Waynes Word on Hoop ~ Early 2007

Waynesword on Hoop, Early 07

My Hoop column is back – (I don’t call it a blog, though some do)—but before I speak about the present tense I’m going to give you a throwback, and a Hoop-Related Lesson in: —Mortality and Human Frailty, 101.

It began with an obituary that hit my eye the other day in The Times Union, regarding one Thomas Nowhitney, of Ballston Spa. The name caught my attention, as did the age—51—exactly my age at the moment. I had played Hoop against Tommy Nowhitney in freshman and JV ball, 35-36 years ago. He was certainly not the first guy my age or younger to —drop dead? as my own father used to phrase it, but Nowhitney’s story was a particularly sad and tragic one, as he never made it any farther than JV ball, for reasons I’ll re-live here, as a cautionary tale.

I played Hoop at Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk Central High School from 1969-73, in the middle of a long reign under Coach Howie Tucker when RCS was among the powerhouses of the area, which is unfortunately a far cry from that school’s present hoop predicament. Howie Tucker had been the all-time leading scorer in Siena College history up to that time, bombing in huge numbers of two-handed set shots before WWII. This story is not about him, but it’s worth referencing him to set the scene, and date the era. Back then, R-C-S was in the Colonial Council, a —B? sized school, with many of the same schools that compete in the league even now, just a few differences. One of the differences was that Ballston Spa Central High was in the Colonial back then, before they exploded in size and joined the Suburban Council where they are now. The Nowhitney brothers were prominent athletes in that school system.

RCS was the southernmost school in the district, a fairly long bus ride to places like Mechanicville, Watervliet, Cohoes, Lansingburgh & Rotterdam (where Schalmont and the long-extinct Draper High were), though not as far as some teams in the Colonial Council now, like Broadalbin-Perth and Cobleskill-Richmondville. But by far the longest bus ride for us was up to Ballston Spa—we used to joke that it was —up near the Arctic Circle somewhere.? (Little did I realize I would spend most of my adult life living five-to-ten miles north of Ballston Spa, in the Saratoga/Greenfield area, but that was much later.)

Tommy Nowhitney and his brother (I think it was Albert) were notable back then as probably the biggest, most athletic white boys we had seen in our league. From memory, I’m guessing they were 6’2? or 6’3?—could rebound, run the floor and swat shots—but mostly they scored, and scored in bunches. They were more agile and better shooters than our big guys at the time, so my running mate at guard— Billy Van Alstyne—and I, knew we’d have to drop back and try to harass them with double-teams if we were to have a chance to win. As I remember, they beat us on our gym as freshmen, and we went up to their place and beat them. In our JV season I believe it was reversed— I had my best scoring game with 24 to beat them at our gym, and when we went up there, one of the Nowhitney boys had beaten us with a last second shot in a squeaker. I remember that we had great mutual respect, being two of the top teams in the league at the time, and when shaking hands in the line after the game we grinned and said something like “See ya up on varsity next year...” We thought we’d be battling them for two more years to come.

Late that following summer, in between afternoon and evening bouts of outdoor ball at the Ravena courts, I heard a news broadcast that blew my mind. Somewhere on the outskirts of Ballston Spa the night before there had been a high-speed car crash, with a car skidding sideways into a large tree, killing three of the four high school kids in the vehicle. If my memory is right, an older Nowhitney brother was driving, a friend of his was in the front seat, and the two younger Nowhitneys we played hoop against were in the back. Of the four teens in the car, only Tommy survived, and just barely—he had to have a leg amputated, and there would be no more serious hoop for him. The other brothers and the friend were buried two days later.

This sort of thing happens in every town—sadly, it’s not unique to that era or Ballston Spa in particular. In Ravena I can remember 3 or 4 similarly tragic and spectacular fatal crashes while I was growing up, but they didn’t involve promising athletes in the prime of their school careers. Was alcohol a factor? I can’t remember, or say. Was excess speed and raging male hormones a part of it? Again, one can only guess. As opponents of these guys, it seemed unbelievable that they wouldn’t be there in uniform next year—that one was in his grave and the other in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

I don’t remember anything about playing that team in our junior year, but I think we won against their depleted squad, and there was no joy in that. I do recall, however, in our senior year, playing against the remnants of that JV bunch from two years prior, that our team’s hearts just weren’t in it—we didn’t seem to be able to play with full intensity against a team that had had its two best players ripped away like that. It didn’t seem fair. The away game that year was the beginning of the end of my hoop career in high school—I remember I had 3 or 4 steals on our press, and missed the lay-up afterwards on each one. Howie Tucker benched me in disgust for not finishing any of those plays, the game went into overtime, and we lost, and I was in the locker room rushing to get dressed and out of there, feeling haunted by the Nowhitney’s absences. Even as a young jock, I was too cerebral and emotional for my own good. I never really played much the rest of the year, having fallen out of favor with the coach. That crash had affected me in a strange way, from a distance.

