CENTAUR SEASONS: "We Are All Up for This Game" — entry #26 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 on February 24, 1973, forty years ago today.

PREVIOUS GAME: Centaurs 86, Northampton CC 65, two days ago

NEXT GAME: Philly Pharmacy, tonight

CENTAUR SEASON: 5-10

I don’t have to KILL myself, as I promised last time I would have to do if we didn’t beat Northapmton CC.

Well, we did beat Northampton – but it took almost 30 minutes before we decided to really play ball. At halftime the score was 36-35, Northampton. Needless to say, we played much better in the second half than the first.

(“We are ALL Up for this Game” continues below)

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WELCOME TO CENTAUR SEASONS. “We are ALL up for this Game” 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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In the first half against NCCC I think we all expected that we would naturally + automatically be ahead by 15, 20 points. This, of course, is all based upon our first, 37-point victory over them. But we weren’t. We couldn’t do anything right. It was more like a football game — everybody hitting and shoving — than a basketball game.

Bobby Stormes got thrown out in the first half, as well as the man who he says hit him but whom, he says, he never hit. Oh, well!

But as I said, the second half was different.

This is the half that roommate Dave Glielmi and I like to refer to as “The Half That “Room 311 Tocik Hall Won.”**

I had 9 rebounds in the second half (12 whole game). Dave totaled 25 points and 17 rebounds for the game, which ties the school record for number of rebounds in a game. I also had a number of key blocks.

After Bobby got thrown out, we only had four big men to work with, and at the start of the second half Chris Cashman already had three fouls. He eventually fouled out, John Cooper had three fouls at the end and Dave and I had four each. Needless to say, it was a rough game.

The last three minutes we played a four-guard offense and me at center. It was Joey Thomson, Jerry Fleming, Gary Cacciatore and Tommy Shirley + me. As it turned out, I was the guard because twice I passed the ball underneath (from the outside) to Tommy and Joey, and I got two assists in my brief stint as a ball-handling guard.

My apologies to Gary. He knows why.***

WE ARE NOW 3 AND 1 IN OUR “THIRD SEASON.”

Tonight, Philly Pharmacy, the team who first time demolished and manhandled us for one half, and then who we played even-up ball with in the second half. We are ALL up for tonight’s game. I am to start, against their 6-foot-8-incher. It’s all I can think about.

Dave Glielmi’s, Joey Thomson’s, Chris Cashman’s, P.J. Brennan’s, Tommy Shirley’s, Dennis Ramella’s, Gary Cacciatore’s, John Cooper’s and my parents (or parenT, depending on the case, as with Dave & me) are planning on being here tonight. It’s going to be a real “Parents’ Night” celebration.

** Written today, Sunday, February 24, 2013: Dave Glielmi was being extraordinarly kind to allow me to glom onto what was clearly another of his extraordinary performances this Centaur season. Let’s see. Bobby Stormes had 13 before he got booted midway in the first half. Dennis Ramella finished with 20 912 in the second half). John Cooper had 12. Of Dave’s 24, 18 came in the second half. There’s also his record-tying 17 rebounds. I had some rebounds and a couple of blocked shots (however “key”). And five points. And yet it was Dave — and, somehow, I, me and we — who get the credit. Really, Steve?

*** It’s forty years later and I have no idea why.

PREVIOUS GAME: Centaurs 86, Northampton CC 65, two days ago

NEXT GAME: Philly Pharmacy, tonight

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 — W/89-68 — 3-9 (but 1-0!)

2-16 — LEHIGH CCC — W/81-76 — 4-9 (but 2-0!)

2-20 — MESSIAH — L/58-64 — 4-10 (but 2-1!)

2-22 — NORTHAMPTON CC — W/86-65 — 5-10 (but 3-1!)

2-24 — PHILLY PHARMACY

2-27 — BAPTIST BIBLE

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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.