CENTAUR SEASONS: "Losing Is Kinda Bad for a Person" — entry #22 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 40 years ago.

PREVIOUS GAME: Centaurs 52, Wilmington College 88, two nights ago

NEXT GAME: Rutgers, South Jersey, home, in five days

CENTAUR SEASON: 2-9

I ASKED CHRISTOPHER CASHMAN, SENIOR CO-CAPTAIN, TO WRITE IN MY DIARY.

HERE’S WHAT HE WROTE:

Well, post-Wilmington (88-54?) [88-52, actually], my last away game ever at A.C. I am 22W and 43L in four years. Four long years at that, filled with 43 too many “Well, we’ll get ’em next times.” For me there are only 6 more “next times.”

(“Losing is Kinda Bad for a Person” continues below)

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WELCOME TO CENTAUR SEASONS. “Losing is Kinda Bad for a Person” 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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BACK TO CHRIS CASHMAN: As much as I will hate for this season and career to end, I must admit that February 27, 1973, will come as a relief to me. Ya know, losing is kinda bad for a person. Oh, I admit that a loss once in a while is probably an asset to the building of character and all of that (those poor immature, uncharactered bastards at UCLA!) but chronic losing, or let’s say habitual losing, tends to destroy confidence and belief in one’s self. … Flash on that awhile, Big Boy, and try to realize how tough things will be next October 15 [the first day of practice my senior year].

What is the secret to winning these next six at home? How the hell do I know? All I know is that we must win them this year, and maybe we won’t have “to get ’em the next time.”

That’s all for now!!!

P.S.: Today is a big day, maybe the biggest day since I enrolled (at my own expense, of course), but today, plans were approved to begin a program of scholarship assistance to basketball players at A.C.

— DON’T TELL ANYONE YET, STEVEO –

P.P.S.: These scholarships, unfortunately, are NOT RETROACTIVE – especially as applied to second-semester senior co-captains, even ones that are your friend and regardless of how mature they are!!!

PREVIOUS GAME: Centaurs 52, Wilmington College 88, two days ago

NEXT GAME: Rutgers, South Jersey, in five days

1972-73 CENTAUR SEASON Schedule and Results:

12-1-72 — 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

1-18-73 — 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 — L/64-69 — 2-7

2-3 — at Messiah College — L/47-76 — 2-8

2-6 — at Wilmington — L/52/88 — 2-9

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.