CENTAUR SEASONS: "WE WON! … I STUNK" — entry #3 from "A history of the events of the Allentown College’s 1972-1973 B-Ball season …

… AS CHRONICLED BY AND WITH THE PERSONAL MEMOIRS AND OCCASIONAL PHILOSOPHIZING OF THE AUTHOR, ONE STEPHEN J. McKEE”

[THIS POST ORIGINALLY SCRIBBLED ON DECEMBER 2, 1972 at 2 A.M.]

Allentown College 81, Lehigh CCC 71

We won! Or rather, they won. What I mean is the team I play on won, but I didn’t play, or, rather, I didn’t play much and shouldn’t have played, either.

I stunk. I couldn’t hold onto the ball. My shot was off. I couldn’t get any rebounds. There tallest guy was maybe 6’2’. I’m 6-foot-8, and he outrebounded, outshot me and outplayed me. Why? What happened? Too nervous and I don’t like playing against guys that small – they get in the way. But so much for excuses. I stunk.

But we still have 16 games to go. Coach told me not to get down on myself – I was really down after the game. It was really tough to be elated about the victory when I realized I contributed to it so little. It must have been my sneakers. Something.

(“We Won! … I Stunk” continues below)

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WELCOME TO CENTAUR SEASONS. “We Won! … I Stunk” 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 were very nervous through most of the first half. Nothing dropped. We got very few rebounds. We were down 13 midway through. We really played lousy and we were down, 39-34, at half time.

The score fluctuated a lot in the second – 65-65, 67-65. Then Bobby Stormes made it 68-65, us. Then it was 70-65, and we pretty much controlled it from there.

John Cooper played almost the entire second half. He was really good, 10 points, many rebounds. He did what I couldn’t do. Ironic. I was having trouble figuring out how Coop felt playing behind me. I know now – I played behind him! It was rough. I didn’t like it. And I hope it never happens again. But sitting here [on the bench] talking to Chris Cashman & P.J. Brennan, we all agreed it was good for the soul. Everything teaches a lesson. My lesson tonight was humility.

Cash [who destroyed his ankle on the first day of preseason practice] didn’t play tonight at all. He’s taking it a lot better than I would. He really is the leader. At half time I was really down, and when we came out I just sat on the bench while the rest of the team shot ’em up. Cash came over and picked me up by the hair and told me to quit mopin’, snap out of it, go stand out there with the team.

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PREVIOUS CEANTUAR SEASONS “HISTORY,” ENTRY #1 … #2 …

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Before the game we had a Mass for the players. Father Devine said it. Coach Compardo, the athletic director, told us that we could, by playing our best and winning, help to realign the negative attitude that prevails around the school right now. Things are bad. Coach [Compardo] thinks that we can help correct this attitude. Cash thinks so, too. He said so before the game in a little pep talk. First, he said, as his hands shook, we can’t have a “unanimous” season if we lose the first one. And that secondly, we can help make the school a better institution. As Cash and [the band] Chicago says, “We Can Make It Happen.” I’ll keep you posted as the season goes on.

Coach [Saboda] was funny tonight. When he played here he got beat and humiliated by LCCC. Tonight he was nervous, but that’s normal. We almost had two fights, and I doubt if Coach was really upset by them and I doubt if he really wanted them stopped. He said he wasn’t going to, but he pulled out a victory cigar a la Red Auerbach, his idol, w/25 seconds to go. After, he said he wouldn’t have but for the fights.

There were a lot of people there (at an away game!). Some priests, too, I didn’t expect to see. Plus Fr. Gene Luyster, my English teacher. We won this one for US, but they loved it. And I think, as Bobby Heoffner said, they’ll keep coming back.

P.J. Brennan is still all jacked up. It’s about 2:30 a.m. now. He said his high school team won a total of 22 games in his three varsity years. On the way to Dominick’s [a diner, after the game; him and I, with Bobby Hoeffner driving] he was so ecstatic he yelled out the window, “WE WON! WE WON!” He had eight points, including 2 that should have been 3 — it was at least 25 feet.

Dave Glielmi was 3 for 16 – but as somebody said, there was something about him being out on the floor. … Somehow he was needed out there. Dave’s my roommate. When we got back to the room after the game he told me he’d kick me in the ass if I got down on myself. I don’t think I am. I hope not.

That’s it. Bobby Stormes was high w/22. Dennis Ramella w/15. Coop and Dave w/ 10. P.J. w/ 8, me w/6. Hoeff w/5 and Joey Thomson w/5. After the game Gary Cacciatore and Jerry Fleming toasted “The Bench.” I joined in.

PREVIOUS GAME: A.C. 81, Lehigh CCC 71

NEXT GAME: Northhampton Area Community College, in three days

1972-73 CENTAUR SEASON Schedule and Results:

DATE OPPONENT RESULT RECORD

12/1 at Lehigh CCC W/81-71 1-0

12-4 at Northampton CCC

12-6 EASTERN BAPTIST

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

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.