March 8, 2009

writinggirl.blogspot.com:

Maybe, because it’s a sport and all, it shouldn’t hurt as much as it does.

I mean it’s kinda stupid, right?

Maybe, because it’s a sport – and a team and a school and a community – that embodies so much more than shoes squeaking down a wooden court, it is

absolutely

gut

wrenching.

Right now, I think we feel – I feel – like it throws so much out of sync, out of proportion if that makes sense. What does it do to the past? What does it do to the future? What do we do with this? What do they do with this? I feel pulled together by numbness yet shattered apart by uncertainty, frustration, confusion, sadness. Knotted and untied.

The bit of me, the smallest part of me that can see without feeling (or maybe feels the most in a way), thinks that this season needs to be over. I don’t quite know why (and the rest of me screams at that little bit, HOW THE HELL CAN YOU SAY THAT?!); something about past and present and future grinding together (over on top of too much) and pressure (lights/stats/crowdsurfing) and living up and expecting and not really smiling anymore. Worn down, worn out.

So rest.

Rest and come back.

I will.

Comments?

Feb. 28, 2009: Michael

16point8.blogspot.com:

Almost a year ago by now, with Stephen and Jason and Thomas and the rest of the team, too, there was, I’ve come to think, a very rare convergence of ability and innocence.

The guys on last year’s team were good enough to do what they did. But they were also inexperienced enough and unburdened enough to not quite know what was on the other side.

That was the simple and unspoken and yet somehow tangible bond between the players and the coaches and the people who stopped to watch.

Here we are.

Here. We. Are.

I’m thinking now of those still photos, and maybe you are, too. That’s what everybody saw.

This year, of late in particular, it feels like maybe this team has gotten away from that, and certainly some of the fans have. Maybe it’s human nature. I don’t know.

Earlier this week, I flew though Detroit on the way to Pittsburgh, and when I was walking through the terminal I found myself thinking about a moment from Ford Field that Sunday last March.

During the timeout, with 16.8 seconds left, I was in Row 25 and I turned around and looked a row behind me and saw Tripp Cherry ’99, and he was on the phone, talking to his wife, Carrie ’01, who was back home in Charlotte studying for law school finals.

I couldn’t hear what he was saying, the place was too loud, but I could see the big, wet tears that had pooled in his eyes.

Many months later, over a supper at the Soda Shop, I asked Tripp about that moment. I ended up writing about this in the book.

Tripp said he and Carrie had talked about the play that was about to happen.

He said she told him just before the ball was put in play that she should probably let him go.

And Tripp said into the phone:

“No.

“Stay.”

The point here is this: There’s a game here at Belk in a minute. There’s a game Monday at Elon. There’s a game Saturday in Chattanooga, then maybe Sunday, then maybe Monday.

To ask March 2009 to be March 2008 is to forget what made March 2008 what it was.

The don’t miss this.

The here we are.

The No. Stay.

Comments?

The Wisconsin poster

The others: Gonzaga, Georgetown, Kansas.

The Gonzaga poster

Art by Alan Hyder.

(More) Feb. 20, 2009

Claire marking a year:

Feb. 20, 2008

We get the full front page of the sports section, with Steph dipping under the basket for a layup, almost grimacing.

16TH STRAIGHT WIN.

I read ravenously, all the way through. And the words at the end slam into me.

And that big upset that Davidson couldn’t quite pull off in November or December? It’s coming. Just wait until March.

No hesitation. For sure. Done deal.

I read it again. Again. And I can picture it in a half-fuzzy corner of my brain where the impossible pretends to be possible for a millisecond, where the truth comes true but not really. That place that’s existed since March 15, 2007 when I actually started to understand what we are trying to do here. The place that’s so close and yet as far as it’s ever been. The place that I don’t really believe will actually become reality, because it’s just… too big. Too many people want it. But still. That corner is there for a reason.

March.

One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten.

Ten days.

Comments?

Feb. 20, 2009

Kruse on collegehoopsjournal.com:

These are my thoughts.

That’s all they are.

