Wagner College - Kallista Yearbook (New York, NY)

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Plilnned after the 68-69 season and maybe he de- cided on this after two weeks of practice. It's hard to say when he decided. But he picked five. And he was going with five. And the only way someone else is going to get on the starting team IS to show they can play better than somebody else. Not to talk about it. Or sit down with a 8.f0Up and say, I know I should be playing and SIUCC I'm not playing, I just don't care. Because if that's the attitude that one possesses, then he shouldn't be playing basketball. He shouldn't be in sports, period. But he should just come out to practice, be serious, and show the coach that he's willing or trying to take away somebody's spot. And then another thing is when you're in the game, you have to produce also. See, some of the ballplayers complained that when they're in the game they're very conscious that the coach is watching them. And they feel that if they make a mistake, he's going to take them out. And in the past year, I used to observe this also. And I felt that if you made a mistake, you were coming out. But as I played more with the team, and as I got older, sophomore to junior, not in age, I realized that it wasn't one mistake that took you out of the game, but a series or a combination of mistakes. And that you were really given a good shot when you were in there. And again, some ol' the fellas didn't realize that you might play one game and make errors, come back and play an- other game and make about five mistakes, and come back and play a third game and make another four. lNell, if you have one bad game, it's excusable. Two bad games, we have to start thinking about you. And the type of season we were having this year, we had too many bad games back to back. W'ell, we just had to find another combination. IfVhen I say we, I mean the coaching staff, not me and the coaches. I sat down and I spoke with the head coach. And I gave him whatever suggestions I had. I felt that in the beginning of the season, he was too lenient with some of the guys trying out for the team. They really didn 't earn the spot. But they were given the spot. The first two weeks was our conditioning period and some of the boys missed four or five practices. Out of ten sessions, that's half of the condition- ing period. And I didn't think it was beneficial for the team and for the individual, just to be given a spot. I spoke to the coach and told him that I think since this happened, that we houldn't kee this bo on the team We could S . let him practiiie, but right now he has to earn the spot. And not just give it to him because he's getting financial aid or because he's been on the team before. But the coach and I didn't agree. And what happened was that we went through the season and some of the ballplayers were out of shape. And basketball is a game

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I think that the 1969-70 basketball season was the worst in my varsity career. Not for me - fOr team effort, it was the worst. Comparing this year's team to the two previous ones, we met easier opponents. The schedule was less stren- uous. IVe didn't travel to Syracuse. We didn't go to Valparaiso. And we came out with the worst record - ll and 14. But if you take into con- sideration games that we were winning and then lost, we should have come out with an 18 and 7, 17 and 8 season. And you can attribute that to some of the ballplayers themselves and to the coaching staff. In a sense, it would have to be more on the ballplayers than on the coaches. The coaches are supposed to give you some type of in- centive. But as a varsity athlete, you're supposed to be at the stage where you know what you're playing for. It's a game. You're representing your school. And in a lot of cases, it's your financial means through college. The more you excel, the more money you get. And that in itself is an in- centive to help you get your education. I think one of the reasons why we weren't as good this year is because of too much - I don't know if it's friction - dissension between the players. And that they used the coach as a scapegoat, saying that instead of him rectifying anything that was wrong, he just let it go on and on. NVe used to have talks on the way to away games. Wie used to bring tape recorders and record what we had to say - conduct interviews - and we'd try to talk honestly with each other. Some fellas, instead of speaking what they felt, held back. And in doing this, you never accom- plish anything. At least we didn't. And this hap- pened at a time when we were losing three, four games in a row. We were trying to find out what was wrong. That was when we went to Elizabeth- town. 1'Ve had just lost to Upsala and Susquehan- na. And we were traveling down there. And after the talk we won the game. I don't think we won the game because we had the talk on the bus down. I think we just won it because some of us played better than we had been playing in the two previous games. Me, myself, I played better. Seaman played better. And some other guys chipped in. But going back to why the dissension existed, some boys weren't playing as much as they thought they should. Others weren't playing the positions that they wanted to play. And others felt that they should have been playing in front of someone else that was playing. No matter what you think your ability is, you have to show it or prove it to the coach and the coaching staff. And it's true that our coach will keep a scholar- ship person over a non-scholarship person in some cases. But he also has to make a decision that will help the team or enhance our season or whatever. And he decided that he would go with a certain five. Now maybe he had this frm

