CENTAUR SEASONS: ‘WE ARE ACHIEVING’ — entry #9 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 originally scribbled on December 12, 1972 at 2 p.m.

PREVIOUS GAME: Centaurs 73, EASTERN 75, six days ago

NEXT GAME: Spring Garden College, tomorrow

CENTAUR SEASON: 2-1

Tomorrow, Spring Garden. We can beat them.

My ankle status is questionable. I think I can go. I’ve been down at Billera every day since I sprained it twice in the Eastern game last week, working with Coach Compardo, our one-man athletic director/department/physical therapist. Heat packs, massage, running under his watchful eye. Today he had me do 2½ miles. My ankle felt good, real good. Only turning the corners hurt. And just a little. Coach Saboda said that he wants everybody on defense all over the court. So, I better be able to go.

[IN THIS POST, HOW MY ANKLE GOT TREATED AFTER THE EASTERN GAME REVEALS MUCH ABOUT THE UNIQUE EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY THAT WAS ALLENTOWN COLLEGE.]

(“We Are Achieving” continues below)

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WELCOME TO CENTAUR SEASONS. “We Are Achieving” 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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We are ALL hoping the fans come back out again for tomorrow’s game after we “made it happen” at last week’s Eastern game when the fans cheered us off the court after we got beat by two.

We deserve their loyal support. But most of the students here are from Philly. Though not me, I’m from York, out in southcentral Pennsylvania. From what I can gather, they’re all steeped (naturally) in the Philly Basket-Ball tradition. To them it seems that Basket-Ball is Basket-Ball only if it’s the Philly Big 5 Basket-Ball, or Philly Catholic League Basket-Ball in the Palestra. I don’t know. I didn’t grow up with all that.

[FINDING THE CENTAUR IN THE BIG COLLEGE BASKETBALL PICTURE, PART 1]

Even tonight, one of the guys on the team said, “Big game tomorrow … Penn-St. Joe’s.” I said, “What about Allentown-Spring Garden?”

[FINDING THE CENTAUR IN THE BIG COLLEGE BASKETBALL PICTURE, PART 2]

People around here don’t seem willing to accept the fact that there are different levels of excellence. I believe that Allentown is on the threshold of achieving excellence on its own level. The way I see it, we are on the fourth level of excellence: We play Philadelphia Pharmacy, Pharmacy plays Philadelphia Textile, Textile plays Villanova.

[WHEN THE CENTAURS ACHIEVED AGAINST A PHILLY TEAM.]

Can’t the people of Allentown College of S. Francis de Sales accept the fact that although we’re on the fourth level, we ARE achieving, we are working hard AT achieving? There is worth in that attempt. We have our own rivalries. It’s the same degree of worth that Villanova achieves on their level. That’s the way it is. I wish the fans could see that, too.

We will beat Spring Garden tomorrow by doing what we do best, every one of us. We must each play our own game together.

(That last sentence made absolutely no sense tonight. We’ll see if it makes sense tomorrow.)

PREVIOUS GAME: Centaurs 73, Eastern Baptist 75

NEXT GAME: Spring Garden College, tomorrow

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

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.