I think last year’s team had two guards who could play with anybody. I think this year’s team has one. I think this year’s team asks Stephen to do a TON. I don’t think there’s any way around that. I think Stephen does more for his team than any other player in America. And I thought that before this week’s Stephen-less Citadel loss. I think he’s carried an enormous burden this year. I think it’s remarkable that he’s performed the way he’s performed and that he hasn’t gotten more worn down than he has. I think last year’s team had a post player in Thomas Sander who did all kinds of things that were invisible to most folks watching but made all of his teammates so much better. I think that kind of player is as rare as a player like Stephen is rare. I think last year’s team was backed by a fan base that was filled with such genuine hope but not necessarily debilitating expectation. I think it created an authentic experience. I think it’s an experience Davidson people will be talking about for a long, long time.

Comments?

Feb. 13, 2009

My journal:

One year ago today Davidson came back from 17 down to beat UNCG and Steph got his then-career high of 41 and Jason’s eye was bleeding and Lindsay and I plus the sixty? seventy? people who’d gathered around the tv (they didn’t use the 900 Room back then) jumped and whooped and screamed like we’d just won the national championship. I was on that high for at least 48 hours.

And yet we had no idea.

A good thing to remember.

Comments?

Feb. 3, 2009

Kruse:

The Elite Eight. Going for win No. 20 with nine regular-season games left on the schedule. Dick Vitale coming to town. The most beloved college basketball player in America -- a student at Davidson College. A decade ago, in my reporting for the old book, I had sort of a stock question for the men who played for Davidson in the glory days in the ‘60s and those who tried to keep them up or get them back.

Can it happen again?

Some people thought yes.

More people thought no.

These interviews happened in 1998 and 1999. It’s interesting, given what’s happened since, especially these last few years, to re-read their words now.

Charlie Marcon ’65, Dec. 18, 1998, Bethlehem, Pa.: “It’s a delusion. I think it’s very naïve to think Davidson could ever do it again.”

Danny Carrell ’63, Oct. 15, 1998, Richmond, Va.: “Davidson can never do it again.”

Tom Franz ’84, Oct. 15, 1998, Richmond, Va.: “Absolutely not. It’ll never happen. It would be an absolute stroke of luck for it to happen. I just don’t think Davidson is going to get the kind of kids necessary to maintain that caliber. You might get one – but not enough. And that’s okay.”

Bill Jarman ’63, November 1998, Gastonia: “I don’t think so. Because now the emphasis on basketball is a total commitment – and the academics at Davidson aren’t going to allow that.”

Bill Beermann ’64, Feb. 17, 1999, on the phone from Jacksonville, Fla.: “I don’t think they can get the kind of players the bigger schools can get – guys who think they can be NBA players. Lefty was in an era when he could find these guys and recruit these guys. He was way ahead of a lot of other coaches in recruiting. That just doesn’t happen today. I don’t think it’s possible for a school of Davidson’s size to appeal to enough of those high-quality players.”

Davis Liles ’70, Nov. 16, 1998, Charlotte: “Now I think kids look at where they can go to get the most exposure and sign a big contract in the NBA two years later. That kid’s not coming to Davidson.”

Pepper Bego ’86, Feb. 10, 1999, Charlotte: “What hurts Davidson is its conference. Kids nowadays want to get exposure. The top 50 high school kids want the short stop to the NBA. And the academics, they’re uncompromising – at Davidson, you’ve got unrelenting academic pressures.”

Terry Holland, Oct. 29, 1998, Charlottesville, Va.: “It’s driven by the conferences today. TV is the whole game. That may not be true in two years, six years, 20 years from now. But Davidson has no control over that.”

Jerry Kroll ‘70, April 15, 1999, on the phone from Houston: “The game has moved on. I certainly think it’s possible – but highly unlikely.”

Ace Tanner ’87, Jan. 19, 1999, Charlotte: “I think the scene of college basketball has changed too much. Revenue generation has become the primary motivation. Big-time programs – their coaches are getting a million dollars from Nike and half a million from merchandising. It’s very hard to compete with that for a small liberal arts school like Davidson.”