Those guys could’ve been the Josh McRoberts and Tyler Hansbrough of their day in the Capital District. Either one of them could have ended up on Bob McNamara’s TV Ten All-star Team of those years, alongside Chris Fagan of Catholic High or Ron Carrington and Nate Bland of Philip Schuyler, Shannon Noonan of Broadalbin, and Bobby Johnson from RCS. Their parents, in addition to experience the grief of losing two sons and seeing another irreparably injured, faced the gaping question of —what-could-have-been? for years afterward. And Tommy himself must have had to live with that same thought, and the memory of how his promise and potential was taken away, for the rest of his life. R.I.P. now, Tom. I saw your obituary, and I still remember your story.

Sorry to bring you down, young hoopers, if you are reading this. But it’s a cautionary tale for the ages—longevity, and reaching your potential, is NOT always guaranteed in this life. One foolish move or decision or happenstance can take away your life and your promise in a heartbeat. Keep it in mind, and play each game with intensity and hope and love of the competition, and be happy that no matter what the outcome, you can live to play another day. Your opponent is only your opponent for that moment of the game itself. To paraphrase a truly corny musical of the current day——we’re all in this together…” if not on the same team, at least in the same lifetime. Amen.

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Back To The Present Day…
Who Stands In Jimmer’s Way??

The Sectional Championships loom before us in February. It seems all too easy to predict a CBA/Bishop Maginn Final in Class AA Ball, and based on State Rankings, it seems equally obvious that Jimmer Fredette’s Glens Falls squad—in their third year of high expectations—will cruise to the Class A Regionals and perhaps then to the State Championship round on their hometown court at the Civic Center. That would be a fitting end to the superlative career of one of Section 2’s all-time leading scorers and performers, who is headed to BYU next fall for the start of his Division One experience.

But will he really get there? Let me tell you first that I am rooting for him to do so—I am and have been a huge fan of his since I saw him hit his first hoop in his first high school game as a frosh in late 2003—a sixty-foot laser from three-quarter court that hit nothing but net to beat the first quarter buzzer in a Tournament game at Saratoga. That shot announced his presence with a bang, and he has scored over 2000 more points since. He has stated emphatically that he seeks a run at a State Title to complete his storied upstate career.

His band of friends and teammates—most of whom have played together since grade school—were facing huge expectations in the Sectionals ever since their sophomore years, when they lost to a fired-up Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake team led by sweet shooting from Steve Madej (now playing at Union College) in the Class A Finals. Then last year’s decisive game proved to be another heart-breaker when they were upset by a well-tested Suburban Council team from Averill Park, who pulled out a great performance to beat the home-standing boys from Glens Falls, again denying them a ticket to the States—at their own Civic Center.
Can Glens Falls Finally Get To The State Dance?

This year’s biggest obstacle will not be either of the aforementioned teams, nor the upcoming powerhouse being formed at Albany Academy of the Colonial Council, nor the Scotia-Glenville team from their own Foothills league who gave them a scare on their home floor early in the season. This year’s nastiest competition is the only Class A team in the Big Ten—a rejuvenated bunch from a small-enrollment parochial school in Schenectady—Bishop Gibbons.

Gibbons was considered a perennial doormat in the Big 10 in recent years, but, as of the moment I write this, are in third place at 8-6 in the area’s toughest league, behind only undefeated juggernaut CBA and a powerful Bishop Maginn team. Under Coach Gary Horne the young Golden Knights have come to life toward the end of the league season, beating teams like Catholic High, Troy, and Schenectady recently after losing to each of them the first time around. They have beaten a decent LaSalle team twice, when I had figured they might be the third-best team in the league based on summer ball competition I saw at Shenendehowa in July of last year.

Going into the season, Bishop Gibbons was known to have a strong trio of guards—senior Brenton Horne, a savvy point; junior Avery Mitchell, a strong slashing junior; and Brian Hamor, perhaps the best shooting soph in the Big 10. What put them over the top was the transfer of 6’3? junior Zach O’Brien (from CBA), added to a couple of 6’6? big men: senior John Raleigh and junior Joe Gallagher. Size is what Gibbons has lacked in recent seasons, and now they seem to have it. Their top five scorers can all hit threes (including Gallagher), and their top four scorers average above double-figures. They play like a team and have a variety of athletes and scoring threats—this depth is what might give them the edge over Glens Falls in a single crucial game in the Class A semis or finals. Jimmer and fellow senior Denny Wilhelm are pretty much a lock to score against anyone, but the other four or five guys in their rotation are spotty in their production.

My son Miles thinks that Gibbons would have no one who could cover Jimmer one-on-one, which may be true—but I don’t see Glens Falls scoring 80+ points on a team used to Big 10 competition, which they are averaging for the season against Foothills teams and a few others. Jimmer might have to score 40 and Wilhelm 20 to help the GF Indians get past the BG Golden Knights, should they meet as I predict.

More to come on this subject once the Sectional pairings are laid out in mid-February.