The Agony of Victory & The Thrill of Defeat

An Epic Loss on the Basketball Court Re-Imaged

In high school, I was a good enough point guard to make the varsity basketball team in my Long Island hometown of Port Washington. Not too shabby, considering the coach was Miss Hulse, our eye-rolling gym teacher who “thought” I was a royal pain in the ass. Unfortunately for her, I was good enough to help distribute the ball to my teammates — some of them Division I recruits.

The center, Rhea Farberman, wound up going to American University on a scholarship. Debbie Beckford, a prolific shooting forward, went on to star at St. John’s. Throughout our high school seasons, her adoring father sat in the stands every game, home and away, imploring anyone running the offense to “Give The Ball to Debbie!”

He was right, of course, and his Caribbean-lilted accent gave the phrase a compelling sing-along incantation. Debbie could catch, elevate and release a 3-pointer with the efficiency of a sniper, or snap a head fake and drive straight to the basket for an easy layup. Despite a well documented aversion to doing what I was told to do, I did give the ball to Debbie.

This is how we won league games even as I punctuated each season with crippling ankle sprains, the last one coming my junior year as my father and grandparents sat in the stands. “Ohhh SHIT!!” I screamed when I landed on an ankle that bent all the wrong way like QB Joe Theismann’s grotesque knee injury.

My high school basketball career was over, but that was OK. I was not going Division I or Division III. In fact, where I was going had absolutely no athletics at all. Sarah Lawrence College. One of the liberalist of liberal arts schools. I wanted to be a writer, so it was ample pride that I wound up at a school where the most competitive sport was pickup volleyball.

This activity, social not sporting, took place in the ratty, dim gym next to the cafeteria, instigated not by the college or any intercollegiate league but by Bob, the head chef at Bates dining hall. Every day after lunch, Bob would take his place behind the service line and launch balloon serves over the drooping net to a rag-tag assembly of sculptors, painters, actors, musicians or number of uncoordinated SLC students who might show up for a goofy round serves, sets and spikes.

Well, no one at Sarah Lawrence could elevate enough to ever could spike the ball. And it wasn’t until my “junior year abroad” at the University of Iowa — home of the Iowa Writers Workshop — that I saw first-hand the absolute gargantuan prominence of collegiate sports.

The Iowa Hawkeyes were a Big 10 powerhouse during the early 1980s, landing a spot at the national championship at the Rose Bowl. For weeks leading up to the Big Game, Iowa City was buzzing with anticipation and a memorable chant: “Going to Pasadena. In a Winnebago.” There was a LOT of beer drinking, a lot of overnight drag racing, a lot of peeing by drunken football fans in doorways of downtown Iowa City eateries and shops.

I never got used to big-time college sports, especially football, even when I covered the University of Washington Huskies, or the University of Maryland Terrapins. It all led back to my time at Sarah Lawrence, where the greatest feat ever achieved was a women’s softball team spawned one spring for the main purpose of outfitting ourselves with green satin jackets.

Still, over the years, as a former jock and former sportswriter, I have kept an eye on sports news. Which led me to this week’s startling announcement in the Times Union, the Albany newspaper I once wrote a sports column for.

The headline was certainly well-crafted for today’s clickbait world. “UAlbany Women’s basketball wins by 91 points.”

Scrolling through the newsfeed on my phone, that result caught my attention. Who the hell did Albany beat by 91 points? What kind of game does an American East co-conference champ like Albany have on its schedule to produce such an epic massacre?

No. 1, our friend and former Siena coach Gina Castelli is a special assistant to Albany’s head coach. We actually traveled with friends to Burlington last March to watch Albany lose to Vermont in the conference final.

No. 2, 90-point final spreads in high school or collegiate basketball are the kind of drubbings that bring as much embarrassment to the winner as it does to the loser. A Texas high school coach was fired in 2009 after his team won 100-0 against a tiny private school that specialized in learning differences for its students.

Who the hell did Albany so mercilessly crush, I asked.

The victim, it turns out, was my alma mater!

Little ol’ Sarah Lawrence College, otherwise known as one of the Seven Sisters; once referred to as an “open-air sanatorium” for high-strung and ambitious collegiate creatives, had been the unwitting victim of an impromptu exhibition game against Albany.

“The University at Albany women's basketball team broke program records for points and margin of victory on Monday night in a 118-27 demolition of Division III Sarah Lawrence at The College of Saint Rose's Nolan Gymnasium.”

“Division I UAlbany broke its previous records of 110 points set in 1986 and 1996 and a 73-point margin of victory over Staten Island in 1995.’’

Even as a footnote to history, this one hurt. I mean, what the hell does a game even look like when one team scores 118 points and the other one, MY SCHOOL, manages 27?

“They weren’t very good,’’ Gina texted — softening the blow with a few smiley face emojis.

After the initial sting, and shock of recognition, I had another reaction.

Did it really hurt to see SLC get its ass crushed by a Division I state school that has put a ton of money and energy over the years?

Albany was once a Division III school, then Division II before graduating to Division I to expand its appeal to New York students and alums who want big-time sports to rally around. Sarah Lawrence was sort of on the same course, yet the idea that this 2,000-student liberal arts school that sent more kids to the theater and film and literary publishers would even decide to field a Division III women’s basketball team … they should have stayed out of it all!

This is the alma mater of illustrious alums like Barbara Walters, Ann Patchett, Carly Simon, Vera Wang, Meredith Monk, Yoko Ono, Rahm Emanuel, Kyra Sedgwick, Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Fisher, Jane Alexander, Holly Robinson Peete, Jordan Peele, Juliannia Margulies …

Not one small forward or shooting guard among them!

Not one of them lamenting the absence of Friday Night Lights.

For this crown, after-class fun was taking the train to New York City to dance at Studio 54, attend dance recitals at The Joyce, or poetry readings at the 92nd Street Y.

If ever a statue was to be erected on the Bronxville campus to a great SLC sportsman, it would Bob, the Bates dining hall chef. He would be captured with his one arm raised behind his head, the volleyball perched in his forward palm, ready to serve.

Sports was more fun when it was a side dish. And for that reason, I hope the SLC women’s basketball team is reveling in its achievement. Getting run out of a gym in Albany is the best revenge for being not a sports school.