Dick Snyder ’66, Nov. 15, 1998, Paradise Valley, Ariz.: “Never say never. The thing about basketball is, it’s still conceivable because you only need a couple of guys with a good supporting cast. I think it’s still possible. But I think it’s much harder than it used to be.”

Tim Bowker ’80, Dec. 15, 1998, Delran, N.J.: “I think they could get in the rankings every once in a while. That’s possible. But to expect that every year is unfair. You’re just not playing from the same gene pool. If Davidson is worried about maintaining its academic standards – and I think it should be – it should be very satisfied with having a competitive program.”

Mike Dickens ’69, October 1998, Bethesda, Md.: “You can build a program with one great player a year. But the thing that probably makes it difficult today is the TV contract is so critical. Not being a member of a conference with a TV package is a major drawback. Kids today want to play in a conference that gets a lot of publicity. … But top 64 year in and year out can be done. And every two, three or four years, when the stars are aligned right, you could win a game or two. I don’t see why Davidson couldn’t get to the Sweet 16. The goal should be to be in the tournament every year.”

John Gerdy ’79, Dec. 18, 1998, Conestoga, Pa.: “The basketball program is right where it needs to be. Challenge for the Southern Conference championship every year, win 20 games, go to the NCAAs every few years – that’s perfect.”

Wayne Huckel ’69, Nov. 5, 1998, Charlotte: “It depends on McKillop’s ability to get one or two players who can make the program. He could do it. But I think it’s unlikely. That’s not a knock. It’s just a fact of life.”

Doug Cook ’70, Dec. 16, 1998, Montclair, N.J.: “You don’t need a lot of basketball players to have a really good program. You need one or two great players and a supporting cast.”

Todd Haynes ’81, Feb. 18, on the phone from Bloomington, Ill.: “I think it can get back into the top 25. With basketball, if you get one or two really good players to come in, I can see them getting into the top 25. Coach McKillop has come close. He’s been maybe just one franchise player away from being there.”

Tony Orsbon ’69, Nov. 12, 1998, Charlotte: “What Bob McKillop needs most is that one guy who is an All-American. This team that Davidson has right now could go fairly deep into the NCAAs if they had what they don’t have right now – that one All-American. Davidson can get him. It’s possible. But it would take some extraordinary effort.”

Larry Horowitz ’75, November 1998, Charlotte: “It only takes one player.”

Pinky Hatcher ’68, October 1998, Atlanta: “It’s a great dream. You just need one kid.”

Comments?

Feb. 1, 2009

16point8.blogspot.com:

Last Saturday night, the night the boys from Michigan visited the village, I also met Floyd Strand.

He’s Class of ‘71.

He’s an emergency room doctor.

He lives in Oregon.

And he told me at the Brickhouse, standing there in the noisy, crowded lobby, and practically parenthetically, that for the rest of the basketball season, well – he’s kind of … moved to Davidson.

WHAT?

But you know how the Brickhouse is after games. Too many people to talk to and too little time to do it. So I told Floyd that I wanted to chat with him some more, and he gave me his card, and I gave him a call a few days later.

Why?

He graduated 38 years ago.

He lives 2,820 miles away.

Why?

Here’s what he said:

“To be a part of this …”

Floyd was born and raised in Alaska. He played basketball in high school and he played it well enough to get letters from Lefty. He wasn’t offered a scholarship but he was invited to come to school and try out for the team. He ended up playing freshman ball, back when they had that, the same class as Steve Kirley, Duncan Postma and Billy Pierce.

He went to med school in Chapel Hill. He’s lived out in Salem, Ore., since 1977. For the longest time, he kept track of Davidson’s basketball scores in the form of teeny-tiny print in the back of the sports section of the Salem Statesman Journal, and that was about it, because that was basically all there was.

In the mid-‘90s, though, he started to pay a little more attention to the basketball team. The Internet started to kick up. He didn’t have to just look at the scores in his paper back home. Now he could read about the games.

