Glory Days
09/03/23 07:41
March 9, 2023 (Vol. 17 No. 14) - With March Madness now fully underway, I can't help but think back to one of the most important days of my life some 55 years ago. On March 9, 1968, the Easton High School Warriors completed a perfect 23-0 season to win the Maryland State Class B Boy's Basketball Championship. (For you editors out there, I'm not certain the championship should be treated as a proper noun. But it sure feels that way to me!) I was the manager of that team, not to be confused with the coach. The coach was a young fella, a basketball player right out of West Virginia University named Gary Shaffer. He would go on to be inducted into the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame. I was the manager, a/k/a towel boy, ball boy, water bottle boy…you get the picture. However - and this is important to me - I was there for every practice, every game doing whatever the coach asked me. I worked harder during the game than some of the players who sat on the bench. (I am not knocking them: Even the bench warmers made the same time commitments I made. Those who serve include those who sit and wait.) While I didn't score a single point or gather a single rebound that season, I was still a part of what made that team tick. Sure, I took some ribbing from those who thought I was a glorified janitor in a suit on game nights. But, guess what? On championship night, it was my name the announcer at the University of Maryland's Cole Field House called out to collect the game ball. My name is on the championship trophy. And I was also inducted in the Easton High School Athletic Hall of Fame with the rest of my teammates in September 2019. However, as I noted in my remarks at the Hall of Fame ceremony, the most important thing that came out of my experience was riding Tuesday and Friday nights on the team bus with black players. The Talbot County, Maryland, school system had only recently been integrated. This team gave me my first real exposure to people of a different race and it changed my world view. I began to question a lot of things I had thought were true. More than a champion, I began to become a better human being that magical season. It is natural for a person of my age to reminisce about the past. But, like Bruce Springsteen, I don't believe living in it. Still, where I am going is influenced by where I have been. And that special night 55 years ago today was influential in how I became the man I am today. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.