When you travel and watch sports as much as I do, you observe and recollect things more acutely. Such is my curse.
My wife and I went to Delaware on Wednesday. This coincides with the 50 year anniversary of my starting law school in the inaugural class of the Delaware Law School.
En route, we passed Exit 9 on the New Jersey Turnpike. That is the exit for Route 18, which passes by the Rutgers campus and crosses the Raritan River near SHI Stadium. A stadium which, in my youth was a quaint 23,000 seat structure in a kind of a horseshoe shape, with plenty of vines separating the home stand on the West side, the end zone stands and the visiting bleachers on the East side.
Except that Rutgers is no longer playing the likes of Columbia, Lafayette, Lehigh and Colgate. Instead, Rutgers awoke from the shadows of the Ivy League schools and began to play big time football. After all, RU is the birthplace of college football.
First, it was the occasional foray into the netherworld of Eastern and Southern football. William & Mary was replaced by Tennessee. Colgate was replaced by Syracuse. Pitt took the place of Lafayette.
Before long, RU was in an eastern conference which had Syracuse, Temple, Pitt, West Virginia, Boston College among others. The quaint stadium grew and became a big, double-decked facility.
It wasn’t just Army visiting. Texas and Notre Dame actually came to Piscataway. Road trips to Tennessee, Hawaii and Florida were on the schedule. Even Bear Bryant wanted to take on RU in an easy matchup in the fairly new 76,000 seat Giants Stadium in East Rutherford. (Alabama won, but not easily)
A Bucknell guy named Greg Schiano showed up and the Scarlet Knights were playing and winning bowl games. They almost made it to the Orange Bowl; the teams were that good.
Then Schiano took the money offered by Tampa Bay which RU couldn’t match, and began what was a very unsuccessful stint in the NFL. And RU football went on a downward slant.
But now, Rutgers is in one of the two most prestigious conferences for football and all sports, perhaps by the sheer luck of its proximity to New York City and a great academic pedigree. Schiano is back patrolling the sidelines.
There is an air of excitement for football, with RU getting more and more talented players and becoming less of a doormat in the Big Ten. For that matter, RU has experienced success with many sports, most notably in basketball, soccer, lacrosse, baseball and field hockey.
While competitive spending on athletics has been a beastly financial burden on Rutgers, it appears to be paying some dividends. Moreover, the obscene $8 billion TV contract the league secured comes at a perfect time for RU to take the next step and get the players to come where the facilities are first rate.
Of course, there is that little thing called Name-Image-Likeness, or NIL for short. Schiano, or for that matter Alabama’s Nick Saban have recognized that NIL can be kryptonite if your program seeks to be great year and year again.
RU has begun game planning for its opener in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts versus Boston College, now of the ACC, but a familiar opponent from the Big East Conference. While driving around Delaware, I was even offered tickets to the home opener against cupcake Wagner, which I declined because we had plans.
Maybe it will be a good season. I saw a prediction for a 4-8 record in 2022. I hope not. It is time to become even more competitive so that when USC and UCLA join the Big Ten in two years, RU is ready. How about surprising everybody with a 6-6 mark?
Dare I dream? I have been suffering with RU football since the early 1960’s, when car rides with my father on Saturdays were accompanied by WCTC-AM, 1450 on your dial. Or hearing the occasional cannon blast from Rutgers Stadium when the home team scored. I still love to watch the Scarlet Knight ride his horse inside the stadium.
If you knew any better, you would think I am a RU alum. Alas, I am not. Just a lifetime big fan fan. Who wants his team to stop the suffering he endures during football season.
Speaking of Delaware, our trip took us to Newark, DE (pronounced New-ARK), home of the University of Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens. Much has changed on campus, and the athletic complex is no stranger to that upheaval. The football stadium looks the same, but has lights. There is a new basketball arena, yet the field house is still where it was 50 years ago.
I never saw Delaware play football, either in Newark or in Piscataway. From 1955 through 1973, Rutgers and Delaware met 15 times. The Blue Hens won 9 of those meetings, some very convincingly (I actually thought they had won more, as Delaware was a mighty small college power and Rutgers was still seeking to be more than it was then).
Football wasn’t only in my thoughts when I drove by the school. I saw two basketball games at Delaware. The first was in 1972, when American University came to town. Kermit Washington, who was a star in college and went on to play for the Lakers in the NBA and infamously sucker punched Rudy Tomjanovich, was someone I was sort of friendly with when I worked out in the American U gym while attending the Washington Semester Program in the Fall of 1971.
I went to the game, a rout in favor of the Eagles, and I briefly saw Kermit come out of the Field House and greet his cheerleader girlfriend who remembered me. Kermit kind of recalled me from the gym, after a small promt by her.
My second time inside of the Field House was when RU visited. This was the 1974-75 team, one year away from the NCAA Final Four. RU won big, and somehow somebody knew somebody, and I was in the RU locker room. I saw Phil Sellers, RU’s great player, a very loud assistant coach named Dick Vitale, and head man Tom Young. Young had been coaching American in 1972.
Just a few asides before I stop blathering. Nick Saban garnered a contract extension at Alabama worth at least $93.6 million for the next eight years. Besides the outrageousness of the bounty, it would be noted that he is not the most well-known member of his high school football team. That would be Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), who is fairly rich himself and they are close friends. Two guys from Monongah, West Virginia who are always in the news.
And how about those Yankees? Who said they were dead? Not Manager Aaron Boone, who threw a fit and awoke the sleeping giant. With wins against Toronto and the Mets, three games with the final score 4-2 (I wonder if that ever happened before) and then a 13-4 pasting of the A’s in Oakland, it seems Aaron Judge (who slugged his 49th homer and drove in all 3 runs in Friday night’s 3-2 victory behind the stellar pitching of ace Gerrit Cole, raising number 99’s season total to 109) and his mates have a small bit of swagger back.
Still, there should be a fair amount of caution, I note that top pitcher Nestor Cortes, Jr. went on the IL, the Yankees still don’t have an identifiable closer, and with 36 games left, the Rays and Blue Jays are within striking distance. Don’t get too comfortable, Yankees fans.
Lastly, while lamenting that another year is passing and I still have five more home ballparks to reach, I recognized the following achievement. I have seen each of the 30 MLB teams on the road. Not very shabby.
That’s it. I’m done reminiscing and ruminating. For now.
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