SWC75
Bored Historian
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My New Heroes
Everything seemed to go SU’s way after the loss to Louisville. Starting with an 81-71 win over Villanova in the Quaker City consy, SU won 12 games in a row over two months. One of them was to a Washington area school with a fine academic reputation but not much of a reputation for basketball- yet. The Hoyas went down, 95-81 In Manley field house. I remember watching the team on TV for the first time with two games from Manley Field house, a 102-81 win over LaSalle and a 118-104 conquering of West Virginia. In both games, the Orange played from the opening tip as if they could handle anything the opposition could dish out. They hit shot after shot, many of them from deep outside. If there had been a three point line, they would have scored 120-130 points in those games. Life, especially for an adolescent, is a very uncertain thing and a team full of confident, aggressive players was a very appealing thing.
So were the personalities on the team, especially as described by Joel Mareiness on the radio. The center was the blue collar 6-6 230 Rick Dean, who once went 13 for 13 from the field on one game. Cornell was a major rival at the time and Dean had some tremendous battles with Walter Esdaile, a 6-5 250 center for the Big Red. You wouldn’t think such big, strong guys could occupy the same spot at the same time, but they sure tried. Perhaps Dean’s most memorable moment was a lay-up at the buzzer over Eisdale after a drive down the lane to beat them in Ithaca, 66-65.
Poliquin talks about the days when Dennis “Sweet D” Duval used to do a Harlem Globetrotter routine with the opening warm-ups. (Calvin Murphy did it too- basketball players were showmen in those days), Vaughn Harper was doing the same thing several years before. Vaughn had some time with the Trotters after that, I believe. Harper was called “The Kangeroo Kid” by Mareiness, who said he went “up the invisible ladder” for rebounds. He averaged 14.3 rebounds per game that year, even though he was only 6-4. He had 24 points and 18 rebounds vs. Louisville and, like Bing, was named tournament MVP despite being in the consolation round. (That was a great thing about those tournaments- everybody got three games and the MVP could come from any team.)
George Hicker was “The Blond Bomber”, who put up “rainbows” that “came down with frost on them”. He was the first of series of dead-eye outside shooters that have brought the house down with a run of what would now be treys. He was only 6-3 but was our other forward.
Steve Ludd, from who I later took a law course, was the off guard, a 6-3 defensive specialist. But everybody’s favorite player was Richie Cornwall, a 5-10 pepper pot who was famous for his dives over the scorer’s table to try to save balls. He could also hit from outside, as could Tom Ringleman, the first, (and often the only) player off the bench.
Roy Danforth was still an assistant to Fred Lewis but this was the first of the “Roy’s Runts” type teams. Actually, all the good SU teams from the mid 60’s to the mid 70’s were Roy’s Runts teams or Roy’s Runts teams plus one. In 65-66, the “one” was Bing who was no taller than the rest of them except in how he played. Then there was Bill Smith, a 6-11 scoring machine, followed by Rudy Hackett, a true power forward. But the rest of the guys were cut from the same scrappy mold. These guys came up short against the big, tall power teams like Louisville and Maryland, both of whom we played several times in this era, but they were fun teams to root for.
I finally persuaded my father to take me to an SU game. It was the biggest game of the 1966-67 season. SU was 19-2 and ranked #8 in the country in what was supposed to be a rebuilding year. St. John’s was 18-3. I have forgotten their ranking but it may have been as high as #7. (I’ve since looked it up: We were #8: they were #17, which surprises me.) They had a big man named Sonny Dove. Sonny was only about 6-8 and probably only weighed about 200 pounds but in that era, he was like Patrick Ewing. He was a great leaper who could block shots, ram in dunks, (when most players couldn’t), and rip down rebounds with the best of them. We had nothing like him.
Nonetheless, the SU players and fans had their usual confidence. Everything had gone our way for two months. All the shots had gone in for us and the balls had bounced our way. It was a magical year. This game would determine the best team of the eastern independents and open the door to the NCAA tournament in an era where only 24 teams went there. Of those only 8, (two per region) were “At large” teams. In those days that meant independents as there was a rule than only conference champions could go to the NCAAs, (a rule that made the NIT nearly as prestigious a tournament as the NCAAs). There were only two at large births in each region and SU, the Johnnies and BC were the leading contenders in the East.
