CENTAUR SEASONS: "Where Glory Does Not Stay" — entry #28 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, in February 1973

PREVIOUS GAME: Centaurs 61, Philadelphia Pharmacy 79, three days ago

NEXT GAME: Baptist Bible, tonight, last game of the season

CENTAUR SEASON: 5-11

Bobby Stormes, Joey Thompson, Dave Glielmi, Bob Hoeffner, Gary Cacciatore and myself have been planning a “Senior Night” for the last game on the schedule, tonight against Baptist Bible, at home.

(“Where Glory Does Not Stay” continues below)

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WELCOME TO CENTAUR SEASONS. “Where glory does Not Stay” 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 got the four graduating seniors (Chris Cashman, Jerry Flemming, Denny Ramella and manager E.J. Brookes) desk plaques. We’re also having programs made up, complete with our roster, a small write-up on each of the seniors (courtesy me) and on the cover a copy of A.E. Housman’s …

TO AN ATHLETE DYING YOUNG

The time you won your town the race / We chaired you through the market-place; / Man and boy stood cheering by, /And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come, / Shoulder-high we bring you home, / And set you at your threshold down, / Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away / From fields where glory does not stay, / And early though the laurel grows / It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut / Cannot see the record cut, / And silence sounds no worse than cheers / After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout / Of lads shall wore their honours out, / Runners whom renown outran / And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade, / The fleet foot on the sill of shade, / And thou to the low lintel up / The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head / Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, / And find unwithered on its curls / The garland briefer than a girl’s.

I hope everyone understands the symbolism in this poem. It isn’t an attempt to praise the athlete, per se. The way I see it, or at least the way I am applying it in this instance, is this: These four athletes have accomplished something good during their four years, although the degree of their accomplishments does vary with each. This poem is asking them not to “rest on their laurels,” if you will, but rather to go forth from this point, and work at accomplishing something better.

A NOTE FROM NOW:

Perhaps nothing illustrates what going to Allentown College of St. Francis de Sales was like — back then, right then — more than the fact that if we underclassmen wanted our graduating seniors to be honored, we had to make it happened ourselves. It was all part of the unique and singular education that the Cornfield College in Center Valley provided. I have written before about this convergence of time and moment — “THE SECRETS OF THE CENTAUR” — and this seems a good excuse to revisit:

SEARCHING FOR THAT … SOMETHING ELSE. October 1, 2012.

“WHY US? WHY FIRST?” October 12, 2012.

“BRICKS AND A BIRTHDAY” October 22, 2012.

“THE NIGHT THE CENTAURS MOVED THE BUS: Part Three of a Metaphor in Three Parts.” November 6, 2012.

“AT THE END OF THE BENCH: What a Centaur Turned Coach Learned at Allentown and Shares with UCLA Coach John Wooden.” November 19, 2912.

“KEEP YOUR FOOT IN THAT BUCKET, STEVE!” December 10, 2012.

“ON THE PASSING OF JACK KLUGMAN” December 28, 2012.

“THE YEAR THE CENTAURS PLAYED THE FIGHTING IRISH (yes — in football!)” Janaury 7, 2013.

PREVIOUS GAME: Centaurs 61, Philadelphia Pharmacy 79, three days ago

NEXT GAME: Baptist Bible, tonight, last game of the season

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 — L/61-79 — 5-11 (but 3-2!)

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.