Then Bobby Vagt ’69 became president of the college. Vagt was his hall counselor way back when. A little more interest.

Then his daughter decided to go to Davidson. Molly Strand, now Molly Strand Deis, is Class of ’02. Her roommate for three years? Kerrin McKillop. Even more interest.

Then his son decided to go to Davidson. Peter Strand is Class of ’05. Even more.

Floyd bought season tickets for the first time before last year. He has four seats, Section 103, Row E, Seats 5, 6, 7 and 8.

Then last March.

Detroit.

“One of the great experiences of my life,” he told me on the phone last week.

“I had to be there,” he said.

“I ran into people I hadn’t seen since I was a student,” he said.

“It was a religious experience,” he said.

This man from Oregon who for the next couple months is living in Davidson is perhaps a particularly eye-catching example of something I’ve been seeing and hearing about all season long.

It is in my mind the very coolest part of this quite cool moment in the ongoing Davidson basketball narrative.

The McKillops’ team, the Mathenys’ team, the Currys’ team – our team – it’s drawing back in alums who had lost touch, and for those who already had a bond it’s making that bond that much tighter, and it’s connecting them to this place, and to this idea, and to each other.

It isn’t just about basketball.

It’s not.

Comments?

Do you want this poster?

How about this one?

Dec. 15, 2008

16point8.blogspot.com:

Got this in my inbox the other day: “What does the ‘16.8’ represent with respect to Davidson basketball? Just curious.”

In a word: hope.

In two words: a moment.

In three words: earned and experienced.

Allow me to quote Gus Johnson, CBS Sports, March 30, 2008, Ford Field, Detroit: “Five to shoot!

“Collins!

“Three to shoot!

“Lets go!

“Off the front rim …

“No!

“And with 16.8 to go!

“DAVIDSON!

“WITH LIFE!”

Comments?

Back at the hotel after Wisconsin

Dec. 7, 2008: Stories

Kruse:

Bro Krift, Class of '99, who has season tickets even though he lives in Pittsburgh, e-mailed me a question last week.

"In all of your reporting on the team for the book, which player impressed you, and how? I have a feeling it's one of the guys that hasn't made headlines."

It's true.

One of the very few shames of having Stephen in these last eight or so months go from star to superstar to phenomenon is that some of the other guys on the roster who have great, great stories aren't really having those stories told.

Andrew Lovedale is a kid from Nigeria who sings gospel songs and brings old sneakers and basketballs back to his country when he goes home in the summers for goodness sake.

Bryant Barr is a double major in math and economics who speaks to church youth groups and to celebrate his math major last year got together with his fellow math majors and made pies with Pi logos on them. Just a nerd with a jumpshot, Bryant is, and proudly, and admittedly, and unabashedly.

Steve Rossiter? The kid was offered a scholarship in part because of the way he cheered for his backup at the ends of games in high school in Staten Island.

Certainly, though, at or near the top of this list, at least for me, is Max.

Today, given yesterday, it seems maybe particularly apropos to say as much.

It was a bad foul.

It was.

It looked even worse.

And I haven't talked to Max since, haven't even seen him, not down in Charlotte after the game, not up here in Davidson, but I can say that he absolutely didn't go toward that kid with intent to harm. It's just not Max.

The first time McKillop ever saw Max was at an all-star camp in Atchison, Kansas, and Max was running and jumping and diving in a game being played in a gym that was so stuffy and so hot that other players started calling it "the oven."

McKillop went to visit Max in the suburbs of Montreal and told his parents their son was the rare sort who could have, he thought, an enormous influence on the outcome of a game without scoring a point.

Fine Davidson fan Meg Clark told me last spring that Max was working the fall of his freshman year at the carnival at Belk Arena to kick off the season and that he came over to a game where young kids were trying to throw rubber rings onto bottle necks. He got down on his knees and talked to the kids and helped them with their throws and called them all "buddy."

Max, Meg thought then, and thinks still now, has a gift that is hard to explain but plain to see:

He makes the people around him feel good.