The game progressed as did most SU games that year. We couldn’t handle Dove inside but we shot well, handled the ball well and got the bounces and the Orange led until the last minute of play. That’s when Dove really took over. St. John’s had about three straight trips down court where they missed but Sonny rose up and violently slammed the ball in the hoop. SU was unable to answer and went down to defeat, 64-71. That was the beginning of the end of the Orange dreams for that year. We lost the next one to a mediocre Canisius team, 64-68 in regulation despite being ahead by 4 with the ball with 20 seconds left in the game, (tough to do). Then we played a Niagara team we’d already beaten earlier that year, (we played many of the upstate teams home and home in that era and the Purple Eagles would become our biggest rivals for the next few years). This one also slipped away down the stretch with SU losing 59-71.
My mother had again ordered me to bed before the Niagara game was over and I cried myself to sleep listening to SU fade at the end through that transistor radio I hid under my pillow. I wasn’t used to my new heroes losing. Mom caught me and delivered a stern lecture not only on the importance of a good night sleep but the silliness of crying over the outcome of a game. She thought it was ridiculous to take anything so seriously. It didn’t seem to be giving me any pleasure, did it? Why bother with it if it makes you cry?
She was a high school English teacher. Years later, she told me about a book she taught called the “Myth of Sisyphus” by Albert Camus. Sisyphus was the character from Greek mythology who was condemned to spend the rest of eternity pushing a rock up a hill only to have it fall from his hands and roll back down the hill again. Most people think Sisyphus must have been the most miserable creature in Hades. It was Camus’ contention that he was the happiest man in creation because he had an unlimited supply of hope. Every time he went up that hill, he thought this time he was going to make it. Mom never made the connection and the lectures about the silliness of being a sports fan continue to this day. (Mom passed away four years after I wrote this.)
It was now clear that SU was not going to make the NCAAs, who chose Boston College and St. John’s. They ended the regular season, as they always did in those days, by beating Colgate. They then prepared to face New Mexico in the first round of the NIT. The Lobos also had a splendid big man in Mel Daniels, who was bigger than Dove at 6-9, 220 and would go on to be a big star in the ABA for the Indiana Pacers. Again, as with so many games against big teams in that era, we just didn’t have enough inside and came up just short, 64-66. The season had ended with 4 losses in 5 games. We’d gone from #8 in the country to a first round NIT victim in less than three weeks. Still, nobody expected a 20-6 record without Dave Bing. And the future seemed bright Orange.
Everything seemed to go SU’s way after the loss to Louisville. Starting with an 81-71 win over Villanova in the Quaker City consy, SU won 12 games in a row over two months. One of them was to a Washington area school with a fine academic reputation but not much of a reputation for basketball- yet. The Hoyas went down, 95-81 In Manley field house. I remember watching the team on TV for the first time with two games from Manley Field house, a 102-81 win over LaSalle and a 118-104 conquering of West Virginia. In both games, the Orange played from the opening tip as if they could handle anything the opposition could dish out. They hit shot after shot, many of them from deep outside. If there had been a three point line, they would have scored 120-130 points in those games. Life, especially for an adolescent, is a very uncertain thing and a team full of confident, aggressive players was a very appealing thing.
So were the personalities on the team, especially as described by Joel Mareiness on the radio. The center was the blue collar 6-6 230 Rick Dean, who once went 13 for 13 from the field on one game. Cornell was a major rival at the time and Dean had some tremendous battles with Walter Esdaile, a 6-5 250 center for the Big Red. You wouldn’t think such big, strong guys could occupy the same spot at the same time, but they sure tried. Perhaps Dean’s most memorable moment was a lay-up at the buzzer over Eisdale after a drive down the lane to beat them in Ithaca, 66-65.
Poliquin talks about the days when Dennis “Sweet D” Duval used to do a Harlem Globetrotter routine with the opening warm-ups. (Calvin Murphy did it too- basketball players were showmen in those days), Vaughn Harper was doing the same thing several years before. Vaughn had some time with the Trotters after that, I believe. Harper was called “The Kangeroo Kid” by Mareiness, who said he went “up the invisible ladder” for rebounds. He averaged 14.3 rebounds per game that year, even though he was only 6-4. He had 24 points and 18 rebounds vs. Louisville and, like Bing, was named tournament MVP despite being in the consolation round. (That was a great thing about those tournaments- everybody got three games and the MVP could come from any team.)
George Hicker was “The Blond Bomber”, who put up “rainbows” that “came down with frost on them”. He was the first of series of dead-eye outside shooters that have brought the house down with a run of what would now be treys. He was only 6-3 but was our other forward.
