good job of it. I had him under control. Then the ref called a foul on me. For what?! HE was on MY back.
John Cooper had another big night. Seventeen points. Meaning another big night of me on the bench. He really does have a nice shot, soft shot. I question how effective he was against their big guy on defense & under the boards. But then, I wasn’t very impressive either.
Poor P.J. Brennan. His sister & father and his High School Coach were at the game. He + we played definitely less than our potential. He leaned over to me as we sat on the bench and said how embarrassed he was. Well, as Chris Cashman once said, such experience is good for the soul.
Cash played about six minutes tonight. He looked good, but it still looks as though he has little of his timing and he is very out of tune, his ankle a problem. We have a four-week break before our next game. He better use them to his advantage.
Dennis Ramella had 24 points last night. Couple that with his 25-point performance the previous game and, as far as I can ascertain with my quick new math, he needs 42 more points to become our first 1,000-point scorer. For his sake I hope he can get it at home.
I was never more lonely and dejected after a game as I was last night.
[WHY FOR ME A BAD GAME WAS ALWAYS A TRIP TO THE DUMPS.]
As Dave Glielmi and I walked up the steps to our room, I confided this to Dave and dreamed that when I opened the door to the room, there, waiting for me with comforting arms would be “Cabrini.” Dave and I, as roommates, have concocted our own room 311 Tocik Hall private code-word language. “Cabrini” is the girl I took to prom senior year of high school. She now attends Cabrini College, outside Philadelphia. She isn’t my girlfriend now, but I still spend time pining for her. Cabrini wouldn’t say “Tough game” or “Nice try.” She’d just hold me, and I’d feel like somebody again. Or, at least, I’d know that there was one person in the world who still thought I was somebody.
Another teammate (that’s whom I ended up with!) said about the same thing at four in the morning as we sprawled on the floor in the dorm lounge, neither of us able to sleep. Women!
There’s a lot to be said for women. That’s why Coach Sabota is so much luckier than we are. During the game I noticed Jeannie, his wife, sitting in the stands. She was by herself, with her legs crossed and her elbows on her knees and her hands alternatingly shading her eyes and clutching her chin. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a lot of what love means to me, and I hope I’m lucky enough to have the same thing someday.
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 — L/72-79 — 2-3
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
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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