"And you thought The Clash was loud."
Exactly twenty-five years ago, in a messy office at the end of a university union that no longer exists, not far from the site of an old gym that was torn down, but where it still snows just like it did in 1984, my buddy Ron Klempner banged those words out on a Smith Corona typewriter.
It was long into the wee hours of the morning--the latenight, as we called it-- and the office of Pipe Dream, the school paper on the campus of the State University of New York at Binghamton (SUNY-B, to the natives) would have been abuzz. X-acto knives a-cutting, hot wax a-simmering, and, without a doubt, somebody making out in the stat camera room.
A few hours earlier, the Division III SUNY-B Colonials had lost an overtime thriller to Albany, 62-60, in front of 2,150 people, the largest crowd in school history. And while we may not have come out on top, the crowd was so uncharacteristically noisy, so alive, it's no surprise that Ron's lede centered around the concert that had just taken place in that same gym.
(It's still astounding to me that "Clash" and "SUNY-B West Gym" could ever appear in the same sentence.)
After a short trudge across campus in sub-freezing temperatures, past the hideous modern science classrooms and past the ugly 1950's Library Tower (sadly, there was no middle ground at Binghamton), Ron and I would have gotten down to business, he in the back, conferring with fellow sportswriters Jay Levy and Stephen Lichtenstein, and me down the corridor in the darkroom, the smell of stop bath and fixer only slightly out pacing the smell of beer and chicken wings from the adjacent Campus Pub.
That the school is no longer called SUNY-B (it now prefers the more genteel Binghamton University), that the team no longer goes by Colonials (they're now the Bearcats), that they play in Division I instead of Division III, that the school paper changed its named from The Colonial News to Pipe Dream to make a statement during the Vietnam era but the Bearcats changed from Colonials a few years back to sell more merchandise, that we lost instead of won that night, and even that 2,150 seemed like a big deal to us back then has everything to do with why I'm sitting here writing this tonight.
You see, tomorrow at 11:00 I will gather at a bar in Arlington, Virginia with, hopefully, a few strangers from my alma mater (maybe Tony Kornheiser, Class of '70, will join us) to cheer on the Binghamton Bearcats (if that is in fact their name) as they play for the championship of the America East league. With a win over UMBC, Binghamton will advance to the NCAA tournament for the first time in school history. One win.
And so, in the words of the Grateful Dead, the band that once played a legendary concert at Harpur College (believe it or not, what Binghamton University was called even before the SUNY-B days), I can now type with some authority, What a long, strange trip it's been.
Strange, because after a quarter of a century of waiting for this moment, I'm not even sure if I know the team I'm rooting for. This team, unlike the ones I knew, comes in on a hot ten-game winning streak and is actually favored. This team packs thousands into a new field house, unlike the meager crowds I remember. And, sadly, this team comes with a rap sheet.
I can't name a single player on the current squad, though I can tell you that the New York Times recently featured a front page story on Binghamton Bearcats basketball and it wasn't a pretty sight. A lot of universities turn a blind eye to player misdeeds when the basketball program is involved and Binghamton is apparently no different. According to the Times, grading standards have been overlooked, criminal records ignored, and professors bullied.
The new coach stands accused of having recruited players from a shell of a prep school in Philadelphia, one that handed out diplomas like cups of Gatorade. Even crazier, the team center fled the U.S. back to his native Serbia after pummeling a fellow student into a coma.
Charming, eh?
Outside of sports, the university I attended has become unrecognizable to me. The Village Chef, whose menu featured "brain" muffins instead of bran muffins, was carted off in toto to a diner museum. The Campus Pub was closed years and years ago, victim of an increased drinking age. This year, Newing College, where I lived for my first couple of years, is being torn down to make way for new dorms. (It's a bit odd for a university much maligned for lack of history--forget ivy--to go out and destroy the only really old buildings it has.) Hell, my fellow Pipe Dreamer John Dieffenbach just called a few minutes ago to tell me that College in the Woods, thanks to rabid development, isn't even in the woods anymore.
Maybe this is the reason that every other night, right around dinner time, when the phone rings with some fresh-faced student staying, "Hi, Mr. Mendelsohn? I'm with the Binghamton University Foundation..." thoughts of strangulation pop into my mind.
But in the interest of fresh starts and nostalgia, I will try and ignore all of these things as I sit at The Liberty Tavern in Clarendon tomorrow. I'm not well-versed enough in the controversy surrounding the team to make any definitive judgements. (From what I've read, the other coaches in the conference made a statement by not naming any Binghamton players to the all-conference team.)
Instead of cheering for that which I can't quite grasp, I'll instead holler for the memory of that which I can.
I'll cheer for players like Derek Pankey, shown above blocking a shot in that 1984 overtime loss, as well as Marty Young, Greg "Spider" Pollard, Greg "Clyde" Fleming, and Mo Salama. Unless I'm reading it wrong, Pankey still holds the all-time Binghamton record for rebounds in a game at 31. These guys never got to play on ESPN2, where tomorrow's Bearcats' game will be televised. In fact, they often played in front of empty gyms, with only a couple of hundred die-hard fans watching.
I'll cheer for guys like Colonial Bill and Colonial Woody, students who first tried to create some kind of major college hoopla. There were nights when I remember feeling sorry for them and their megaphones. But they never gave up trying to ignite that very first spark of excitement. I'll think of friends like Tom and Nan Pasquarello, who would sit in those empty stands, along with Peggy Gray, Tommy Garland, Brendan O'Hara.
I'll cheer for coaches like Tim Schum and John Affleck and Dave Archer, guys who gave so much to the university back then and did it on shoestring budgets.
But most of all, I'll be cheering for my fellow Pipe Dreamers, like Karen "Scoop" Schwartz, who always encourages me to write, and Gerry Mullany who's been at the New York Times for decades; Adam Wiepert and Ken Brown, who went on to the Wall Street Journal; Ken Funk, the funniest man alive, William Salit and Jeff Knapp; and people like Mike Waters, Hank Goldsmith, Adrienne Spota and Dave Zensky. I'm getting old and I can't remember everyone.
As for Ron Klempner, arguably the best sportswriter in Binghamton history, well, he went and got himself all growed up. For years the Associate Counsel for the NBA Player's Association, Sports Illustrated once ran a photo of Ronny lecturing Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls about an upcoming collective bargaining agreement. So I might not cheer for Ronny as much as ask him for some money when I'm done typing this.
No matter what happens tomorrow, it'll be a great day. If we lose, it's clear we'll be back knocking in years to come. And if we win? Did somebody say road trip?
I'll close with a snippet of an editorial from that January 20, 1984 issue of Pipe Dream, the one following that tough overtime loss. It reads:
While sports has never ranked higher than the Pub in importance to the average SUNY-B student, there is undeniably a certain magic at those schools united behind a team, no matter what the sport.
Perhaps sports is trivial compared to world politics. Perhaps our time is best spent in study rather than on the razor-sharp edge of excitement as that last shot sinks in for two points. But that one instant of unity, that one thought of shared glory...
What we will remember from our years here are the vivid moments, not the chapter in that dusty old textbook: that wild party, that all-nighter, that one friend, and now, thanks to the SUNY-B basketball team, maybe even that one game.
Go Colonia....I mean Bearcats.
Matt