Max:

He spoke no English three years before he got to Davidson.

He didn't understand why some of the coaches from some of the schools that were recruiting him were telling him about how hot the girls were or how good the weather was on their campuses.

He picked Davidson, he told me in April, because he is so close to his own family.

"Human relationships," he said.

"I didn't want to just be a teammate."

He has a habit of touching guys on their shoulders in huddles.

"I think physical contact conveys a lot of meaning," he said in that meeting in April. "I think of the team as family. Are you going to tell your mother every five minutes that you love her? No. But you can touch her shoulder, lean against her, and feel close."

He doesn't watch TV.

He doesn't watch sports on TV.

The only basketball games he watches are the ones he plays in.

He majors in sociology because he is fascinated by how people who are different try to get along.

He is one of the best students on the team.

I have found Max, always, to be bright and open, and interesting and interested, and the best kind of curious.

"In life," he has written on his Facebook page, "everything is a first time."

In June, in Chambly, Quebec, I met on a sunny Saturday morning for a long breakfast with Max and his parents.

Max's father's father was a pig farmer and a beet farmer and did that from early in the morning to 2 in the afternoon and then went to work his shift treading tires at a local factory. He did that for 27 years.

Max's is father is one of Canada's most successful importers of cheese. It's a family business.

"We work not in the spirit of we have to," Jean-Philippe Gosselin said. "We work because we like what we do and the feeling of accomplishment."

The motivation in his work, he explained, sometimes in English to me, sometimes in French to Max, who then translated, is not motivated by fear or money, but by the belief that the pursuit and the competition are intrinsically worthwhile.

At this point in the notebook I had with me that morning, written in scribbles, is a note to myself -- I'm looking at it right now -- and it says:

The goal was never to make it to the Elite Eight or the Final Four. The goal was to play so hard, and so well, and so together, that such a thing became a possibility.

Comments?

Main Street

SuperCats

Raleigh

Nov. 22, 2008

On 16point8.blogspot.com:

So I drove up to Davidson for the Winthrop game and I was in the Union late Friday afternoon and I picked up a Davidsonian. Former editor in chief and whatnot.

Here, verbatim, from the Campus Police Blotter on page 3:

11/11/08

3:18 p.m.

Suspicious Basketball Fan

200 Baker Drive

On Tuesday November 11, 2008 at 1518 hrs officer Heinz received a call on the officer cell phone in reference to a suspicious person at Baker Sports, 200 Baker Dr. Cell phone call advised the male subject asked about having basketball memorabilia autographed. Cell phone caller advised the subject was driving a silver SUV. Reporting officer observed a silver 1998 Lincoln Navigator parked near the Knobloch Campus Center, 207 Faculty Dr. Reporting officer found the owner of the vehicle inside the Campus Bookstore. Reporting officer advised the man of Davidson College policy that he could not walk or drive the campus looking for basketball players to autograph items. The individual complied with the investigation and agreed he would not.

Comments?

Right before tip against Wisconsin

Lots of good photos. Keep them coming.

Nov. 19, 2008

Will Bryan on Somewhere in the Middle:

As writers like Scoop Jackson try to come up with new angles and names for this whole Davidson/Curry thing, it seems like one adjective has been glaringly omitted.

Odd.

I mean we've danced around it with terms like unique and special and one-of-a-kind, but frankly Davidson basketball can be downright odd.

Case in point: As we were watching highlights Kansas' elaborate banner-raising ceremony last night, I was told of the story of Davidson's own Elite 8 banner-raising ceremony.

It consisted of a guy on a ladder and three sports information staffers standing in an empty gym clapping.

Upon hearing the clapping from the hallway, a skinny kid wearing a hoodie bounded onto the court and started yelling.

"Steph, stop yelling at the guy on the ladder. You'll make him fall off."

So the NCAA's current points leader, first team All-American and now-leading candidate for National Player of the Year runs into the sports information office and turns up Queen's "We are the Champions" and sings it a little off-key.

We are odd.

Comments?

Gratitude