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where you have to be in physical shape 1002, all the time. Well, you could be 85, 75, but it hinders your playing. I had to do more this year than in previous years. More or less, I had to try and run the offense and help guys on defense. That's what we were playing. At practice, it was understood since I was one of the co-captains, that I would have to set some type of example. Come to practice on time. It was understood by me and the coaches and the team, all of us. It was expected of me to be to practice every day, and if I didn't show up, to call in and tell the coach why. Be there early, on time . . . the little things that are in our training rules that we're supposed to adhere to. And if I didn't do this, then I wouldn't be a good co-captain or someone for the team to fol- low. As far as the game, we had, actually, three men on the team at the beginning of the season who had put in any amount of time on the var- sity. Myself, Van Leeuwen and Gene. Of the three, I played the most. And when the season started, and Van was playing, we could share the responsibility of controlling the team. But after Van left, then it was more on me. I think that a lot of the fellas on the team, after they made the team, just went through the motions. See, Wagner has a pretty good reputa- tion in the Middle Atlantic Conference. We're the team to beat. In the MET, we're respectable, but we're not a threat to anyone. So we'd go with the attitude - or I should say most of the fellas went with the attitude - that we can beat the MAC teams. We'd just have to try and play against the MET teams. And what they failed to realize was that every MAC team that we played was trying to knock us off. They're trying to beat us. And if we go in with a haphazard attitude about the game, then we can't win. And that happened a number of times. Fellas felt that, W'ell, I know I'm better than the guy I'm play- ing against, so anytime I want, I can do what- ever I want. And they failed to realize that basketball, to some people, is a very emotional game. And they get themselves involved mentally as well as physically. And they just want to show their opponent that for once they can beat him. For once, they can humiliate us the way we've been humiliating them. And that's what a lot of teams did this year. Washington College, Wilkes - those are two. Susquehanna has always given us a good game, even when we had good teams. When we were 21 and 8, one of the eight losses was to Susquehanna. So, you can't take anything for granted. And that's what a lot' of our players did. The other factor was that since some of them weren't starting, when they got into the game, they again were just going through the motions. I'Ve didn't have anyone, except Ed Connors, on the bench, who, when he got in, gave 1002. And therein 1-ies' the story. That's part of the story. The other part is the coach would never sit down and tell the fellas where it was at. Instead, he tried that - I wouldn't say it was a positive approach, because it didn't work - he would tfY building up the players. In other years, no mat- ter who you were, if he didn't like something you did, he would throw you off the floor. Send you downstairs and tell you to shower. M21Ybef Come back tomorrow. Or, come and see him tomorrow. Then he'd sit down and talk with you. This year, he didn't discipline too many people. He didn't throw too many people' OUII of practice. I think that the coach really didn t expect us to do well this year. He maintained, Well, if we can go at 500, we'll go at 500. The personnel we lost had something to do with it. We lost Ollie. And we didn't have any- body over 6-5. And we had three sophomores on the team. And I guess the coach felt that sopho- mores are bound to make mistakes and we just have to go along with whatever they do. But I look at it this way. If you're a member of the team, no matter what you are, sophomore, junior or senior, you're still a varsity player. It's expect- ed of you to produce. It's possible the coach considered this a rebuilding year. But then again, you can't rebuild when you have the sea- son before you. You can rebuild in the summer. You can rebuild up to the first game. But after the first game, it's no longer a rebuilding season. It's a season and you're trying to get the most out of it. And it just wasn't looked at that way. Concerning fans, I always liked playing better at away games than at home games. Because I felt that our fans at home were spoiled. They were used to us winning. And they just didn't appreciate us as much as they did in the begin- ning of the season or the years of 67-68, when I was a sophomore. It was expected that since the basketball team had won 21 games, they would come back the following year and win 18 or 19 or 20. And then my senior year, we didn't have Ollie, we didn't have Wendel or Russ, but then again, we would have a good season. And I felt that we weren't appreciated to the extent of, say, a visiting crowd where we'd come in and we'd play good basketball, and they showed it. And this, in a sense, is a little odd, because they're the home crowd of the team we were playing. And up here, if you missed a shot, or if you blew a pass, or you did something wrong, the fans sighed in disgust, really. You know, it just wasn't expected that you could make a mis- take. And that's why I liked playing at away games. Because I felt that the people there ap- preciated what you did. 'Mistakes are part of the game, and they looked at it that way. The team needs itself. The itself in the team needs the crowd. We can go out and we can play and everybody gives 1002, We'll always need that little extra something if it's a tight game, And that's what the crowd supplies. They give you that little extra initiative or push to bring a game home. It's hard to say when the turning point of the season was. There was a turning point - where we went from bad to terrible. It started at the Upsala game, the fourth game of the season. I think this, again, displays the attitude, or lack