Big time college sports is currently Camp Runamuck.
A rudderless vessel tossed in a sea of not-so-funny money.
Last year, when I complimented a museum visitor sporting an University of Indiana hoodie on the success of the Hoosier
football team, he smiled while observing, “Yep, the best team money can buy.”
I’m awaiting the realization of a Marx Brothers like scenario whereby a quarterback starts a game for one
college and negotiates a deal at half time and switches sides. Sounds like a scenario worthy of the
next Manning scion.
Sitting here in my old guy chair, I recall with nostalgia scanning Beanpot programs to see how many kids had gone to Matignon, BC High,
CM, Malden Catholic, Weymouth, Arlington, Belmont Hill, St Sebbys, and my alma mater of Lawrence Academy
among other local ice caked incubators. Hey, isn’t that the brother of..the cousin of…the son of…….?
Apparently that particular path went out before the shuttering of Durgin Park, The Eliot Lounge, Out of Town News,
Nini’s Corner, The Rat, and The Tasty.
Now they chase their dreams in Omaha, Dubuque, Peoria, and points south and west.
Are they having fun?
I hope so.
What are they missing?
We know they aren’t chowing down at Mr Bartletts, chugging a frosty at Mary Anns or The Dugout,
or heading to Breens after a game at Hart Center.
How do you like them apples?
What a shame.
Life’s short.
But it doesn’t seem so at age 19, 20, 21.
Of course, now, college hockey players are starting out at age 20 once they’ve served an apprenticeship that’s
likely cost their parents $100K in equipment, travel, and camp expenditures. $250K is you add in
2-3 years of private school tuition prior to their heading to a year or two of junior competition.
Yowza.
Much of the professionalism of current adolescent sports has sucked the joy out of what used to be
considered an ACTIVITY and not a profession.
Hell, Ken Dryden played high school basketball at Etobicoke Collegiate Institute while also tending goal
for the Etobicoke Indians in Metro Junior B as well as the Humber Valley Packers of the Metro Toronto Hockey
League prior to matriculating at Cornell. He didn’t even know that the Boston Bruins had drafted him in 1964
and then traded his rights to Le Club de Hockey Canadien.
In a similar vein Richie Hebner was a hockey star at Norwood prior to signing with the Pirates.
Likewise Tommy Glavine in Billerica who skated at least partway to Cooperstown.
Olympic champion and Ryan O’Neal “double” Billy Cleary was one hell of a baseball player at both Belmont Hill and Harvard and the list goes on and on.
As for collegiate sports……
Give me, Bowdoin vs Colby on a bone chilling Saturday night in Brunswick, Middlebury vs Amherst after a
pizza and beer at American Flatbread in Middlebury, especially now that train service has been restored.
And how I miss those trips to LL Bean at 2:00 AM after sneaking into a post-game frat party in Brunswick (no frats at Bates).
I recall having a nice talk with a salesmen who’d once sold a fly rod to Ted Williams.
Better yet, give me Lawrence Academy vs Cushing or Nobles on a Friday night in the colder than Anchorage
Grant Rink at the crest of a certain elm tree shaded hillside in Groton, Ma. It’s the rink that replaced the
OUTDOOR rink whose roof collapsed in 1971, hard by the skate house built by Bill Stewart for his son’s
team after he’d coached the 1938 Chicago Black Hawks (two words back then) to the first first Stanley Cup
ever won by an American head coach.
Nothing like seeing the ascending triple smoke stack of frozen vapors exhaled by a ref and two eager centers lined up
for a faceoff. Even the sound of a game is different in such conditions. Crisp, sharp, hard.
51-52 years ago these Friday night games drew as mixed a crowd as I can recall at any sporting event.
Would-be hippies in top hats, embroidered afghan wool coverlets, and peasant dresses mixing with crew cut guys
in letter jackets and tie-clad teachers, fresh from Dining Hall duty. All awash in an atmosphere that was equal parts
patchouli, Aqua Velva, and second-hand smoke inhaled in a meat locker.
The Lawrence of the seventies was always endearingly more Ken Kesey than John Knowles.
The motto inscribed over the door of the Lawrence gymnasium, where we all dressed after languishing in the fire-nozzle
force of blazingly hot showers was……
“To set the cause above renown, to love the game beyond the prize.”
Yeah.
Can I get an Amen?
(Illustrations, Lawrence Academy rink, c. 1971/. Hockey Lad, painting for 1928 ad for Cream of Wheat (Richard Johnson Collection)