Steve Ludd, from who I later took a law course, was the off guard, a 6-3 defensive specialist. But everybody’s favorite player was Richie Cornwall, a 5-10 pepper pot who was famous for his dives over the scorer’s table to try to save balls. He could also hit from outside, as could Tom Ringleman, the first, (and often the only) player off the bench.
Roy Danforth was still an assistant to Fred Lewis but this was the first of the “Roy’s Runts” type teams. Actually, all the good SU teams from the mid 60’s to the mid 70’s were Roy’s Runts teams or Roy’s Runts teams plus one. In 65-66, the “one” was Bing who was no taller than the rest of them except in how he played. Then there was Bill Smith, a 6-11 scoring machine, followed by Rudy Hackett, a true power forward. But the rest of the guys were cut from the same scrappy mold. These guys came up short against the big, tall power teams like Louisville and Maryland, both of whom we played several times in this era, but they were fun teams to root for.
I finally persuaded my father to take me to an SU game. It was the biggest game of the 1966-67 season. SU was 19-2 and ranked #8 in the country in what was supposed to be a rebuilding year. St. John’s was 18-3. I have forgotten their ranking but it may have been as high as #7. (I’ve since looked it up: We were #8: they were #17, which surprises me.) They had a big man named Sonny Dove. Sonny was only about 6-8 and probably only weighed about 200 pounds but in that era, he was like Patrick Ewing. He was a great leaper who could block shots, ram in dunks, (when most players couldn’t), and rip down rebounds with the best of them. We had nothing like him.
Nonetheless, the SU players and fans had their usual confidence. Everything had gone our way for two months. All the shots had gone in for us and the balls had bounced our way. It was a magical year. This game would determine the best team of the eastern independents and open the door to the NCAA tournament in an era where only 24 teams went there. Of those only 8, (two per region) were “At large” teams. In those days that meant independents as there was a rule than only conference champions could go to the NCAAs, (a rule that made the NIT nearly as prestigious a tournament as the NCAAs). There were only two at large births in each region and SU, the Johnnies and BC were the leading contenders in the East.
The game progressed as did most SU games that year. We couldn’t handle Dove inside but we shot well, handled the ball well and got the bounces and the Orange led until the last minute of play. That’s when Dove really took over. St. John’s had about three straight trips down court where they missed but Sonny rose up and violently slammed the ball in the hoop. SU was unable to answer and went down to defeat, 64-71. That was the beginning of the end of the Orange dreams for that year. We lost the next one to a mediocre Canisius team, 64-68 in regulation despite being ahead by 4 with the ball with 20 seconds left in the game, (tough to do). Then we played a Niagara team we’d already beaten earlier that year, (we played many of the upstate teams home and home in that era and the Purple Eagles would become our biggest rivals for the next few years). This one also slipped away down the stretch with SU losing 59-71.
My mother had again ordered me to bed before the Niagara game was over and I cried myself to sleep listening to SU fade at the end through that transistor radio I hid under my pillow. I wasn’t used to my new heroes losing. Mom caught me and delivered a stern lecture not only on the importance of a good night sleep but the silliness of crying over the outcome of a game. She thought it was ridiculous to take anything so seriously. It didn’t seem to be giving me any pleasure, did it? Why bother with it if it makes you cry?
She was a high school English teacher. Years later, she told me about a book she taught called the “Myth of Sisyphus” by Albert Camus. Sisyphus was the character from Greek mythology who was condemned to spend the rest of eternity pushing a rock up a hill only to have it fall from his hands and roll back down the hill again. Most people think Sisyphus must have been the most miserable creature in Hades. It was Camus’ contention that he was the happiest man in creation because he had an unlimited supply of hope. Every time he went up that hill, he thought this time he was going to make it. Mom never made the connection and the lectures about the silliness of being a sports fan continue to this day. (Mom passed away four years after I wrote this.)
It was now clear that SU was not going to make the NCAAs, who chose Boston College and St. John’s. They ended the regular season, as they always did in those days, by beating Colgate. They then prepared to face New Mexico in the first round of the NIT. The Lobos also had a splendid big man in Mel Daniels, who was bigger than Dove at 6-9, 220 and would go on to be a big star in the ABA for the Indiana Pacers. Again, as with so many games against big teams in that era, we just didn’t have enough inside and came up just short, 64-66. The season had ended with 4 losses in 5 games. We’d gone from #8 in the country to a first round NIT victim in less than three weeks. Still, nobody expected a 20-6 record without Dave Bing. And the future seemed bright Orange.
